NavBar problems :-(

I've got a peculiar problem which hopefully someone else has run
across. As usual Netscape is causing problems (or is it Microsoft's not
sticking to the official standards again?) - I've managed to fix or
workaround all of these except this one, which is driving me batty.

I've got a whole website designed using frames, with one frame used as
a NavBar to load pages into a second frame. Everything works fine in
Mac Explorer 5.1, but Mac Netscape 4.7 doesn't quite work as expected.
(I haven't tried it in Widows browsers yet ... hopefully it works
there).

In Netscape, when I click on a NavBar button it changes to the 'Down'
version and switches the page in the second frame as it should. BUT
when I click on a different NavBar button the new one works, but the
first one stays 'Down' and sometimes loses it's button (becomes a
standard image).

Is this a known bug in Navigator? Is it fixable or workaround-able?

_
_/ \___
Anony-mouse says o_/O _/ \
"Eek-eek-eek!" \__/_|_/_|\____/

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 12:45:34 +1200, Anony-mouse
<anony-mouse (AT) hole (DOT) in.the.wall.com> wrote:

I've got a peculiar problem which hopefully someone else has run
across. As usual Netscape is causing problems (or is it Microsoft's not
sticking to the official standards again?) - I've managed to fix or
workaround all of these except this one, which is driving me batty.

I've got a whole website designed using frames, with one frame used as
a NavBar to load pages into a second frame. Everything works fine in
Mac Explorer 5.1, but Mac Netscape 4.7 doesn't quite work as expected.
(I haven't tried it in Widows browsers yet ... hopefully it works
there).

In Netscape, when I click on a NavBar button it changes to the 'Down'
version and switches the page in the second frame as it should. BUT
when I click on a different NavBar button the new one works, but the
first one stays 'Down' and sometimes loses it's button (becomes a
standard image).

Is this a known bug in Navigator? Is it fixable or workaround-able?

_
_/ \___
Anony-mouse says o_/O _/ \
"Eek-eek-eek!" \__/_|_/_|\____/

Several issues. There is a known problem with Netscape 4. This is not
a problem with more recent versions of Netscape. Not many users are
still using Netscape 4, though some are. You need to decide whether in
your opinion a significant percentage of your users are likely to use
Netscape 4. Netscape 4 does not adhere to standards, but Netscape 6 &
7 do. You should be testing with a more up to date version of
Netscape.

Microsoft IE doesn't quite adhere to standards. Mac IE 5.1 is a lot
better than Netscape 4, though. but another issue is that you are not
adhering to standards. You are always going to have these sort of
problems, if you insist on using frames. I keep advising people on
this ng not to use frames, and some are very abusive in their replies
to me, but I know what I'm talking about. If you ditch the frames, a
lot of your other problems will disappear.


Paul Taylor

In article <cbp7hvcbi86i8gdq0mhui21k1eo4g63cls (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Paul Taylor
<pftaylor (AT) technocurve (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Several issues. There is a known problem with Netscape 4. This is not
a problem with more recent versions of Netscape. Not many users are
still using Netscape 4, though some are. You need to decide whether in
your opinion a significant percentage of your users are likely to use
Netscape 4. Netscape 4 does not adhere to standards, but Netscape 6 &
7 do. You should be testing with a more up to date version of
Netscape.

Microsoft IE doesn't quite adhere to standards. Mac IE 5.1 is a lot
better than Netscape 4, though. but another issue is that you are not
adhering to standards. You are always going to have these sort of
problems, if you insist on using frames. I keep advising people on
this ng not to use frames, and some are very abusive in their replies
to me, but I know what I'm talking about. If you ditch the frames, a
lot of your other problems will disappear.

Paul Taylor

Thanks for the reply.

I'd prefer not to use the frames too, but that's what the big cheese
wants, so that's what I'm stuck with trying to do. :-\

The navigation bar was part of the main frame (and worked fine!), but
now they want it moved to it's own frame so that the lazy people don't
have to scroll back to the top to get to another page.

I'm not really sure what browser version it's best to stick to for us.
I'll show them what I've got working and show/tell them about the "bug"
in older versions and see what they want to do next.

Thanks again.

_
_/ \___
Anony-mouse says o_/O _/ \
"Eek-eek-eek!" \__/_|_/_|\____/

I'd prefer not to use the frames too, but that's what the big cheese
wants, so that's what I'm stuck with trying to do. :-\

That's completely different, then. You know what you're doing.
Whatever our ideals, and aadvice offered to clients, if they're paying
then you have to give them what they ask for.

Mind you, sometimes clients ask for impossible things. I had a
prospective client who insisted that the pages looked EXACTLY as they
would print. Now, I can produce pages with nice CSS stylesheets that
are as close as reasonably possible, but he wanted page breaks
correct, and absolute perfection. I told him it wasn't possible. His
response was that he could find a web designer who could do it.

So I lost that one. But I got my own back. Once I was out of the
building, and sure he couldn't see me, I stuck my tongue out at his
office.


Paul Taylor

In article <aduahvko0qickt1247gon04gvqb0ch3a1p (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Paul Taylor
<pftaylor (AT) technocurve (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

I'd prefer not to use the frames too, but that's what the big cheese
wants, so that's what I'm stuck with trying to do. :-\

That's completely different, then. You know what you're doing.
Whatever our ideals, and aadvice offered to clients, if they're paying
then you have to give them what they ask for.

Well, that was a waste of two days. They decided to leave it as it was
originally with the NavBar in the same frame as the main page (so it
scrolls off the top as a user reads down the page). :-\

It looks OK-ish to me. Since most websites don't use frames, their
navbars always scroll off anyway (unless they're short pages).

I've also tried numerous times to tell these people that the Internet
is an "information system", NOT an advertising space, so not to expect
huge numbers of new customers, but they still go around in this
daydream (or wishful thinking) that their customerbase is going to
grow. :-\

Oh well, I'm done with it now until they come up with more "bright
ideas".

Mind you, sometimes clients ask for impossible things. I had a
prospective client who insisted that the pages looked EXACTLY as they
would print. Now, I can produce pages with nice CSS stylesheets that
are as close as reasonably possible, but he wanted page breaks
correct, and absolute perfection. I told him it wasn't possible. His
response was that he could find a web designer who could do it.

Easy - one HTML page that loads up an entire PDF "website". ;-)

So I lost that one. But I got my own back. Once I was out of the
building, and sure he couldn't see me, I stuck my tongue out at his
office.

If that was a little while ago, then it'd could be very interesting to
see:

A. What they end up with (if anything).

B. What they paid for it compared to your pricing.

:-)
_
_/ \___
Anony-mouse says o_/O _/ \
"Eek-eek-eek!" \__/_|_/_|\____/