OK in IE6 but not in IE7 or Firefox

[mendicott]

I started this project using one of those canned templates that come with DW. I manipulated it every-which way, and now I am dealing with issues!
:mad:

http://www.neuro-ortho.org/test-web/brain-tumor/index.htm

Basically the “footer layer” is always coming up higher and over the “content layer” and the “pagecell1 layer—which is in back of the “content layer” is not staying in back. It could be a browser issue because in IE6 it is fine. The problem is that Firefox, which is pretty-much a straight-forward browser, is not displaying it correctly and neither is IE7.

(I have a small corner layer out of place that I am aware of)

I would really appreciate anyones help!:confused:

[drhowarddrfine]

IE, all versions, are the worst browsers on the planet. While IE7 is somewhat better, it does not compare to Firefox or Opera or other modern browsers. So, if it works in IE6 but not the others, something is horribly wrong.

If this code is part of DW or created by DW, it is another reason never to touch that program for generated files. Validate your html for that list of errors and then validate your css for that list.

If you do fix all that, then get it working in Firefox first. Then we can adjust for IEs quirks and bugs.

[mendicott]

Thanks for the advice.

I didn't want to go through the list of issues that all pertain to IE and netscape. I know that the DW code is clunky, but I have no choice—I am a rookie when it comes to web scripts.

[drhowarddrfine]

I didn't become a web developer because I did or did not have DW. I would guess most of us never touch the thing.

[mendicott]

What kind of editing software would you suggest instead of DW

[WebJoel]

A good HTML-editor is "EditPlus2". You can switch between 'code-view' and 'view-page' modes, to see what you are creating. EditPlus2 color-code highlights your lines, making it easier to spot errors or warnings like tag with missing closing bracket or missing quotes, etc.

Sadly, DW is still required knowledge for web page builders that work for an employer. (I've seen job postings that list Dreamweaver as required skill)..

You could stand to acquire a few really good multi-browser templates to draw from. Start with this:

www.strangebanana.com

Generated on-the-fly, never-before-seen templates that, generally, are valid (most are ugly though, -only one of every 10 or 20 are mildy palatable). FREE for use, personal AND commercial (you can take one and fill it with content for public use). You'd probably want to modify the template alot, though (because they are rather unattractive and waste screen-space).

But from these, you will learn what does what, -acquire new abilities. Change
'em, fix 'em, bust 'em? -Get aother one, -they're FREE. :D
Heck, -I used to have a folder with 40 or 50 strangebanana-seeded templates... now, I just write my own as it's faster than trying to get a nice-looking template and then tweaking the sizes to fit my ideas...

[drhowarddrfine]

From what I hear, DW is fine if you only use it in codeview. I wouldn't trust the browser because it (still?) has an IE slant. I only use a simple editor I'm comfortable with (not available on Windows) and view in Firefox while I'm testing. Never needed anything else.

[mendicott]

Thanks for the all the helpful info.

[toicontien]

Your problem stems mainly from a hack to get IE-Win to support the min-height CSS functionality. In your style for .feature {}, you've got height: 220px;. You also have a style declaration for html > body .feature with nothing in it. Do this:
html>body .feature {
height: auto;
}
Notice also that there are no spaces around the '>' character. Since the space character in a style sheet can be interpreted as the "descendant selector," I almost never put spaces in the tag selectors portion of a declaration unless I intend to use that space as a descendant selector.

Internet Explorer, versions 6.0 and older do not support min-height or min-width. In the .feature declaration, you see min-height, but only IE7 and standards browsers support that. The height: 220px; was thrown in there for IE6 and older, which also takes advantage of another IE-Win bug. IE6 and older will expand a box if its contents are too big, which does not follow the W3C standard. So in html>body .feature, it sets the height back to auto, and lets the browser adjust the height of that element. This too takes advantage of another IE-Win shortfall.

Internet Explorer 6 and older doesn't support the child selector '>', so IE6 and older ignores the declaration html>body .feature. Thus, all browsers get height: 220px, and only IE7 and standards browsers get the min-height. Then only IE7 and Standards browsers get the following declaration setting the height back to auto. This is how min-height is hacked for IE 5 and 6 support.

[mendicott]

YES! Thanks a lot... HUGE help! Thanks for takin the time....