new to group with a question regarding PC and Mac compatibility issues (long)

[Melissa]

Hi,
I'm new to the group and haven't had a chance to read the FAQ, but I
have a question that's driving me crazy. If anyone here can help me
with this or can point me to another site or something, I'd appreciate
it.

I'm trying to update my website, and I created about eight pages of
html code on a Mac, using Simple Text. I viewed all pages locally on
my Mac using Netscape, and they looked fine.

Since I can't upload my files to my server via the Mac (some weird AOL
problem -- was able to when I was with rcn.com, but can't now that I'm
with AOL), I wanted to upload them to my server via my PC.

However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,
two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
Explorer. This is bizarre as all of the eight pages basically have
the same code (I pasted in different images, but the structure is the
same) and they looked fine on the Mac.

I hope I've made the problem clear and any help offered would be
appreciated.

Thanks!

Melissa

[Markus Ernst]

"Melissa" <me************@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3b**************************@posting.google.c om...

Hi,
I'm new to the group and haven't had a chance to read the FAQ, but I
have a question that's driving me crazy. If anyone here can help me
with this or can point me to another site or something, I'd appreciate
it.

I'm trying to update my website, and I created about eight pages of
html code on a Mac, using Simple Text. I viewed all pages locally on
my Mac using Netscape, and they looked fine.

Since I can't upload my files to my server via the Mac (some weird AOL
problem -- was able to when I was with rcn.com, but can't now that I'm
with AOL), I wanted to upload them to my server via my PC.

However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,
two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
Explorer. This is bizarre as all of the eight pages basically have
the same code (I pasted in different images, but the structure is the
same) and they looked fine on the Mac.

I hope I've made the problem clear and any help offered would be
appreciated.

Thanks!

Melissa

I can only guess:
- Have you checked the filenames? Every image file needs the appropriate
extension (*.gif or *.jpg), upper-/lowercase must be the same as in the HTML
code, no special characters, no dots (.) exept for the file extension, no
spaces. Mac users often forget that ;-)

HTH
Markus

[Isofarro]

Melissa wrote:

I viewed all pages locally on
my Mac using Netscape, and they looked fine. [snippage] However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,
two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
Explorer.

The missing images sounds like a filenaming problem. Are the images in the
same directory as the html files, or are they in another directory (for
instance a subdirectory)? The images that don't show up, could you post the
src attribute of those particular img element.

As to the pages looking different - yep, the Mac tends to have a different
dpi than windows (I think its typically 72dpi versus 96dpi, unless you're
like Alan with his 130dpi monitor *g* ).

The squishy images could be something slightly different, so open one of the
squished graphics in a graphics package like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro
and make a note of the size of the image in that application. Compare those
dimensions to what you've specified in the img element in the HTML - are
they exactly equal?
--
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[Melissa]

> > However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,

two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
Explorer. This is bizarre as all of the eight pages basically have
the same code (I pasted in different images, but the structure is the
same) and they looked fine on the Mac.

I hope I've made the problem clear and any help offered would be
appreciated.

Thanks!

Melissa

I can only guess:
- Have you checked the filenames? Every image file needs the appropriate
extension (*.gif or *.jpg), upper-/lowercase must be the same as in the HTML
code, no special characters, no dots (.) exept for the file extension, no
spaces. Mac users often forget that ;-)

HTH
Markus

Hi Markus,

Thanks for your response. Maybe you can help me further! It's true
that when the image files were transferred to my PC, the extensions
all changed to all caps. The bizarre thing is that the problem of not
"seeing" gifs is only occurring on a couple of pages. So apparently,
it seems to work even with the discrepency in caps usage. I don't have
a problem just changing the extensions on the image files to be
consistent anyway, but the thing is, I don't know how to do this on a
PC. When I try "renaming", it doesn't let me put the new extension in.
Is the only alternative to go back to the original code and change
all lower case extensions to all caps? (I hope not!?)

