MsSpacer.gif

  • Thread starter Thread starter sol
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sol

Sometimes FrontPage asks to Save Embedded Files and there is this
MsSpacer.gif to be saved. What does it do exactly? Does it have to be in the
images folder?

I found this information in this thread
http://groups.google.com.tr/groups?q=msspacer.gif&hl=tr&lr=&selm=B7AA79FA-1B
5B-4A09-BE22-A2810E0C192A%40microsoft.com&rnum=2
The spacer.gif is automatically inserted
by DW to keep empty cells from collapsing.
FP requires you to manually insert them.
DW calls it spacer.gif and FP calls it MsSpacer.gif.



Why do empty cells collapse?



Thanks
 
They don't really collapse, but they look like they do. A background color
doesn't show in an empty cell, and neither do cell borders.

The spacer is a transparent GIF image that can be resized and used to 'shim'
your layout into place. It's the only way I know of (other than CSS, of
course) to guarantee that a table cell will not be narrower than the width
of the spacer image.
 
I never had them on my sites until I started making rounded corners in 03,
and the image is not in any of the sites that do not have rounded corners.
All the sites have tables of some sort with empty cells.
 
But do you have two spaces in your empty cells or a single   ?

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================
 
No.

Thomas A. Rowe said:
But do you have two spaces in your empty cells or a single   ?

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================
 
Try giving your table a background color and you will see the problem with
such empty cells.

You should have content in all of them.
 
No, even if there is no content in a cell, it just collapses without any
msspacer.gif inserted.
It's only inserted in the rounded corners.
 
A cell does not collapse. It still has the dimensions required by the table
itself. It just will not take a background color or a border. Or maybe I'm
not understanding what you are saying - showing me code would be a good way
to fix that.
 
OK. So my comment is that cells do not collapse. They can't, of course,
since other cells in the row/column constrain their dimensions. But, with
no content, they will not take on a background color and will not show
borders.
 
Yes, agree, collapse seems not to be correct terminology although the cells
*appear* to collapse. Maybe shrink? My tables show the background colors
as well as the default page background in empty cells but not the *cell*
borders. I use a *.* in empty cells with the text color matching the table
background to force the cell borders to display.
 
A cell that is forced to be 150px wide and 50px tall by the other cells in
its row/column or by the table's structure, will retain those dimensions
whether it has content or not.
 
For example - take a look at this code -

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no">
<meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="No">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">
</head>

<body>
<div style="background-color:yellow; width:155px;">
<table width="150" border="1">
<tr>
<td>&nbsp; </td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

The cell with no content is clearly as tall as the adjacent cell (which
contains the &nbsp; character - about 20px). Its width is determined by the
overall table structural specification of 150px. If you change that value,
you will see both cells change widths. Yet there is no 'collapse' of the
cell with no content other than that determined by the table itself.
 
This is way off the subject. The original poster wanted to know why there
was a MsSpacer.gif in their web. Someone replied that it was placed by FP
because they had empty table cells. I disagreed and said it is used when
you use the FP03 rounded table borders feature.
 

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