Border not complete in IE6. Small 1px gap.

[Viken Karaguesian]

Hello all,

I'm having a weird design issue with IE. The bottom borders on two of my
div's stop 1px or 2px short of the right side of the div. In Mozzilla and
Opera, these borders go completely to the end. It's almost like there's a
1px padding on the right side, but all my padding is set to zero. I'm not
sure if the problem is in my css or in my html. You can see an example here:

www.sayatnova.com/home_5.htm
www.sayatnova.com/styles/home_5.css (this is the page specific css)
www.sayatnova.com/styles/sndc.css (this is the generic css for the entire
site)

The border below "Top Headlines" and "Features" stops just short of the
right side of the div in IE. In Opera and FF, it goes to the end and
completes the box.

I'm trying to convert the current design of this site to a table-less
design and want to work out the bugs before I go live.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

--

[Spartanicus]

"Viken Karaguesian" <vi****@NOSPAMcomcast.net> wrote:

I'm having a weird design issue with IE. The bottom borders on two of my
div's stop 1px or 2px short of the right side of the div.

www.sayatnova.com/home_5.htm

You've got far bigger problems to solve first, in no particular order:

a) Viewport width centric design aimed at a stupidly large 1024px width.
b) IE centric design.
c) Javascript dependency.
d) Popup dependency.
e) Java dependency?
f) Acrobat dependency.
g) Legacy coding (<font> tags for crying out loud) and doctype.
h) A complete lack of document structure (aka as div soup).
i) An idiotically large number of text colours.

I could go on for a while like that. There is only one way to improve
this awful mess, delete the whole lot, get a clue, then start again from
scratch.

--
Spartanicus

[Viken Karaguesian]

Oh.....I get it. You're the Enforcer. Your job is to cruise this and other
newsgroups, look for newbies and people just trying to learn, and belittle
them. Your job is not to answer questions and spread knowledge, but to drive
away as many newbies and information seekers as possible. I forget that
people like you never started out as newbies, but had an intricate knowledge
of site scripting at birth. Was there ever a time that you didn't know
everything there was to know, Mr. Supereme One?

I'm just *learning*. This is a *hobby*. I asked a simple question. If you
don't want to provide me with an answer, that's fine. But if you just intend
on critisizing, please just leave me alone and let someone else with a
kinder
heart answer my question.

a) Viewport width centric design aimed at a stupidly large 1024px width.
That's my choice to make.
b) IE centric design.
Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE
f) Acrobat dependency.
So what if I want to have a link to a pdf document? That's my choice to
make!
g) Legacy coding (<font> tags for crying out loud) and doctype.
Just learning. See above.
i) An idiotically large number of text colours.
So what? Again, that's my choice to make. Maybe I want to draw attention to
certain text!?
I could go on for a while like that.
Good for you. Your mother must be proud of you. Do you still live in her
basement?
this awful mess, delete the whole lot, get a clue,

Get a life!

[Chris Morris]

"Viken Karaguesian" <vi****@NOSPAMcomcast.net> writes:

b) IE centric design.

Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE

That's a circular argument, though. If I make a site that doesn't work
at all in a particular browser, I can't then use the argument that 0%
of the visitors use that browser as an excuse to not fix it - of
course none of them use it...

Site statistics are also a highly unreliable mess (+/-10% margin of
error at the best of times, +/-50% or more at worst) - see
http://www.analog.cx/docs/webworks.html

g) Legacy coding (<font> tags for crying out loud) and doctype.

Just learning. See above.

Best to start learning with good-quality modern code, though, otherwise
you'll have to go through the stage which just about every web author
goes through of needing to unlearn bad habits. The sooner you can get
that out of the way, the better.

<font> tags haven't been the best way to do fonts and colours since
about 1997 (and they weren't a particularly good method then), and
they're actually harder to write in any non-trivial case than the
equivalent CSS. By stretched analogy, you can learn Italian (modern
CSS+HTML) or you can learn Latin (ancient <font>y HTML). You can talk
to people in both, but more people (browsers) are likely to understand
Italian.

--
Chris

[Ian Rastall]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 02:31:03 -0500, "Viken Karaguesian"
<vi****@NOSPAMcomcast.net> wrote:

if you just intend on critisizing, please just leave me alone and
let someone else with a kinder heart answer my question.
Hey Viken. I wouldn't worry too much about getting slammed on a tech
group. It's not just you, it happens to everyone. That's why the
readership on these groups is so small.
Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE

It's possible that people on other browsers go to the site once, see
it doesn't work, and don't come back, thereby raising the number of
people on your site who use IE.

