Bad Devore. No soup for you.

Hobbes

erm, the boards look kind of sucky.

Look the drop down lists up the top will you, they don't fit properly. Either that or make the names shorter.

Also what is WebMaster? Is this for site related posts?

Oh yea, Tech should have..

Support
R&D
Webmaster.

Work have...
Jobs available.
Looking for Jobs.

Cloud

Actually I've been fiddling with things Hobbes, send all hate mail to cloud@hatemail.com.

Hobbes

Your replies counter isn't working.

Cloud

Erk!

Hobbes

Looks like it's working now.

Another thing. I notice that the drop down lists are using Javascript? How about having it if the user doesn't have Javascript switched on they don't seem them?

Cloud

How about NOT!

Shiminay

Shot Cloud

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

the celtic tiger

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

tct

---

I'm a bicycle!!


In all seriousness....the greatest place on earth!

Cloud

Okay, the nasty drop down menus have been replaced with beautifully coded DHTML by jon@spinsol.com (AKA Talliesin) - super job and thanks!

Hobbes

That might explain why the list up top is all a blob.

goes..

games
quake
unreal
halflife

into the thread.

Think it's because the browser can't reconise DIV so it still processes the TABLE in the HTML.

Also you might want to set your small fonts to 9pt. To windows user it has absolutly no effect. To the MAC it actually makes it readable. Also if someone is using International fonts (eg. Thailand ) they won't see pigeon scratchings.

Talliesin

It's kinda meant to go on down over the rest of the content. Since it only appears briefly at the beginning and then after that only if you mouseover "after hours" it doesn't matter that it is covering up other content, since you aren't reading that content at the time.

Formatting should be changed I agree. I expected Cloud would want to change the formating. Maybe Cloud though I wouldn't like him fiddling with the code.

Aren't misunderstandings fun?

Hobbes

Originally posted by Talliesin:
It's kinda meant to go on down over the rest of the content.

Yea but if you don't have scripting enabled it looks like a blob up top and messy. I have different security settings for different zones (eg. Working at home, high securirty, Work, slightly lower).

Draco

Please do something about that pop down appearing when you load the page - it's bloody irratating! It should only appear when I point at it.

Draco

[This message has been edited by Draco (edited 23-05-2000).]

Hobbes

If you don't have scripting enabled and go to a page that uses scripting then things are going to look weird, that's the price you pay.

Erm no, that's called bad coding. Supposing I was blind? The page would be a mess to read.

The menu still works without scripting, it just doesn't look that pretty.

That's an understatement And the menu doesn't work for me with no scripting. I can see the menu running into the topics but the links can't be accessed and it overruns the other link to move around.

If you are going to turn off scripting you should also turn off css

It's not something I can do in this browser. Scripting is switched off due to security reasons. The problem isn't the CSS it's because the browser is doing what it's supposed to do, display everything it understands. It understands the TABLE just not the DIV and LAYER sections which would make it look nice.

Don't assume everyone is using Windows. I'm using a MAC. Anything under 9pt is totally unreadable.

As far as I remember isn't there a way to externally link sections of HTML using CSS. This would mean it would only pull it in if your CSS enabled?



[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 23-05-2000).]

mewso

Yeah the problem is with the CSS layering or JS. It should not keep appearing briefly every time I switch pages. By the way I haven't checked but it would still technically be JS since DHTML is a soup of HTML, JS and CSS.
Someone needs to pay a visit to Webmonkey:-
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/

No offence like.

M

P.S. Just a though. Is visibility set to hidden for that drop down menu in it's style definition? I ask because it looks like it starts visible but then after a delay the JS suddenly gets around to rendering it hidden whereas if it is defined in the stylesheet as hidden to begin with then it won't appear.

[This message has been edited by musician (edited 23-05-2000).]

Kali

it only appears when you load the page in IE.
Netscape is grand (for once)

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http://www.filmsoc.com

Talliesin

Erm no, that's called bad coding. Supposing I was blind? The page would be a mess to read.

The code is 100% backwards compatible. non-dHTML browsers (including Lynx, on which it has been tested and Braile readers) will get the menu, but not the effect. A bit of a waste of screen real-estate, but it works. You are getting half-working dHTML code because you've set your browser to half-perform dHTML.

If you are going to turn off scripting you should also turn off css

It's not something I can do in this browser. Scripting is switched off due to security reasons.

What browser are you using. To my knowledge css can be turned of in all css browsers except some variants of IE4. NS4 allows you to turn it off directly, IE5 follows the standard and allows user css to over-ride author css. I do not use !important in it.

Does your browser allow you to turn off the potentially dangerous scripting abilities (file access, copy & paste) without affecting the rest? If so I'd recommend it.

The problem isn't the CSS it's because the browser is doing what it's supposed to do, display everything it understands. It understands the TABLE just not the DIV and LAYER sections which would make it look nice.

