HTML Problems

[Kris]

Hi,

I prefer to make my web pages by hand. Recently I made my first page with
frames and css. It also uses forms and lists in multiple places. I'm
having some problems that I don't know how to solve and was wondering if you
might know how to fix these issues off the top of your head. The problems
are:

IE 6 doesn't display nested lists properly. I was using a nested list
format to create a definition list where each header had a bullet next to it
(it was an unordered list with individual, single-item definition lists for
each list item). The page shows up fine with browsers on my mac, but not on
IE 6 for the pc.

I can't get my favicon to load. I only have a user account on the server,
so my site is not at the top domain. Also, there is a restriction that the
server will not serve images without a web-page calling for them (to keep
people from just hosting images there I guess). I stuck my favicon on a
different server and simply gave that as the "shortcut icon" relative link
in my link tag, but it still doesn't seem to be working.

I have a table that contains multiple rows with a title, price, checkbox,
and form submit button in each row. In IE 6 the form submit buttons display
slightly above the row of text/checkbox. They look fine in my mac browsers.
How can I fix this?

For my forms I am using the submit input tag to make buttons. I did this
because I like to see mac style buttons on my mac, and I imagine winXP users
like to see winXP style buttons on their computers. This is also faster
than using an image for the buttons. The problem I see is that these
buttons really look shitty under winNT. Are there enough people out there
with crappy OSs/browsers that I should use image buttons, or are rendered
buttons a better idea?

For my navigation bar on the left hand side of the page I am using a frame.
This makes it so that people can't bookmark any of the sub-pages on my site
though. Is it possible to create a navigation bar using css or html tables
that will scroll independently of the page content?

Many thanks in advance!

Kris

PS: if you'd like to see the page I'm working on it's
http://www.info-armory.n3.net
If you see any problems I didn't ask about don't hesitate to let me know.

 

[Nico Schuyt]

http://www.info-armory.n3.net

Look at http://www32.brinkster.com/infoarmory/main.html to see what happens
when people find a link to your site in a search engine.
Only one of the disadvantges of frames. Read:
http://html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil
Coding is bad. Validate the pages in http://validator.w3.org/
Good luck!
Nico

 

[Mark Parnell]

Sometime around Mon, 29 Sep 2003 18:40:57 -0700, Kris is reported to have
stated:

Hi,

I prefer to make my web pages by hand.

Good stuff.

Recently I made my first page with
frames

Bad, bad, naughty boy.

and css. It also uses forms and lists in multiple places. I'm
having some problems that I don't know how to solve and was wondering if you
might know how to fix these issues off the top of your head. The problems
are:

IE 6 doesn't display nested lists properly. I was using a nested list
format to create a definition list where each header had a bullet next to it
(it was an unordered list with individual, single-item definition lists for
each list item). The page shows up fine with browsers on my mac, but not on
IE 6 for the pc.

Which page?

I can't get my favicon to load. I only have a user account on the server,
so my site is not at the top domain. Also, there is a restriction that the
server will not serve images without a web-page calling for them (to keep
people from just hosting images there I guess). I stuck my favicon on a
different server and simply gave that as the "shortcut icon" relative link
in my link tag, but it still doesn't seem to be working.

IE only displays the icon once the site has been added to the favourites.
Better browsers use it regardless.

I have a table that contains multiple rows with a title, price, checkbox,
and form submit button in each row. In IE 6 the form submit buttons display
slightly above the row of text/checkbox. They look fine in my mac browsers.
How can I fix this?

Play with the CSS vertical-align property.

For my forms I am using the submit input tag to make buttons. I did this
because I like to see mac style buttons on my mac, and I imagine winXP users
like to see winXP style buttons on their computers. This is also faster
than using an image for the buttons. The problem I see is that these
buttons really look shitty under winNT. Are there enough people out there
with crappy OSs/browsers that I should use image buttons, or are rendered
buttons a better idea?

They look like normal buttons. People are used to seeing normal buttons.
Don't go changing it on them (e.g. using images).

For my navigation bar on the left hand side of the page I am using a frame.

