An IE 6.0 link twitching problem

[SeaPlusPlus]

I've got a problem... IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link then it
won't twitch again for that group of links but will twitch the first
time on the next group... and the next group... etc...

Check out the web page in question...

http://clientserver.home.comcast.net/research.html

Firefox handles this code fine as does Opera, Mozilla, and Netscape 7.

Rich

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 04:22:07 +0000, SeaPlusPlus
<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got a problem...
No, Microsoft has a problem with their OP-system component.
IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link...

Yes; learn to live with it and move on to solve some other more
important problem.

--
Rex

[SeaPlusPlus]

> <Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got a problem...
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote:

No, Microsoft has a problem with their OP-system component.
What's the "OP-system component"? I'm not sure if you mean Operating
System component. But, I'd be willing to bet it is NOT that.
IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link...

Yes; learn to live with it and move on to solve some other more
important problem.

Did you even bother to look at the web page?

This was not a problem for months then all of a sudden something in my
css modifications instigated this anomaly. It appears to be reassessing
what the height of the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc...

Of course, Rex, if you think it's not a problem worth your valuable
time; don't 'trouble' yourself with my trivialities ! ! ! !

Thanks,

Rich

[Neal]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:58:43 +0000, SeaPlusPlus <Se*********@hotmail.com>
wrote:

<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got a problem...
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote:

No, Microsoft has a problem with their OP-system component.

What's the "OP-system component"? I'm not sure if you mean Operating
System component. But, I'd be willing to bet it is NOT that.

Microsoft testified in court that IE is an operating system component, not
a browser.

IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link...

It's clearly a rendering issue with IE, there might not be a good fix.
It's the ul and the hx directly above it that move - if there's an h2 an
h3 and a ul the hover mover h3 and ul, but not the h2.

See if you can make a minimal test case with just the essential items
which create the problem. In other words, make a copy, get rid of
everything except one section of links with the header, and put just the
CSS rules for that in the style element. Then start taking things away one
by one until it doesn't do it anymore.

Just thoughts, not knowing if they will help -- wrap the heading and list
together in a div. I don't know if it'll do a damn thing. Another thought
is that it has to do with the % margins on the elements. Try changing
these. Although I'll be honest, I'm not certain if these will solve the
problem.

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:58:43 +0000, SeaPlusPlus
<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got a problem...

Jan Roland Eriksson wrote:

No, Microsoft has a problem with their OP-system component.

What's the "OP-system component"? I'm not sure if you mean Operating
System component. But, I'd be willing to bet it is NOT that.
According to MS; IE6 is an operating system component, not a web browser
(there are several testemonies from MS in US courts to this effect :-).
IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link...

Yes; learn to live with it and move on to solve some other more
important problem.

Did you even bother to look at the web page?
Yes I did, and I recognized the same effect on your page as you can find
in litterally thousands of other web pages.

The root of the "problem" lies in how you set up :hover on selected
elements. The internals in IE that produces this effect is a result of
IE's behaviour to redraw basically the whole page when a single spot is
hovered.

Given this "redraw the whole page" function on hover it is in fact
possible to make IE start oscillating in some situations.

Say you have a stylechange on hover that sets a text link from plain to
to bold text and that link in some browsing situation happens to end up
last in a line of text.

Now when you hover it, the text becomes bold, IE redraws the page and
finds that the link word does no longer fit on the line and moves it to
the beginning of the following line.

All of a sudden that link word is no longer hovered, your mouse pointer
is till at the end of the previous line, right?

So IE redraws the page once again, and now the link word moves back to
the end of the previous line, where it is immediately hovered again,
since the mouse pointer is still there...

You get the picture?
This was not a problem for months then all of a sudden something in my
css modifications instigated this anomaly. It appears to be reassessing
what the height of the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc...
I have never bothered to analyze IE behaviors, and in fact I can't
remember that any of my stylesheets has given me this problem either.
Of course, Rex, if you think it's not a problem worth your valuable
time; don't 'trouble' yourself with my trivialities ! ! ! !