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question. 1px gaps are very
annoying. Sometimes it's as simple as taking out whitespace between
tags, which shouldn't work, but it does (sometimes).

Ian

[Viken Karaguesian]

> Hey Viken. I wouldn't worry too much about getting slammed on a tech

group. It's not just you, it happens to everyone. That's why the
readership on these groups is so small.

Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE
It's possible that people on other browsers go to the site once, see
it doesn't work, and don't come back, thereby raising the number of
people on your site who use IE.

In my defense, the site does work in other browsers. I think the bigger
reason is that many people view the site at their work and, in the US,
companies are dominated my Microsoft Windows/Office/IE.
Sorry I don't have an answer to your question. 1px gaps are very
annoying. Sometimes it's as simple as taking out whitespace between
tags, which shouldn't work, but it does (sometimes).

I'll have to give that a try.

Thanks for your kind reply.

[meltedown]

Viken Karaguesian wrote:

Hello all,

I'm having a weird design issue with IE. The bottom borders on two of my
div's stop 1px or 2px short of the right side of the div. In Mozzilla and
Opera, these borders go completely to the end. It's almost like there's a
1px padding on the right side, but all my padding is set to zero. I'm not
sure if the problem is in my css or in my html. You can see an example here:

www.sayatnova.com/home_5.htm
www.sayatnova.com/styles/home_5.css (this is the page specific css)
www.sayatnova.com/styles/sndc.css (this is the generic css for the entire
site)

The border below "Top Headlines" and "Features" stops just short of the
right side of the div in IE. In Opera and FF, it goes to the end and
completes the box.

I'm trying to convert the current design of this site to a table-less
design and want to work out the bugs before I go live.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Your <DIV id=content> is acting suspiciously like the paragraph
described on this page:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/...reepxtest.html

If you add height:1%; to #content, then the gap goes away.

Or you can take the HEIGHT: 30px off of the DIV.header

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Viken Karaguesian blurted out, without the usual
usenet courtesies:

[...]

I'm just *learning*. This is a *hobby*. I asked a simple question.
If you don't want to provide me with an answer, that's fine. But if
you just intend on critisizing, please just leave me alone and let
someone else with a kinder heart answer my question.

If you're learning, then it would seem a good idea to temper your
artistic flair with a bit of an attempt to understand web design, and
use current good-practice. *You* might suppose that this is about
nothing more than achieving a desired visual result on your own
display, but usually there are other readers to think about, with
their own browsing situations to be taken into account. You don't win
any friends by telling them from the outset that they chose the wrong
browser and display settings.

a) Viewport width centric design aimed at a stupidly large 1024px
width.

That's my choice to make.

Your readers may take a different view. With such an enormous catalog
of demands on the first page I meet, I'm going to take *some*
convincing. You throw away the opportunity to convince with your
actual /content/, when you start off on the wrong foot like that.
The odd pixel at the edge of the window *is as nothing* compared with
that.

I soon left anyway, thanks to the distracting animations. Animations
can do a fine job when /requested/, but they make it difficult (for
some readers, indeed, "impossible") to concentrate on anything else on
the page.

b) IE centric design.

Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE

No wonder they "show" that, if you frighten others away. (I assume
you aren't ready yet to understand the major uncertainties in such
statistics, anyway).

In other words, you don't *want* users of www-conforming browsers -
you convince yourself that you don't *get* users of www-conforming
browsers - and you have the gall to come here and say, in effect, that
it's working as designed? Well, that isn't the stance which the WWW
takes, and this is a usenet group about the WWW.

g) Legacy coding (<font> tags for crying out loud) and doctype.

Just learning. See above.

Then /do/ the learning. There's no reason it has to impair your
resulting web pages. Admittedly you got an outspoken reaction to your
web site, but the chief impairment I can see here is your apparent
resistance to learning anything from the experience.

[Viken Karaguesian]

> Your <DIV id=content> is acting suspiciously like the paragraph described

on this page:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/...reepxtest.html

If you add height:1%; to #content, then the gap goes away.

Or you can take the HEIGHT: 30px off of the DIV.header

I took the 30px height out of the div.header and it worked perfectly. Thank
you very much for the solution and a great link!

Viken K.