Please please please don't.

This makes it so that people can't bookmark any of the sub-pages on my site
though.

One of the many problems with frames.

Is it possible to create a navigation bar using css or html tables
that will scroll independently of the page content?

position: fixed in your CSS (of course IE doesn't support it - there are
Javascript workarounds though).

Many thanks in advance!

No worries.

PS: if you'd like to see the page I'm working on it's
http://www.info-armory.n3.net
If you see any problems I didn't ask about don't hesitate to let me know.

Deprecated markup, e.g. <center>. You should put a valid doctype in your
page, and validate it using e.g. http://validator.w3.org. You need to
configure the server to send the correct character encoding as well.

The blue text on yellow is hard to read. Even harder when it goes green.

 

[rf]

Hi,

I prefer to make my web pages by hand. Recently I made my first page with
frames

Frames are obsolete and cause far more problems then the "solve". Google
this newsgroup or any other for "frames are evil"

and css.

The only CSS I can see is to insert the background. Wait, there is a bit

It also uses forms and lists in multiple places. I'm
having some problems that I don't know how to solve and was wondering if you
might know how to fix these issues off the top of your head. The problems
are:

IE 6 doesn't display nested lists properly. I was using a nested list

You was using? Are you still using it? If not then how can we see it now to
comment. You probably had nesting errors. Oh, hang on, there it is. Hmmm.
The <dl> is causing a new line within the <li> element, as it should.

I would ditch the <dl>s and simulate the effect.

<li><a ...>High Yield, Low Risk</a>
<p>Tax lien investing can be ...</p></li>

and then in your CSS:

li p {margin: 0; margin-left: 2em;}

Alternativly you could stop the <dl> and <dt> from being block elements:
dl, dt {display: inline} but then you might have to add a bit of margin to
the <li>
li {margin-top: 1em;}

Your choice but there are many ways of doing this

format to create a definition list where each header had a bullet next to it
(it was an unordered list with individual, single-item definition lists for
each list item). The page shows up fine with browsers on my mac, but not on
IE 6 for the pc.

I can't get my favicon to load. I only have a user account on the server,
so my site is not at the top domain. Also, there is a restriction that the
server will not serve images without a web-page calling for them (to keep
people from just hosting images there I guess). I stuck my favicon on a
different server and simply gave that as the "shortcut icon" relative link
in my link tag, but it still doesn't seem to be working.

Dunno. Perhaps it's all that redirection in there. For example, your form
page actually lives at http://ahnews.music.salford.ac.uk/channelm/ whereas
your frame page appears to live at http://www.info-armory.n3.net/.

I have a table that contains multiple rows with a title, price, checkbox,
and form submit button in each row. In IE 6 the form submit buttons display
slightly above the row of text/checkbox. They look fine in my mac browsers.
How can I fix this?

You have severe nesting errors here. You can either have a table inside a
form or a form inside a <td>. You can not have a <form> in one <td> and a

For my forms I am using the submit input tag to make buttons. I did this
because I like to see mac style buttons on my mac, and I imagine winXP users
like to see winXP style buttons on their computers. This is also faster
than using an image for the buttons. The problem I see is that these
buttons really look shitty under winNT. Are there enough people out there
with crappy OSs/browsers that I should use image buttons, or are rendered
buttons a better idea?

IMHO the buttons the browser supplies are good enough. I recognise them
instantly as buttons

For my navigation bar on the left hand side of the page I am using a

frame.

Bad move.

This makes it so that people can't bookmark any of the sub-pages on my

site

Yep. It also introduces unneccessary scroll bars. In addition, when I make
my font larger the links at the left slide underneath the scroll bar.

though. Is it possible to create a navigation bar using css or html tables
that will scroll independently of the page content?

It is. There was a thread about this here just the other day, "CSS
columns" - look out for brucies solutions.

However, why *must* the nav bar scroll indepently to the content?

Many thanks in advance!

Kris

PS: if you'd like to see the page I'm working on it's
http://www.info-armory.n3.net
If you see any problems I didn't ask about don't hesitate to let me know.

