IE Text Problem

[Cool Guy]

I'm converting my table-layout style HTML site to a mainly CSS one and have
run into a little problem with IE.

Here is a demonstration screenshot of the problem:

http://tomjb.com/misc/problem.png

Basically, when the text in my 'div' wraps around, it goes too far left in
IE. This doesn't happen in Firefox.

Here is a link to the HTML file that exhibits the problem:

http://tomjb.com/misc/index.htm

Here is a link to the stylesheet used by that page:

http://tomjb.com/misc/style.css

Any ideas on how to fix this will be appreciated.

[steven]

"Cool Guy" <co*****@abc.xy z> wrote in message
news:16******** *******@cool.gu y.abc.xyz...

I'm converting my table-layout style HTML site to a mainly CSS one and have run into a little problem with IE.

Here is a demonstration screenshot of the problem:

http://tomjb.com/misc/problem.png

Basically, when the text in my 'div' wraps around, it goes too far left in
IE. This doesn't happen in Firefox.

I'm writing for Firefox, and most of the time the pages look slightly
different (worse) under IE. I've given up spending time on a few pixels. If
the user takes exception to this, I suggest s/he'd switch to FF.
But then I'm not a commercial designer :-)
Steven

[Cool Guy]

steven <st***********@ pandora.be> wrote:

I'm writing for Firefox, and most of the time the pages look slightly
different (worse) under IE. I've given up spending time on a few pixels. If
the user takes exception to this, I suggest s/he'd switch to FF.
But then I'm not a commercial designer :-)

I wouldn't mind so much but I'm converting my table-based layout to HTML +
CSS. The table-based version works fine under both browsers but this HTML
+ CSS has the aforementioned problem. =/

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Cool Guy wrote:

I wouldn't mind so much but I'm converting my table-based layout to
HTML + CSS.
There's been discussions about that before. It makes good sense to
re-engineer web pages *from the ground up*, if it's economically
justifiable; but a mere "conversion " is apt to leave you with the
worst faults of both schemes...
The table-based version works fine under both browsers
Oh dear, is that the bogosity detector going off yet again?

We've had the "both browsers" litany for almost as long as I can
remember. Just that the "two" browsers have changed, now and again,
since one of them was NCSA Mosaic.

Does it work properly with search engines? With IBM HPR (which your
server logs undoubtedly mis-identify as MSIE)? And so on...
but this HTML + CSS has the aforementioned problem. =/

I'd start by specifying explicit margin and padding, to eliminate
differences in the browsers' defaults. But more important in general
terms, there's nothing at all in your sample content that is
pixel-sized, so why on Earth are you trying to use CSS to size it in
pixels? That way lies fragile formatting, that breaks into shards as
soon as the display situation doesn't suit it.

Text is naturally sized in em units. Percentages can also be nice.
So be natural.

Oh, and make up your mind whether you're using HTML/4.01 or
XHTML/1.0-Appendix-C, and stick to it.

[Cool Guy]

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

I wouldn't mind so much but I'm converting my table-based layout to
HTML + CSS.
There's been discussions about that before. It makes good sense to
re-engineer web pages *from the ground up*, if it's economically
justifiable; but a mere "conversion " is apt to leave you with the
worst faults of both schemes...

Hmm...

Someone, on another newsgroup, advised me to read
<http://www.allmyfaqs.c om/faq.pl?Tableles s_layouts> when I asked for
feedback on my site. So I got reading, and learned that CSS is a better
idea for declaring styles and that tables weren't meant to be used to
layout content.

So I decided to try a tableless layout - and IE falls over on my first
attempt. =/

The table-based version works fine under both browsers

Oh dear, is that the bogosity detector going off yet again?

Both IE and Firefox, that is -- the only browsers I have at hand to test
with.
[...]

but this HTML + CSS has the aforementioned problem. =/
I'd start by specifying explicit margin and padding, to eliminate
differences in the browsers' defaults. But more important in general
terms, there's nothing at all in your sample content that is
pixel-sized, so why on Earth are you trying to use CSS to size it in
pixels?

Because in the actual site (not just the test page), the middle div (which
has a background colour) is a specific size - and I know no better. =/
That way lies fragile formatting, that breaks into shards as
soon as the display situation doesn't suit it.

Text is naturally sized in em units. Percentages can also be nice.
So be natural.
Are you advising me to change the div sizes to em units (just so I can be
sure)?
Oh, and make up your mind whether you're using HTML/4.01 or
XHTML/1.0-Appendix-C, and stick to it.

Not sure what you mean here. I'd guess that it's something to do with the
fact that I'm using <element without closing tag /> style while specifying
HTML/4.01 as document type.

Thanks

[Cool Guy]

Cool Guy <co*****@abc.xy z> wrote:

I'm converting my table-layout style HTML site to a mainly CSS one and have
run into a little problem with IE.

Here is a demonstration screenshot of the problem:

http://tomjb.com/misc/problem.png

Problem solved! I just needed to specify the widths for the left and right
divs, which I had previously omitted.

Thanks for replies.

[David Dorward]

Cool Guy wrote:

Oh, and make up your mind whether you're using HTML/4.01 or
XHTML/1.0-Appendix-C, and stick to it.

Not sure what you mean here. I'd guess that it's something to do with the
fact that I'm using <element without closing tag /> style while specifying
HTML/4.01 as document type.

Yes, <foo /> has entirely different meanings in HTML and XHTML (although
*most* browsers get the HTML meaning wrong and ignore the "/").

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me .uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 02:38:13 +0000, Cool Guy <co*****@abc.xy z> wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

[...]

Text is naturally sized in em units. Percentages can also be nice.
So be natural.

Are you advising me to change the div sizes to em units (just so I can be
sure)?

You are advised to recognize the following basic typographical fact of
visual presentation in www user agents.

"The total available size for presentation is always 100% wide
and sufficiently high to give room for your content."

Use CSS to suggest presentations that scales within those "limits" and
you are up for a good start.

I.e. use relative units of measurements only and make sure that all your
widths sum up to a total of max 100% if you want to avoid side scrolling
in major parts of viewing situations.

This last part requires some extra markup if you want to use CSS borders
on the left and right side of an element but it can be done of course.

--
Rex

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Cool Guy wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

Text is naturally sized in em units. Percentages can also be nice.
So be natural.

Are you advising me to change the div sizes to em units (just so I
can be sure)?

That depends a bit on the context, which - excuse me - wasn't very
clear from your limited sample. On the whole, I think I'd tend to
recommend major divs being sized in percent, if they need to be sized
at all; although a max-width in em units can be handy if there's a lot
of text, at least for those browsers which implement that. In that
way you get flexible results for modest-sized browsing windows,
without getting over-long lines of text on very wide windows.

Sizing margins / borders / padding in units such as px, mm, pt, isn't
particularly harmful if you like that sort of thing, but I wouldn't
recommend trying to size major containers like that - as I say, it
tends to produce rigid, fragile designs which break apart as soon as
the browsing situation moves too far away from what the author
had in mind.

hth