[sisken]

I notice that Spartanicus never bothered to reply. A**hole.

[sisken]

I notice that Spartanicus never bothered to reply. A**hole. Ignore
people like this. He or she most likely got laid off from a dot-bomb,
had to sell their overpriced Bay Area home and Audi TT, now lives in
flyover country creating sites for the local hardware store. The only
thing people like this have to cling to is their "mastery" of "design."

Viken, keep asking, keep learning, and keep an open mind.

[Greg Heilers]

Viken Karaguesian wrote:

Hello all,

I'm having a weird design issue with IE. The bottom borders on two of my
div's stop 1px or 2px short of the right side of the div. In Mozzilla and
Opera, these borders go completely to the end. It's almost like there's a
1px padding on the right side, but all my padding is set to zero. I'm not
sure if the problem is in my css or in my html. You can see an example
here:

www.sayatnova.com/home_5.htm
www.sayatnova.com/styles/home_5.css (this is the page specific css)
www.sayatnova.com/styles/sndc.css (this is the generic css for the entire
site)

The border below "Top Headlines" and "Features" stops just short of the
right side of the div in IE. In Opera and FF, it goes to the end and
completes the box.

I'm trying to convert the current design of this site to a table-less
design and want to work out the bugs before I go live.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

--

I do not have access to IE here, but have you tried that old trick of using
"the great equalizer" as the first line in your CSS:

body {margin:0; padding:0; border:0;}

This, many times, does wonders to compensate for "those danged browser
differences".
In your CSS, you have quite a mixture of font-families...even in individual
style attributes:

body {... font-family: arial, "times new roman", verdana;...

Did you intend to mix sans-serif, and serif, in one attribute? In many
environments (such as many standard UNIX/Linux environments) "Arial"
is not included in the default set-up...so the viewer would end up
seeing a serif font, where you had made a sans-serif font *your* first
choice. This difference could be just as "annoying" or "damaging" than
your "1px problem". Instead, to help ensure that *everyone* sees things
in the preferred sans-serif font, try something like:

body {... font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
(always try to include the *generic* font-family name)

........

On to other matters:

**This site is designed to be viewed full screen at 1024x768 resolution and
may not look correct at lower resolutions. **The preferred browser for this
site is Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5.0 or higher. Certain features
may not operate as intended with other browsers. **Please report any
problems with the operation of this site to the webmaster. **The Adobe
Acrobat reader is required to view some of the featured items on this
website. If you don't have it, you can get it here. **If Pop-up Blocking
software is used, please add this website to the "allowed sites" list. SNDC
will never use pop-up windows to advertise or sell any 3rd party items.
***Please enable Javascript for full funcionality of this site.
<<<
Okay...I am certain, that by now, you have been endlessly scolded about
this; but for many reasons, it is deserved. Contrary to what you may
believe (even I had a hard time believing it...) there are *many* people
who do *not* have their resolution set at 1024x768 (even those using 17-inch
monitors)...perhaps as many as half the people. You will lose many of these
people.

Specifically stating the site is written for IE, also will repel people.
Believe it or not (I was also surprised...) many entities, such as those in
the public sector...do *not* use IE. For example, many terminals in my
city's public library system run Windows 98, with Netscape as the browser
(perhaps it is the city's method of "affirmative action", or "spreading the
wealth" or "the quota system"?)

Featuring links that require a .pdf viewer may also be counter-productive,
for the above reason.

Using "Click Here" as the text in your links, can get very repetitive, and
can be annoying. You were able to incorporate some of your links as part
of your normal sentences; so try to do all of them this way. Example:

<li>Read our <a href="director.htm#interview">interview</a> with Sayat
Nova Dance Company director Apo Ashjian!</li>

Although, I am sure that many viewers will have a problem with the "blue on
black" coloring of the links.


--

Greg Heilers
Registered Linux user #328317 - SlackWare 10.1 (2.6.10)
.....
Marge: You don't have to join a freak show just because the
opportunity came along.

Homer: You know, Marge, in some ways you and I are very different
people.

Homerpalooza

[kchayka]

meltedown wrote:

Your <DIV id=content> is acting suspiciously like the paragraph
described on this page:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/...reepxtest.html

If you add height:1%; to #content, then the gap goes away.

I'd advise against using height to get around these IE bugs. The next
version of IE may (finally) Do The Right Thing where this property is
concerned, then you'll have an ugly mess.