If it understands <table> then it will display above (orthogonally, not covering)the main content table. If it understands <div> but not css it will also display like this. If it understands css and/or <layer> it will display the menu over the top of the content below. Any of these count as "the browser is doing what it's supposed to do". The problem is that it does understand the cssp and/or the <layer> but is not allowed to alter anything affecting that.

Don't assume everyone is using Windows. I'm using a MAC. Anything under 9pt is totally unreadable.

Personally I'd never use anything below 10pt. I copied the rendering previous. I have no problems with changing this if Cloud or DeVore ask me to.

As far as I remember isn't there a way to externally link sections of HTML using CSS. This would mean it would only pull it in if your CSS enabled?

Yes, but this is irrelevant here. The css is a small piece in style attributes on some of the tags, the difference in download time of receiving this code is negliable even on a poor connection. The main rendering speed issue with this (and other UBB) site is the rendering issues of tables. style="table-layout: fixed;" on the table tags would speed this up for IE5. On other browsers a major change in the formatting would be the only solution.

By the way I haven't checked but it would still technically be JS since DHTML is a soup of HTML, JS and CSS.

Strictly speaking DHTML is HTML which is altered after initial rendering. Altering css properties is one way of doing this, but not the only one. js is one of the methods of doing this but not the only one (applets or other scripting languages can also be used, but there are issues of compatibility amongst other things).

Someone needs to pay a visit to Webmonkey

Yep, not a bad place for you to start.

Is visibility set to hidden for that drop down menu in it's style definition? I ask because it looks like it starts visible but then after a delay the JS suddenly gets around to rendering it hidden whereas if it is defined in the stylesheet as hidden to begin with then it won't appear

Yep. This would generally be a better solution. The reason I did it the way I did, (and the reason I used the stupid, ill-though of <layer> tag that should never have been added to NS) Is that some sub-versions of NS4 have issues identifying cssp elements in its document model. As a work around for this bug I have the div in a layer tag (which IE sensibly ignores like the bad idea it is) and then kills it's visibility onload. In a while I'll get around to a slightly better solution (should be some time today).

Talliesin

Okay. I've altered it slightly so that it doesn't appear as it loads for IE4+. There may be a few cases where trying to use it before onload with NS4 would mean that the contents are not yet visible (but after all, the page hasn't loaded, some stuff ain't visible until it has).

I'm a bit worried that this change may break it for some versions of NS4.x please let me know if anyone finds this.

Hobbes

I'm using IE4.5 for the Mac (PPC).

I just checked and I do have CSS on and all scripting forms off (exception is plug ins which I have control over). If both were part of the same thing I would assume that they would disable both? But I don't think that's the case, Scripting just enhances CSS in the same way it does with HTML.

Anyway Muso's suggestion of making it invisible on creation seems to have solved the problem.

mewso

Anyway nice job Tal. I'm working on an ASP site now but I don't know if I'll ever brave CSS. PHP or VBS is nice and easy for a loafer like me.

M

Bard

All the sites I'm working on now are a healthy mix of ASP, standard HTML, a little (very little) JavaScript and CSS. CSS has been seen by most serious designers as a definite way forward and an integral part in all future sites, and although it's not without it's failings, I'd agree.

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 23-05-2000).]

Talliesin

If you don't have scripting enabled and go to a page that uses scripting then things are going to look weird, that's the price you pay. The menu still works without scripting, it just doesn't look that pretty.
If you are going to turn off scripting you should also turn off css, or at least cssp (write css overriding all cssp values). Well written dHTML will work in non-dHTML browsers, albiet less prettily. Having js off but css on makes the browser semi-dHTML and weird things are going to happen.

Personally I recommend just killing the paste, drag-and-drop, and such functions not the whole script engine.

Shiminay

I think it looks lovely!

plyd Tallesian!

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Talliesin

Scripting just enhances CSS in the same way it does with HTML.

True. In this case it fiddles with the css property for whether something is visible or not. The earlier problem was caused by the css visibility property being set to visible to begin with. This has been changed, however I have a suspicion that a bug I have encountered a few times with early sub-versions of NS4.x (esp. below 4.5) may cause issues this way, but I haven't heard complaints to this effect yet. If there are no such complaints I may try a slighly different version which doesn't use the <layer> tag, so the code can be standards compliant.

I don't know if I'll ever brave CSS

You should try it. Most CSS is quite simple. It also cuts down your work load and removes the need for crap like <font> and other formatting tags that should never have been put into HTML, but were because someone working on NS2 placed looking more impressive higher on his/her list of priorities than having a clue.

The main issue with css is that some browsers (esp. NS4) have very buggy css rendering. Older browsers without css will work fine, but without the css info.

cssp is a subset of css which allows items to be positioned accurately on the screen and for their visibility to be turned on or off, like this menu does. javascript can then change those items position and visibility. It isn't the hardest thing in the world, but there are a few issues with cross-browser compatibility.

mewso

What I was getting at was not that I don't see the value of CSS, not that I have never touched it. Just that right now I'm doing websites for my employer that require database access. The day I'm getting paid good money to do this I'll go headlong into CSS. Right now I'll use it sparingly because I'm a lazy *******.

M