Good in IE...bad in Firefox...lots of dev errors. Can anyone help?

I had this message previously in another group and I was told to try
here. Hopefully someone can help out. Site was created in Dreamwaver
MX 04 and I cna't figure out why there are so many errors or how to fix
them. Original thread can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozil...6dbd2754e85252


I've been working on our company's new website and a lot of
the pages look different in one aspect in firefox than they do in IE.
They display correctly in IE but not firefox. Here is the link:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

If you look at the page (and osme of the others like it) you'll notice
that in firefox, it extends the blue "background" part and rolls the
graphic over to a repeat but in IE it just stops the graphic where it
ends. How do I fix this? THanks

ridergroov schrieb:

I had this message previously in another group and I was told to try
here. Hopefully someone can help out. Site was created in Dreamwaver
MX 04 and I cna't figure out why there are so many errors or how to fix
them. Original thread can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozil...6dbd2754e85252

At the very beginning of this thread you were pointed to the W3C
validation service:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...x%2Fnew s.htm

This is a very useful service, it shows where your code has errors.
Don't expect anybody to try finding a solution in your code as long as
it is that buggy!

I've been working on our company's new website and a lot of
the pages look different in one aspect in firefox than they do in IE.
They display correctly in IE but not firefox. Here is the link:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

I see a broken image in IE, is this "correct"? :-)

You do a table layout and fill it with text gifs - there is not a single
line of text at all! So why do you put tables around the images anyway?
Make the whole page one gif, then you are sure it looks "correct" in
every browser.

The better way would be: Make a full stop, re-do the whole page with a
nice, simple HTML structure without tables, and CSS positioning layout.
It will make far less problems, and as a benefit it will be indexable by
search engines and accessible by non-visual browsers.

--
Markus

How can I structure the page without using tables? I mainly work in
Flash and this is one reason I hate dreamweaver. Too many rules and
I'm not aware of them. I made hte empty text boxes there to get the
alignment right for the menu on the left. Probably not the best idea
and I know that but it worked. How can I structure it in DW without
tables?

Markus Ernst wrote:

ridergroov schrieb:
I had this message previously in another group and I was told to try
here. Hopefully someone can help out. Site was created in Dreamwaver
MX 04 and I cna't figure out why there are so many errors or how to fix
them. Original thread can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozil...6dbd2754e85252

At the very beginning of this thread you were pointed to the W3C
validation service:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...x%2Fnew s.htm

This is a very useful service, it shows where your code has errors.
Don't expect anybody to try finding a solution in your code as long as
it is that buggy!


I've been working on our company's new website and a lot of
the pages look different in one aspect in firefox than they do in IE.
They display correctly in IE but not firefox. Here is the link:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

I see a broken image in IE, is this "correct"? :-)

You do a table layout and fill it with text gifs - there is not a single
line of text at all! So why do you put tables around the images anyway?
Make the whole page one gif, then you are sure it looks "correct" in
every browser.

The better way would be: Make a full stop, re-do the whole page with a
nice, simple HTML structure without tables, and CSS positioning layout.
It will make far less problems, and as a benefit it will be indexable by
search engines and accessible by non-visual browsers.

--
Markus

ridergroov schrieb:

How can I structure the page without using tables? I mainly work in
Flash and this is one reason I hate dreamweaver. Too many rules and
I'm not aware of them. I made hte empty text boxes there to get the
alignment right for the menu on the left. Probably not the best idea
and I know that but it worked. How can I structure it in DW without
tables?

You can structure the page in HTML like this:

<div id="head">
<h1>This is the headline</h2>
<img src="myimg.jpg" alt="this is an image">
</div>

<div id="content">
<h2>A subtitle</h2>
<p>And this is a text</p>
</div>

And suggest a page layout with CSS (which this group is about) like this:

<style type="text/css">
#head {
background:...;
margin:...;
}
#head h1 {
font:...;
}
#content {
background:...;
}

And so on. If you want to know how to do this in Dreamweaver you might
want to ask in macromedia.dreamweaver available on Macromedia's news
server forums.macromedia.com (or via the Macromedia website).