I suggest using zoom:1.0 instead. The result should be the same, and
there's less risk.

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

[kchayka]

Greg Heilers wrote:

body {... font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}

I'd drop Helvetica from that list. There are multiple versions out
there, and no 2 are quite the same. One may be very readable at the
default font size and another not. You have no way to know which version
a visitor has.

I'd drop Arial from the list, too, just because it's ugly. ;)

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

[Viken Karaguesian]

> In your CSS, you have quite a mixture of font-families...even in

individual
style attributes:

body {... font-family: arial, "times new roman", verdana;...
Hmmm. I guess I need to read up on that a bit more. Maybe I'm nit sure what
a "generic" font is. I thought that by declaring those font types I was
saying: "the first choice is Arial. If the system doesn't have Arial, switch
to Times New Roman. If there's no Times New Roman, make the final switch to
Verdana". But from what you have written, I must be misunderstanding how the
font-family declaration works.
Instead, to help ensure that *everyone* sees things
in the preferred sans-serif font, try something like:

body {... font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
(always try to include the *generic* font-family name)

OK, so Sans-Serif is a generic font-family? I guess I have to read up on
this just a bit more.

[Viken Karaguesian]

> Contrary to what you may

believe (even I had a hard time believing it...) there are *many* people
who do *not* have their resolution set at 1024x768 (even those using
17-inch
monitors)...perhaps as many as half the people. You will lose many of
these
people.
Right. And for that reason, I like to design the site so that it's flexible
and still viewable at the smaller resolutions. That's one major reason that
I'm moving away from the main table and am trying to incorporate this
"liquid layout", one that shrinks and grows with screen size. But the main
layout is designed to fit into a 1024x768 resolution.
Specifically stating the site is written for IE, also will repel people.
Believe it or not (I was also surprised...) many entities, such as those
in
the public sector...do *not* use IE. For example, many terminals in my
city's public library system run Windows 98, with Netscape as the browser
(perhaps it is the city's method of "affirmative action", or "spreading
the
wealth" or "the quota system"?)
I have to change the fine print in the site :>) In the past, I'd have some
peculiarities with the site in Mozilla (and other browsers) and couldn't
figure out why. It was easier for me to declare that site was "best view
with IE" than to figure out the bugs. Now that I'm learning more about css
and HTML and getting more into manual coding I'm rooting out those bugs so
the site is more cross browser compatible.
Featuring links that require a .pdf viewer may also be counter-productive,
for the above reason.
Sometimes, all I have is a PDF document.
Using "Click Here" as the text in your links, can get very repetitive, and
can be annoying.

I've already started to move away from that.

Thanks for the advice. It's much better presented by people like you than
people like Spartanicus.

Viken K.

[Ian Rastall]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 21:47:00 -0500, "Viken Karaguesian"
<vi****@NOSPAMcomcast.net> wrote:

I thought that by declaring those font types I was
saying: "the first choice is Arial. If the system doesn't have Arial, switch
to Times New Roman. If there's no Times New Roman, make the final switch to
Verdana".

That's basically it. The last bit is, "If none of these fonts are
present, switch to the default font."

For a reason I've never fathomed, everyone sticks to either serif or
sans-serif fonts in their list. I do this too. You should end the list
with the generic font name, either "serif", "sans-serif", "monospace",
and, I think, "cursive" and "fantasy", in case none of your fonts are
present, but if you still don't want the page to use the default font.
It's also a good idea to put quotes around any font name that has
spaces in it, like "times new roman".

The font-family declaration I use on my main site is:

font-family: "berling antiqua", "times new roman", times, serif;

I started with the most obscure font (but the one I really want), then
went to a popular alternative, then to (what I believe is) the more
generic version of Times New Roman, and finally to whatever serif font
is the default.

That's at least how I do it. Like I said, the reasons for sticking to
either serif or sans-serif are a mystery to me. Others will have a
good answer, I'm sure.

Ian

[Leonard Blaisdell]

In article <fu********************************@4ax.com>,
Ian Rastall <id*******@gmail.com> wrote:

I started with the most obscure font (but the one I really want), then
went to a popular alternative, then to (what I believe is) the more
generic version of Times New Roman, and finally to whatever serif font
is the default.

That's at least how I do it. Like I said, the reasons for sticking to
either serif or sans-serif are a mystery to me. Others will have a
good answer, I'm sure.

