Firefox table coding

[Tom Richards]

I have a site at http://www.brainsturgeon.com/poker written in FP 2003. It
was recently brought to my attention by a few of my members running Firefox
that the link bar at the top doesn't wrap. Sure enough, I checked and it
splays all the way across the page without wrapping and looks hideous with a
scroll bar at the bottom.

I tried putting the link bar in a table to constrain it but it doesn't work.
I tried coding the table both ways: with percentage - table width="71%" -
and also by pixels and neither works. I can't get into the link bar (I don't
think) and put a page break ( < br >) there. Any suggestions on how to get
this linkbar to wrap in Firefox?

--

Tom Richards
http://webhandprint.com
http://brainsturgeon.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Terry Stockdale]

I have a site at http://www.brainsturgeon.com/poker written in FP 2003. It
was recently brought to my attention by a few of my members running Firefox
that the link bar at the top doesn't wrap. Sure enough, I checked and it
splays all the way across the page without wrapping and looks hideous with a
scroll bar at the bottom.

I tried putting the link bar in a table to constrain it but it doesn't work.
I tried coding the table both ways: with percentage - table width="71%" -
and also by pixels and neither works. I can't get into the link bar (I don't
think) and put a page break ( < br >) there. Any suggestions on how to get
this linkbar to wrap in Firefox?

Opera treats the linkbar exactly the way Firefox does. It's IE and
FP2003 breaking the standards. IE is arbitarily wrapping a long
string of &nbsp; and <nobr> commands that specify "thou shalt not wrap
me to the next line." And FrontPage is stupidly creating it that way.

Looks like just another example of MS "embracing and extending" the
standards such that webpages developed with MS products in mind don't
work the same way elsewhere.

Solution: Break your linkbar into two linkbars on different lines.
That way, you can make it look good in IE and in other browsers.

Terry
Visit my computer tips, coffee pages, forums and more at:
http://www.terrystockdale.com

 

[Tom Richards]

Thanks, Terry - that's a great, common sense solution that I never would
have thought of myself. It amazes me that MS arbitrarily decides the rules
in cases like this.

--

Tom Richards
http://webhandprint.com
http://brainsturgeon.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[David Cary Hart]

Tom Richards opined with great erudition:

I have a site at http://www.brainsturgeon.com/poker written in
FP 2003. It was recently brought to my attention by a few of my
members running Firefox that the link bar at the top doesn't
wrap. Sure enough, I checked and it splays all the way across
the page without wrapping and looks hideous with a scroll bar
at the bottom.

I tried putting the link bar in a table to constrain it but it
doesn't work. I tried coding the table both ways: with
percentage - table width="71%" - and also by pixels and neither
works. I can't get into the link bar (I don't think) and put a
page break ( < br >) there. Any suggestions on how to get this
linkbar to wrap in Firefox?

Hmmm, it wraps for me. Firefox on FC3. You can always split it
into two separate bars.

 

[Windsun]

FP2003 did not write the CSS, you did.

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

Your cross posting, especially to obsolete newsgroups, is poor netiquette


--




|I have a site at http://www.brainsturgeon.com/poker written in FP 2003. It
| was recently brought to my attention by a few of my members running Firefox
| that the link bar at the top doesn't wrap. Sure enough, I checked and it
| splays all the way across the page without wrapping and looks hideous with a
| scroll bar at the bottom.
|
| I tried putting the link bar in a table to constrain it but it doesn't work.
| I tried coding the table both ways: with percentage - table width="71%" -
| and also by pixels and neither works. I can't get into the link bar (I don't
| think) and put a page break ( < br >) there. Any suggestions on how to get
| this linkbar to wrap in Firefox?
|
| --
|
| Tom Richards
| http://webhandprint.com
| http://brainsturgeon.com
| (e-mail address removed)
|
|
|

 

[Jens Peter Karlsen [FP MVP]]

No, they are not breaking the standards (in this case any way)
As you point out &nbsp; and <nobr> means that there should be no breaks
and that is according to the recommendations by W3C.

PS W3C is not a standards body they "only" give recommendations.
There do exist a standard for HTML that is published by ISO
(International Standardisation Organisation).

Regards Jens Peter Karlsen. Microsoft MVP - Frontpage.

 

[Terry Stockdale]

No, they are not breaking the standards (in this case any way)
As you point out &nbsp; and <nobr> means that there should be no breaks
and that is according to the recommendations by W3C.

Jens,
I do not understand your point - it is not internally consistent.
OH! You're saying that the only standard is ISO's standard issued in
2000? And the W3C "only" makes recommendations? Then why do
FrontPage and I.E. even consider some of those recommendations and
some of the CSS functions -- they aren't in the standard? But, if
&nbsp; and <nobr> are only recommendations, that is still no excuse
for using them incorrectly.

Talk your way out of this one -- Netscape invented the <NOBR> tag to
say "don't wrap at this point.". FrontPage 2003 proceeds to use it
and puts it into linkbars -- I.E. merrily ignores it in linkbars --
so the only impact of a NOBR in a linkbar is to "break" the
"beautifully wrapped display" when shown in other browsers.

If I.E. ignores a tag, I would NOT expect FrontPage to use it in a way
to destroy the display in another browser.

I would expect FrontPage to use functions in the same way that
Internet Explorer does. I expect I.E. to know how to use every tag
that FrontPage puts in its code -- if the tag works in I.E. but not
another browser, then the other browser can "catch up." But, if the
tag DOESN'T work in I.E. and FrontPage's use ONLY serves to break the
display in other browsers, then FrontPage should not be using it that
way. At best, that is poor, sloppy code; at worst, it is the same
old abuse of power.