Thanks again,

Melissa

[Melissa]

Isofarro <sp*******@spamdetector.co.uk> wrote in message news:<sr***********@sidious.isolani.co.uk>...

Melissa wrote:

I viewed all pages locally on
my Mac using Netscape, and they looked fine.

[snippage]

However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,
two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
Explorer.

The missing images sounds like a filenaming problem. Are the images in the
same directory as the html files, or are they in another directory (for
instance a subdirectory)? The images that don't show up, could you post the
src attribute of those particular img element.

As to the pages looking different - yep, the Mac tends to have a different
dpi than windows (I think its typically 72dpi versus 96dpi, unless you're
like Alan with his 130dpi monitor *g* ).

The squishy images could be something slightly different, so open one of the
squished graphics in a graphics package like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro
and make a note of the size of the image in that application. Compare those
dimensions to what you've specified in the img element in the HTML - are
they exactly equal?

Hi Isofarro,

Thanks so much for your reply. I'm still at a loss, however. The
images are indeed in the same directory as the html files. The src
attribute is:
<IMG SRC="books_head.GIF" WIDTH=423 HEIGHT=57 ALIGN=CENTER>
I changed this extension to all caps in the html, to match the file
name of the image exactly (books_head.GIF).
As for the squishy images -- I had viewed them in Photoshop and via
the browser and their sizes are exactly the same as in the code. The
weird thing is that I have other files that are the same size on other
pages, it works fine.
<IMG SRC="bbw_book.jpg" TD WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=150 ALT="Big Bad Wolf
book">
And if there is a difference between Mac and pc resolution, shouldn't
all my pages look bad? Why only two?
Any other thoughts?

Thanks,

Melissa

[Graham J]

> I changed this extension to all caps in the html, to match the file

name of the image exactly (books_head.GIF).
This is a good exercise for when you upload them as the server may be case
sensitive. Windows isn't though so this isn't the immediate problem.
As for the squishy images -- I had viewed them in Photoshop and via
the browser and their sizes are exactly the same as in the code.
A bit of a long shot, but are all the files what they say they are? For
example if you create a JPEG file on the Mac with a .gif extension it
needn't be critical because Mac applications can work with the type code.
However try and open the same file on Windows and the file can't be read
because .gif tells the application to expect a GIF and it doesn't get it. I
don't have too much faith in this idea though as it could only explain
'missing' graphics and not squished up ones.
<IMG SRC="bbw_book.jpg" TD WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=150 ALT="Big Bad Wolf book">

You do have a stray 'TD' in that line so there is always the possibility of
other innocuous looking errors combining in such a way that the browser gets
upset.

Presumably you haven't made any of the pages live so we can see the whole
picture? If not and the markup isn't too long it might be worth posting the
complete page of markup and then telling up which images go wrong and how -
what size they actually appear, do they not appear at all, etc.

[Matt]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 18:26:52 -0700, Melissa wrote:

> However, when I transfered my html files over to my PC via a zip disk,
> two of my pages looked different (squished graphics-all widths and
> heights are specified in the html code, missing graphics -- yet they
> are all in the same folder)when viewed locally on the PC via Internet
> Explorer. This is bizarre as all of the eight pages basically have
> the same code (I pasted in different images, but the structure is the
> same) and they looked fine on the Mac.
>
> I hope I've made the problem clear and any help offered would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Melissa

I can only guess:
- Have you checked the filenames? Every image file needs the appropriate
extension (*.gif or *.jpg), upper-/lowercase must be the same as in the HTML
code, no special characters, no dots (.) exept for the file extension, no
spaces. Mac users often forget that ;-)

HTH
Markus

Hi Markus,

Thanks for your response. Maybe you can help me further! It's true
that when the image files were transferred to my PC, the extensions
all changed to all caps. The bizarre thing is that the problem of not
"seeing" gifs is only occurring on a couple of pages. So apparently,
it seems to work even with the discrepency in caps usage. I don't have
a problem just changing the extensions on the image files to be
consistent anyway, but the thing is, I don't know how to do this on a
PC. When I try "renaming", it doesn't let me put the new extension in.
Is the only alternative to go back to the original code and change
all lower case extensions to all caps? (I hope not!?)