If the browser doesn't have an inkling that the font you are trying to
portray is fantasy, and I doubt that it has a list of all possible fonts
and their families available to it, it will substitute the default font
which won't be fantasy. Best I can do and probably wrong :-)

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>

[Stephen Poley]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:17:52 -0600, kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:

Greg Heilers wrote:

body {... font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
I'd drop Helvetica from that list. There are multiple versions out
there, and no 2 are quite the same. One may be very readable at the
default font size and another not.

That's a new one on me, and I find it very surprising - specifically the
last sentence. Do you have some documentation for it? From what (little)
I've heard from font buffs, Helvetica is one of the better sans-serif
fonts.

I'd drop Arial from the list, too, just because it's ugly. ;)

I suspect a majority of readers will get it anyway if you just specify
sans-serif.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[kchayka]

Stephen Poley wrote:

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:17:52 -0600, kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:

Greg Heilers wrote:

body {... font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}

I'd drop Helvetica from that list. There are multiple versions out
there, and no 2 are quite the same. One may be very readable at the
default font size and another not.

That's a new one on me, and I find it very surprising - specifically the
last sentence. Do you have some documentation for it? From what (little)
I've heard from font buffs, Helvetica is one of the better sans-serif
fonts.

If you ran Linux, you might already have the answer. I haven't counted
pixels, but the URW version of Helvetica is probably about 80% the size
of Adobe Helvetica. Those aren't the only 2 makers, either.

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

[Harlan Messinger]

Viken Karaguesian wrote:

Oh.....I get it. You're the Enforcer. Your job is to cruise this and other
newsgroups, look for newbies and people just trying to learn, and belittle
them. Your job is not to answer questions and spread knowledge, but to drive
away as many newbies and information seekers as possible. I forget that
people like you never started out as newbies, but had an intricate knowledge
of site scripting at birth. Was there ever a time that you didn't know
everything there was to know, Mr. Supereme One?
Spartanicus' approach leaves much to be desired, but you should know
that a lot of good advice lies beneath his spleen.

I'm just *learning*. This is a *hobby*. I asked a simple question. If you
don't want to provide me with an answer, that's fine. But if you just intend
on critisizing, please just leave me alone and let someone else with a
kinder
heart answer my question.

a) Viewport width centric design aimed at a stupidly large 1024px width.
That's my choice to make.

True, but I do recommend making your choices such that you'll accomplish
the most possible with your site, taking into account such factors as
your users' screen resolution and how much the beauty of a
1024-pixel-wide is lost when a user has to scroll way to the right.

b) IE centric design.

Site statistics show that 94.5% of the viewers of this site use IE

To some extent that's a circular justification. If your site only works
in IE, then obviously people using other browsers aren't going to use
your site. Your statistics only tell you about the people who do visit,
not about the people who don't nor about why they don't.

f) Acrobat dependency.

So what if I want to have a link to a pdf document? That's my choice to
make!

To reiterate my point under (a) and to make it a little stronger: You
can also choose to have no visitors to your site--that's your choice to
make! I'm exaggerating, but the point is that when people give you
advice, they're not questioning your right to do what you want, they're
telling you that you may be making life difficult for your users, and
even hurting yourself as a result.

Regarding PDFs, it is best if they are used as a means of conveying
electronically a document that already exists in print form, as a
substitute for having to mail it to them. They are especially useful
when the exact layout and typography of the document is genuinely
important. Beyond that, they are not the preferred form of communicating
information over the web, however--that's what HTML was developed for.

[Viken Karaguesian]

Harlan,

Spartanicus may be a genius for all I know, but I did not appreciate
the way he ripped me apart. Many of the things he critisized me on were
matters of taste. Too many text colors? Page width? Where are there any
rules that dictate how many text colors one can use?

Yes, the site homepage is designed around 1024x768, but did he bother
to see if it fits at 800x600? The answer is yes, it does. The whole
point of the re-design of the homepage is so that it fits better at
smaller resolutions.

The site is viewable with other browsers. In the past I've had certain
design bugs in other browsers that I couldn't figure out. So I just put
a note on the site saying that it looks best in IE. What's the big
deal? I'm trying to learn more so I can get those design bugs out.
Instead of helping me out, he tells me to scrap the whole thing and
start all over?! Why...because my text is too colorful and I have a
Javascript based menu? Gimme a break.

I don't flame anyone in any newsgroups, especially people looking for
help, and I expect to be treated the same way.

That's all.

Viken K.