In addition, I would expect FrontPage to use an embedded IE window to
preview a webpage -- after all, Outlook and Outlook Express do this.
But, it doesn't - it uses its own "preview" tool, with its own unique
interpretations of the standards and recommendations.

It is frustrating to view a page in FrontPage and then the same thing
in I.E. 6 and get two different displays. Example: a horizontal
navigation bar made from CSS and <ul><li> tags is horizontal in I.E.,
but in Frontpage 2003's "Preview", it shows up as vertically stacked
buttons. Result: the FP Preview screenl is worthless -- you can't
trust it, even for I.E.

Just plain sloppy.

Terry
Visit my computer tips, coffee pages, forums and more at:
http://www.terrystockdale.com

 

[Jens Peter Karlsen[FP MVP]]

See inline.

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Stockdale [mailto:[email protected]]
Posted At: 1. april 2005 23:43
Posted To: microsoft.public.frontpage.client
Conversation: Firefox table coding
Subject: Re: Firefox table coding

No, they are not breaking the standards (in this case any way) As you
point out &nbsp; and <nobr> means that there should be no breaks and
that is according to the recommendations by W3C.

Jens,
I do not understand your point - it is not internally consistent.

Why not in all cases it means that there should be no breaks in the line
there. Where have you seen that it doesn't do that?

OH! You're saying that the only standard is ISO's standard
issued in 2000? And the W3C "only" makes recommendations?
Then why do FrontPage and I.E. even consider some of those
recommendations and some of the CSS functions -- they aren't
in the standard? But, if &nbsp; and <nobr> are only
recommendations, that is still no excuse for using them incorrectly.

Just because they are not in a Standard doesn't mean you shouldn't
support them if the browsers support them.

Talk your way out of this one -- Netscape invented the <NOBR>
tag to say "don't wrap at this point.". FrontPage 2003
proceeds to use it and puts it into linkbars -- I.E. merrily
ignores it in linkbars -- so the only impact of a NOBR in a
linkbar is to "break" the "beautifully wrapped display" when
shown in other browsers.

So you say that IE ignores the <nobr> tag? I have not noticed that to be
the case, but even if that is true it doesn't break anything in other
browsers from what I read here they correctly show it as one line so
nothing there is broken

If I.E. ignores a tag, I would NOT expect FrontPage to use it
in a way to destroy the display in another browser.

FP is a Web development tool, it is not a marketing tool for IE so if IE
has problems it will happily show them.

I would expect FrontPage to use functions in the same way that
Internet Explorer does. I expect I.E. to know how to use every tag

IE is 4-5 years old now, you can't expect it to be up to date on
everything. Happily there will soon be a new version of IE. It's long
overdue in my opinnion.

that FrontPage puts in its code -- if the tag works in I.E.
but not another browser, then the other browser can "catch
up." But, if the tag DOESN'T work in I.E. and FrontPage's
use ONLY serves to break the display in other browsers, then
FrontPage should not be using it that

Frontpages use is to let the browsers interpret tags the way they want.

way. At best, that is poor, sloppy code; at worst, it is the same
old abuse of power.

In addition, I would expect FrontPage to use an embedded IE
window to preview a webpage -- after all, Outlook and Outlook
Express do this.

Have you tried the tab at the bottom that says Preview?

But, it doesn't - it uses its own "preview" tool, with its
own unique interpretations of the standards and recommendations.

That is IE's engine you see there.

It is frustrating to view a page in FrontPage and then the
same thing in I.E. 6 and get two different displays.
Example: a horizontal navigation bar made from CSS and
<ul><li> tags is horizontal in I.E., but in Frontpage 2003's
"Preview", it shows up as vertically stacked buttons.
Result: the FP Preview screenl is worthless -- you can't
trust it, even for I.E.

And you didn't notice the warning at the top that not all could be
rendered and to use Preview in browser instead?


Regards Jens Peter Karlsen. Microsoft MVP - Frontpage.

 

[Terry Stockdale]

See inline.

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Stockdale [mailto:[email protected]]
Posted At: 1. april 2005 23:43
Posted To: microsoft.public.frontpage.client
Conversation: Firefox table coding
Subject: Re: Firefox table coding

No, they are not breaking the standards (in this case any way) As you
point out &nbsp; and <nobr> means that there should be no breaks and
that is according to the recommendations by W3C.

Jens,
I do not understand your point - it is not internally consistent.

Why not in all cases it means that there should be no breaks in the line
there. Where have you seen that it doesn't do that?

In the website specified in the post that started this thread. Since
then, he has broken the linkbar into two linkbars so other web
browsers will show linkbars on two lines -- IE was wrapping the single
linkbar that was full of nbsp; and <nobr> tags. His whole problem was
that IE wrapped the &nbsp; and <nobr> tags that FP inappropriately
used to construct the linkbar -- while other browsers obeyed the HTML
and showed extremely wide pages.

Just because they are not in a Standard doesn't mean you shouldn't
support them if the browsers support them.

Agreed. It sounded to me like you were saying they didn't matter
since they weren't in the official ISO standard.

You still have to show where FP uses &nbsp; and <nobr> incorrectly.

See the webpage that started this thread -- well, he's changed it, so
you can't now. He fixed it by breaking FP's linkbar into two linkbars
that fit in other browsers, too -- IE was wrapping the old linkbar.