Add doctypes to each page, preferably the strict doctype (which will stop
you from using those frames ). Then take them over to the validator,
http://validator.w3.org and correct all the errors.

If you are going to use CSS use it for everything. Remove the deprecated
<center> and <b> stuff.

<b><span style="font-size: 300%; font-family: times;">The
Info-Armory</span><br>

Surely this should be a <h1> and what is the <br> for. If you had used a
<h1> there *would* be margin below this.

Also, your CSS should be moved into an external style sheet. That way you
can change it in one place and affect the entire site. The way you have it
if you, for example, wish to change the font-family you have to search
through each page to find where it is used.

font-size: 80%

Don't specify a font size smaller then your viewers default. You will only
annoy them when they have to use their font size adjustment to bring the
text back to the size they are comfortable with.

<a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=The Info-Armory">e-mail</a>

Mailto is broken. It gets even more broken when you attempt to add a subject
line. Use a server side process.

Don't use "you can click <a ...>here</a>to place an order.
Use "you can <a ...>place an order.</a>

Why does your add to cart link pop up a new window. Also, when I had select
a bunch of things and went to check out I was presented with

<quote>
The recipient of this shopping cart link is not an approved shopping cart
user. Please review your selection and try again.
</quote>

It would have been nice to tell me this up front

The shopping cart page contains both secure and non-secure items. Not a nice
dialog to be presented with on a "secure" connection.

I find the background obscures the text.

I don't like lime green text on canary yellow

Your name, info-armory, breaks the telephone rule. When you ring up your
girlfriend and tell her to go to this site how do you say it's name? info
dash armoury, info minus armour and what does she type in, info_armoury?

Finally, the most important part of your site, the opening content, is quite
hard to read. Probably because it is just one big long sentence and is in
italics. It just does not jump out and grab my interest.

Phew... It's a slow day

Cheers
Richard.

 

[brucie]

Hi,
g'day

[... snip ...]

what everyone else said but with much more swearing, name calling and
at least one form of derogatory reference to your immediate family.

 

[Kris]

Thanks for all the feedback. It looks like I have a lot of work to do.
Perhaps toning down that shade of yellow is a good idea also. Any tips on
how to pick good color schemes? It seems that most people hate the ones I
like, and vice versa.

Regarding the cart problems, I'm using paypal for payments (they load my
logo from a different server which is why you get the non-secure items
message, not sure what to do abt that except remove the logo), so there's
not much I can do other than modifying the form links they give me to use,
unless someone has another idea. Perhaps another company that does online
payments and will host my image.

Kris

 

[Kris]

Hey Richard,

One of your comments was that the mailto feature is no longer supported.
This site will be hosted on a free server that won't permit me to run cgi's.
I don't know how to do a contact form other than with CGI's or the even more
broken < form action="mailto...".

I guess my question is, how broken is mailto? Will it almost always work?
Almost never work? It seems to work on all the browsers I've tested
(safari, IE 5 mac, IE 6 pc, and Netscape 4.8). Is it enough that I use
mailto links that include the actual address as text that the user can copy
and paste into their webmail or whatever email they use?

Thanks,

Kris

 

[Adrienne]

Hey Richard,

One of your comments was that the mailto feature is no longer
supported. This site will be hosted on a free server that won't permit
me to run cgi's. I don't know how to do a contact form other than with
CGI's or the even more broken < form action="mailto...".

I guess my question is, how broken is mailto? Will it almost always
work? Almost never work? It seems to work on all the browsers I've
tested (safari, IE 5 mac, IE 6 pc, and Netscape 4.8). Is it enough
that I use mailto links that include the actual address as text that
the user can copy and paste into their webmail or whatever email they
use?

Thanks,

Kris

Kris, the issue isn't so much the mailto is broken, it's how mailto works
for different users. For example, someone at a library or Internet cafe is
not going to access to a mail client, so mailto will be broken for them.
Ditto people who use web based email.

If you can't run your own script, then your best bet is something remotely
hosted, http://www.response-o-matic.com has been recommended here before.

I corrected your post - please do not top post in the future.