Anyway you have to know that there is a fundamental difference between
using Dreamweaver and using Flash or a layout software like InDesign:
Flash and InDesign generate files in their proprietary formats for you,
which can only be viewed with the software itself or with a proprietary
viewer. Or, in case of export, they generate fully standardized code
such as PostScript or PDF, which will be rendered identically on all
systems.

Authoring a web page is totally different. HTML code is nothing but a
way of structuring text, and there is CSS to suggest a layout. Browser
implementations of CSS rendering vary a lot, even where they are not
buggy. Fonts might be missing on the user's systems, image display
turned off, or CSS disabled. Some browsers, such as braille or text-only
browsers, will give a totally different interpretation of your code than
visual browsers.

Other than with PostScript or PDF, you need at least a basic
understanding of HTML and CSS if you want to create HTML code.

Dreamweaver provides a user interface to this, but as you see it won't
prevent you from creating buggy code. And DW's layout view is not the
"correct" rendering, but only DWs interpretation of the code, which can
be different from Firefox' or IEs.

ridergroov wrote:

I've been working on our company's new website and a lot of
the pages look different in one aspect in firefox than they do in IE.
They display correctly in IE but not firefox. Here is the link:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

Learn some HTML, learn some CSS, stop using Dreamweaver so blindly (or
just stop using Dreamweaver!) and start over again.

It's not a particularly complex page, but dragging-and-dropping without
thinking what code the editor is actually producing has given you a
nightmare. There's really no point in trying to hack about with it,
it's quicker to start again.

I agree with both of you. I have limited HTML left in my brain from
school. I do know there is a MAJOR difference between dreamweaver and
flash. I am not that dumb. I actually use to be able to write code
believe it or not. I'm not big into writing code of any kind which is
why I got into DW again and I know it has its faults. I just wish HTML
itself wasn't so damn picky about everything. It's like a whining kid.
Let me ask you this, if you guys were me, how would you structure this
page? Namely the menu on the left? The only way I could figure out to
do it was make a multi cell table on the left like I did then others
around it.....aside from just doing it in flash... What are your
recommendations? I appreciate the information you have given me but
telling me to learn this and learn that doesn't give me any info in
particular. Thanks.

Andy Dingley wrote:

ridergroov wrote:
I've been working on our company's new website and a lot of
the pages look different in one aspect in firefox than they do in IE.
They display correctly in IE but not firefox. Here is the link:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

Learn some HTML, learn some CSS, stop using Dreamweaver so blindly (or
just stop using Dreamweaver!) and start over again.

It's not a particularly complex page, but dragging-and-dropping without
thinking what code the editor is actually producing has given you a
nightmare. There's really no point in trying to hack about with it,
it's quicker to start again.

Use this link instead actually: Fixed it up a bit:

http://paymca.org/newy3/adultprograms.htm

Also, why does the top table shift when I put a centered graphic under
it? Really annoying....

On 18 Jul 2006 10:11:56 -0700, "ridergroov" <ridergroov1 (AT) comcast (DOT) net>
wrote:

I do know there is a MAJOR difference between dreamweaver and
flash. I am not that dumb.

The trouble is that there's also a major difference between Dreamweaver
and HTML, if "HTML" means "reasonably competent 2006 standard HTML".

I just wish HTML itself wasn't so damn picky about everything.

It's not, it's just made out to be so by people trying to tell you it's
hard, and to sell you expensive tools like Dreamweaver.

Let me ask you this, if you guys were me, how would you structure this
page?

Go to a good CSS example site (alistapart ? glish.com ?) and blag a
worked example of the HTML and CSS for what is a very simple and
standard sort of site layout

ridergroov wrote:

http://paymca.org/newy3dex/news.htm

If you look at the page (and osme of the others like it) you'll
notice that in firefox, it extends the blue "background" part and
rolls the graphic over to a repeat but in IE it just stops the
graphic where it ends. How do I fix this? THanks

I also noticed that the page has absolutely no text in it. Admittedly
there's very little to read there anyway; but why have you chosen to
make what little prose there is into a 800Kb image?


--
Jack.

ridergroov wrote:

What are your recommendations? I appreciate the information you have
given me but telling me to learn this and learn that doesn't give me
any info in particular. Thanks.

Are you saying you want to know how to get it done properly, but you
don't want to have to learn anything you don't already know? If so, I
guess my best recommendation has to be "hire a webdesigner".

--
Jack.