Your reaction is all too common on usenet; you need a thicker skin and
an understanding of the difference between a forum for discussion and a
"help desk".

IE redraws pages on hover, there is nothing you can do to prevent that
so I was merely suggesting that there may be more interesting areas to
study.

--
Rex

[SeaPlusPlus]

Neal wrote:

It's clearly a rendering issue with IE, there might not be a good fix.
It's the ul and the hx directly above it that move - if there's an h2 an
h3 and a ul the hover mover h3 and ul, but not the h2. See if you can make a minimal test case with just the essential items
which create the problem. In other words, make a copy, get rid of
everything except one section of links with the header, and put just the
CSS rules for that in the style element. Then start taking things away
one by one until it doesn't do it anymore.

Divide and conquer... yep did what you said and found it...

I've solved the problem by changing the margin-top of the <hx's... from
2% to 0.

I can see where the value 2%--depending on 'what's it 2% of?'-- can be a
very small value and depending on subsequent calculations may be rounded
to zero, hence the new display.

Thanks...

Rich

[SeaPlusPlus]

> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:58:43 +0000, SeaPlusPlus

<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

<Se*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got a problem...

Jan Roland Eriksson wrote: No, Microsoft has a problem with their OP-system component. What's the "OP-system component"? I'm not sure if you mean Operating
System component. But, I'd be willing to bet it is NOT that.
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote:

According to MS; IE6 is an operating system component, not a web browser
(there are several testemonies from MS in US courts to this effect :-).
Again... I'd STILL be willing to bet it is NOT that. (IE is NOT an
operating system component that is...)
IE 6.0 twitches when I hover over a link... Yes; learn to live with it and move on to solve some other more
important problem.

Did you even bother to look at the web page? Yes I did, and I recognized the same effect on your page as you can find
in litterally thousands of other web pages.

The root of the "problem" lies in how you set up :hover on selected
elements. The internals in IE that produces this effect is a result of
IE's behaviour to redraw basically the whole page when a single spot is
hovered.

Given this "redraw the whole page" function on hover it is in fact
possible to make IE start oscillating in some situations.

Say you have a stylechange on hover that sets a text link from plain to
to bold text and that link in some browsing situation happens to end up
last in a line of text.

Now when you hover it, the text becomes bold, IE redraws the page and
finds that the link word does no longer fit on the line and moves it to
the beginning of the following line.

All of a sudden that link word is no longer hovered, your mouse pointer
is till at the end of the previous line, right?

So IE redraws the page once again, and now the link word moves back to
the end of the previous line, where it is immediately hovered again,
since the mouse pointer is still there...

You get the picture? This was not a problem for months then all of a sudden something in my
css modifications instigated this anomaly. It appears to be reassessing
what the height of the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc... I have never bothered to analyze IE behaviors, and in fact I can't
remember that any of my stylesheets has given me this problem either.
Well.. this post of your's seems well thought out.
Of course, Rex, if you think it's not a problem worth your valuable
time; don't 'trouble' yourself with my trivialities ! ! ! !

Your reaction is all too common on usenet; you need a thicker skin and
an understanding of the difference between a forum for discussion and a
"help desk".
Your 'discussion' amounted to blowing me off, insisting that I had
better things to do, rather than fix my web page design (designations).
If you had not made that first post, I would have been better off. (and
the civility and back-peddling of your second post proves, quite
frankly, how much your first post sucked)
IE redraws pages on hover, there is nothing you can do to prevent that
so I was merely suggesting that there may be more interesting areas to
study.

Well, what I'm doing with this design is an area I consider interesting.
My goal is to have a simplistic design which will yield the best
typography possible in today's modern browsers without ANY concessions
to ANY quirks ANYWHERE. This means I have decided (after ten years) to
opt out of old Netscape gyrations. I will not consider running the
design on non-standards compliant browsers. IE does, in fact, have
enough compliance to make the cut.

I feel this is the best thing to do when considering my goals in the
project.

I, also, need to cut down on the size of my style sheets since I feel
they are still bloated (and somewhat convoluted). So, in a couple of
days I should have the latest iteration just about done.

Thanks...

Rich