I HATE Internet Explorer! Grrrr!!!

[bmwman91]

So I am re-doing my website, because I want to get rid of the iFrames I am using. I like having the menu on 1 page only, and just needing to make content pages to fill in my iFrame, but as many know, frames are old stuff, and are a problem when linking to pages.

So, I am re-writing it so every page has the menu, and rather than using a table, I am going to just use <div>'s, the main content one with a scrollbar.

It will look the same as before. Top DIV frame with the menu 120px tall, 32px tall bottom frame with contact info & stuff, and the main frame taking the rest of the vertical space.

Well, absolute positioning is what I was using, checking the page in FireFox as I went. I left 5px spaces at the top & bottom. Well, I checked it in IE, and naturally, IE DOES NOT SUPPORT ABSOLUTE POSITIONING! S.O.a.B.!!!!!! Freakin' MS not wanting to play the game the rest of the world does. Bunch of arrogant b******s.

So, anyone have any way they know of to do this layout without tables, as in just CSS? Thanks a million. Your MSIE f****d-me-in-the-a*s stories are welcome as well.

[bmwman91]

Well, OK, if I HAVE to use a table, OK. I just want to maintain XHTML compliance, strict if possible. I noticed that CSS has table attributes it can add to an element (not to a <table>, it looks like it is a replacement for the <table> tag>. Anyone know a little more about this?

[sheepdog]

While I can help on some (I hate css and some newer code), I can give you some help on the menu setup.

The menu setup you are describing is a royal pain in the ass. I used to do similar, unfortunately any change to the menu resulted in updating every page. Fine when you have 5 or 10 pages. When you crack 50, things get rediculous. 200 and you are ready to kill someone.

Use a PHP include command. This allows you to use one page witha menu on it that will be used over and over again, without using a frame. Basically it allows you to ***** a page inside a table.


If you look at the page on www.bikeguide.org, there is 6 (?) pages you are looking at (possibly one or 2 more).
1. top
2. advertisements
3. quotes generator
4. side menu
5. main section
6. bottom


When I update each page it immediately updates each other page as it is not actaully coded into the page. This is extremely handy as you can make site-wide updates very fast. Color schemes can be alterred in seconds. It also creates clean code as you do not need headers in all of the linked pages and the browser is not downloading a menu on every refresh (it remains in cache).

[bmwman91]

EDIT:
Wow, it is simple to include stuff. Lol, I was an idiot and had the index page that called the other files still using an .htm extension. Changed it to .php, and it called up my other files no prob! Thanks sheepdog!

ORIGINAL:
Yeah, that was exactly why I used frames, so i would not have to update a bunch of pages. A buddy of mine who did my college newspaper's site does a menu-per-page, then has Mambo or somethign go through & update every one when needed...still seems sort of archaic to me.

Someone (may have been you) a while back suggested the PhP include dealy. I looked into it and was quite overwhelmed. Now, maybe it is some simple lieel statement to have a DIV filled with soem other HTML file, but somehow, at the end of the afternoon I had installed Apache server software 7 all sorts of stuff that a Google search told me I needed to have to check my PhP code without having to upload it to my server every time I needed to check changes.

So, is there a real quick simple way to state that i want X.htm to fill a DIV in Y.htm? If I had figured this out a year ago, I would probably not be re-doing my site! I would look through the bike site's code, but PhP is invisible to the viewer, no, as it is server-side executed?

Thanks!

[sheepdog]

EDIT:
Wow, it is simple to include stuff. Lol, I was an idiot and had the index page that called the other files still using an .htm extension. Changed it to .php, and it called up my other files no prob! Thanks sheepdog!

ORIGINAL:
Yeah, that was exactly why I used frames, so i would not have to update a bunch of pages. A buddy of mine who did my college newspaper's site does a menu-per-page, then has Mambo or somethign go through & update every one when needed...still seems sort of archaic to me.

Someone (may have been you) a while back suggested the PhP include dealy. I looked into it and was quite overwhelmed. Now, maybe it is some simple lieel statement to have a DIV filled with soem other HTML file, but somehow, at the end of the afternoon I had installed Apache server software 7 all sorts of stuff that a Google search told me I needed to have to check my PhP code without having to upload it to my server every time I needed to check changes.

So, is there a real quick simple way to state that i want X.htm to fill a DIV in Y.htm? If I had figured this out a year ago, I would probably not be re-doing my site! I would look through the bike site's code, but PhP is invisible to the viewer, no, as it is server-side executed?

Thanks!
No problem, it will probably change the way you build sites from now on, it did for me.

The command is actually server side, which is why you do not see the code. The browser, much less the person, cannot even tell.

You should be able convert your site pretty easily.



As for the original problem regarding absolute positioning, it can be done so it works in all browsers, however it is a bit more difficult. You need to use an invisible gif to force the table sizes and spacing. Like I said, it can be done, but it is a hassle.

[kramerica5000]

I'm a full-time web designer and am fluent in CSS. Let me know if you want me to look at something or if you want some CSS tips.

BTW, CSS is the shiz

[bmwman91]

I'm a full-time web designer and am fluent in CSS. Let me know if you want me to look at something or if you want some CSS tips.

BTW, CSS is the shiz

CS IS the shiz. I loved it about 10 minutes after I read about it.

Sheepdog: I am in-process of converting the site. Most of my time was spent cleaning up the style sheet, getting rid of old .classes and stuff. There was a lot of garbage in there! Now that it is mostly worked out things are gonna go nice and smooth. PhP lets me get around the IE not updating external CSS's too...the include function sure is nifty! I think I will learn more about this server-side scripting!

I did away with the fixed-width/height site. I just made it a large percentage of the window width, and it is not vertically-locked anymore. It is just easier to view when you can scroll the whole page, rather than just a frame.

The site while being constructed is chilling here:
http://www.e30tuner.com/e3tcphp/
Progress will hopefully be made daily!

It IS a pain uploading the updated file to my server every time to view changes, but I guess once I have the style sheet 100% ironed out it'll be pretty easy. I guess I should look into trying to edit the files ON the server, rather than using copies on my HDD. Any suggestions, IF this is even possible? Thanks all!

[sheepdog]

Glad to see you get rid of the fixed width. Always been a pet peive of mine, as well as compatibility between browsers and not checking speeds from an outside source or modem (of course your 5 meg site runs fast on your intranet, dumbass, try it on 56k!). Fixed width always seemed like taking the easy way out. Too many people use different width screens so why build for one size, when a little more effort allows for any. Why have a big monitor if you are only going to sites running 800x600?



I just never looked into style sheets enough.

I used to do full time web design, but I quickly realised the company was making me stupid and I was learning less and less due to their way of running the company. When I quit I was also so burned out that 6 years later, I still hate doing web work. Basically I can do anything without it anyhow, but I am slowly working getting a better handle on it.


Not that it matters much, at this point I only do web work for friends/companies in desperate need of web work. I will bail someone out, but I will only take on a new site from scatch if I have to.