The windows filing system isn't case sensitive anyway, so this shouldn't
matter.

In windows, if you need to see the file extensions, try (in windows
explorer) tools --> options --> view... somewhere on one of the tabs
(depends on which version) is "Hide file name extensions" or similar.
Untick it.

However, the webserver might be UNIX-based, and have case-sensitive names.
You should make sure all the extensions are in the right case - probably
best to make everything lowercase as it makes maintenance easier. If
everything is as you want it on the Mac, you could try zipping the files
(compressing them somehow) to transfer them - this is more likely to
preserve the case.

I've never used a MAC, but do you have to use AOLs browser? In windows,
you can just use AOL to dial up/connect and then open another browser.

Sorry, that was way too long winded!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, filenames might not be the problem. You could try validating
your code <http://validator.w3.org/> to see if you've made any mistakes.

HTH, HAND :-)

--
Matt

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[Melissa]

>

Presumably you haven't made any of the pages live so we can see the whole
picture? If not and the markup isn't too long it might be worth posting the
complete page of markup and then telling up which images go wrong and how -
what size they actually appear, do they not appear at all, etc.
Presumably you haven't made any of the pages live so we can see the whole
picture? If not and the markup isn't too long it might be worth posting the
complete page of markup and then telling up which images go wrong and how -
what size they actually appear, do they not appear at all, etc.

Hi, Thanks everybody for the help! I managed to fix the squished
image. But still am missing one image on that page. It is at:
www.melissaiwai.com/bbw.html
I'm missing the "books_head.gif" image at the top of the page. The
image is in the same directory as the html. Also, it appears on all
other "books pages". View: www.melissaiwa.com/gne.html, for example.
Can't figure out why that image stubbornly won't appear.

Melissa

[Darin McGrew]

Melissa <me************@aol.com> wrote:

Hi, Thanks everybody for the help! I managed to fix the squished
image. But still am missing one image on that page. It is at:
www.melissaiwai.com/bbw.html
I'm missing the "books_head.gif" image at the top of the page.

The online HTML validator <http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/> gives
a cryptic error message: "an attribute value literal can occur in an
attribute specification list only after a vi delimiter"

What happened is that you left off a quote in the line

TEXT="#003399" LINK="#006699" ALINK="330066" VLINK="#330066>

and that is likely to confuse browsers about what is quoted and what isn't.

You also left off the "#" at the beginning of the ALINK color.
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't."

[Jonathan Brady]

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see
the 'To' and 'Newsgroups' headers for details. ]]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:37:05 -0400, Melissa wrote
(in message <3b**************************@posting.google.com>) :

I hope I've made the problem clear and any help offered would be
appreciated.

I'm a bit late for this but here goes:

When transferring files from a Mac to PC via zip drives, there is a bug
in the Zip software that kind of corrupts file names. Any file that
resembles DOS file names as in 8.3 or shorter will become ALL CAPS,
longer file names are not affected by this bug.

So to work around this problem, simply make sure that you name the files
names longer than 8 characters before the dot.

Second problem: Usually from saving files in photoshop with a preview.

Make sure you uncheck the preview box in the save dialog box when saving
the files. The Mac file system has two forks one for Data like on the PC
and one for resources (which gets stripped in transfer) but it usually
contains vital data and the preview. I don't know which version of
photoshop you have but recent ones have a check box for Web Ready, and
that is specifically to strip any mac specific code from the file.

Also, some web servers (IIS -- what else) have problems with files saved
in Photoshop on the Mac even without previews and Web Ready.

Hope that helps.

--
J Brady