Page content not displaying in IE6

dugfresh33 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 03:06 PM

Please...help me. Microsoft is killing me.

As promised in several of my last posts, I have finally provided the site for scrutiny.

I don't even know where to begin with the problems I am having. I guess I'll start with:

My site doesn't show up at all in IE 6. Every other browser I have, yes. Even IE 5 with a few quirks. But I view it in 6 and all I get is my repeated background image.
My CSS validated perfectly.
My index page validated nearly perfectly (the only thing wrong was some missing "alt" tags on two images).
Yet, no go in IE 6.

Can somebody please check the site and provide some sort of clue as to why it doesn't show up? I'm at a complete loss.

http://www.nmia.com/~dougs/ENM/index.html

Thank you, anyone, for any help you can give me. My deadline for finishing this is drawing quite near.

And to think this thing could have been finished by now using tables...

greeneagle · #2 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 03:11 PM

dugfresh33,

I get a 404 error code when trying to follow your link. Why the tilde in the URL?

Ken

dugfresh33 · #3 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 03:29 PM

"I get a 404 error..."

This is unfortunate.
I clicked on my link in my post and got there just fine. Oh, well...more confusion. I'm not surprised.

The tilde is there because that's how my ISP (NMIA) has it set up. "dougs" is my personal folder on nmia.com's server and I guess that's how you get to it.

This site is not live. I threw it up on my server for testing purposes.

One thing I noticed about when going to the site, is that it seems to be loading all of the images I use on the site (down there in the status bar), but when it's finished, it just sits there. It's almost as if the background div is coming to the top and covering all of my other divs...

dugfresh33 · #4 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 03:47 PM

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

I removed that line and the site (mostly) as it should be, showed up. What's that all about? Doesn't Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, etc. need that?

Is there any way I can keep that line in for other browsers, but hide it from IE 6?

Oh...I made this change locally, so the link I provided won't reflect this right now.

greeneagle · #5 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 06:11 PM

Yes you need a DTD,

I tried copying over your page code and there seems to be problems with the template.

vital parts of the code are noted, things are "Locked" etc. Seems like a fairly simple design why use a template?

Ken

dugfresh33 · #6 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 07:55 PM

greeneagle

What exactly do you mean by "vital parts of the code are noted"? I commented each different section for easier reference. Is that what you're referring to?

I use the template because if the client needs any changes, or if I suddenly discover a handy thing to incorporate, I can update that one file and all others are instantly updated as well. If this were going to be a 10-page site, I might not have bothered with a template, but it has the potential to be many more than that.

I thought I needed the DTD, but I have since removed all the DTD lines from all of the pages (again, locally), and they all work beautifully in Opera's, Mozilla's, and IE's browsers without it.

As far as the template is concerned, I completely removed all template code from one of the pages (in WordPad - it never touched DW) and it still buggered up in IE 6. There was absolutely no difference.

greeneagle, what browsers have you looked at the site in? Just curious.
and thanks for helping me to figure this out...

greeneagle · #7 (**permalink**) 06-23-2004, 11:59 PM

Dugfresh33,

Sorry about tne semantics, I meant to say "commented" instead of "noted".

We no longer design for specific browsers or even bother to check in any but IE6, it just takes too much time and is not necessary!

I believe these forums will help you see in a different light:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21548
http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=22623

I believe that if you take the time to read bothe you will find them monumentally helpful!

Best Regards,
Ken

HardCoded · #8 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 12:46 AM

Yeah, right, here's an example of code that validates (by the way, not quite...validate it, Dugfresh) and doesn't even show up in IE, but looks fine in FF. greenie, this is why we can't do what you are proposing!

As to why, no idea. I feel too lazy tonight to download it and play with it, but if I had to guess I'd guess at the overflow:auto line.

masterpeace · #9 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 01:09 AM

Hi Doug. I just popped in and have saved the code and will tkae a look at it soon.

Glad to have been able to help on the last prob.

Tania

masterpeace · #10 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 01:45 AM

Well I think the bug must be somewher in the CSS file and am about to look through that to find the problem.

I say this because I saved the plain source code to a folder on my desktop and went to view it in IE 6 and the content displayed OK(though without the styling of course).

When I saved the CSS to the same folder so it would link in as it did on the server the content dissppeared. I hadn't linked the images etc so the background didn't show as it did on the live page but it looks like the smae prob as the server so I am guessing it's somewhere in the CSS

I'll let you know if I find anything else...

Tania

dugfresh33 · #11 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 02:00 AM

Let's say you really enjoy a good hockey game, and you've been to every one this season. Tonight, you're going to another one. This one is really supposed to pack a good crowd. So, you drive up to the stadium parking lot and you're stopped by an attendant that informs you that from now on only those who drive Porsche Boxsters will be able to get into watch the game. Are you going to go get a Porsche Boxster or is your hockey money going to be spent on basketball tickets from now on?

You don't tell a visitor -- or, to put it more plainly, a GUEST -- that you have invited to your web site, to upgrade to the latest browser or get off the internet. How exactly does that promote traffic? How is that supposed to help your business?

Here is the cold, hard fact:
The target audience for this site is not computer savvy corporate desk jockeys. The audience is going to be low- to middle-income, stay-at-home mothers, with a crying baby in one arm and laundry in the other. Believe it or not, there are vast amounts of people out there who could give a crap about Netskate, Godzilla, Firefight, or Opus, and about what size monitor they have or how many gigawhatsies their processor has. They are rooted in the real world, with real life going on around them, and the absolute last thing they are going to worry about is obtaining the latest, standards-compliant internet browser.
I don't agree with that mentality; I believe there is a responsibility that comes with owning a computer and having internet access. Really, no different than owning a car - maintenance, maintenance, and more maintenance, or the thing dies. But, unfortunately, I'm stuck dealing with that mentality.

I was asked to do a job, and that job requires me to cater to everyone, from the homemakers to the corporate ladder climbers, from kids to legislators.

[steps down off soapbox]

So, basically, I'm left with a site that doesn't work in IE 5 or 6 until I remove the DTD - then it works in every browser, including IE 5, 5.5, and 6.

While it would be nice to live in the perfect world of standards compliancy, I'm at the point where I'll just live with a site that works.

...and I haven't even told you guys about IE's crazy glitch with the "title" attribute yet...

dugfresh33 · #12 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 02:11 AM

Thank you once again, masterpeace, for looking into this for me. I appreciate your diligence. I'm holding my breath in anticipation of your insight...

As for the "browser wars" topic (and my soapbox ranting above), here is an awesome article on IE, bugs, standards, and other browsers. This is exactly how I am going to approach people about switching.

Here's an excerpt:
"... 1. Due to the combination of ActiveX, scripting, and its integration with the Windows operating system, Internet Explorer is more vulnerable to attack than many other browsers.
2. The designers of Internet Explorer have purposely turned their back on the standards designed to benefit the Internet as a whole. They have done this for years, continue to do it today, and appear to have nothing but their own interests at heart.

I ask that you consider these points and pull down a copy of Firefox, Opera, or another alternative browser. Run it for a week and see how it feels. ..."

Here is the link to that article:
Why you should dump Internet Explorer

masterpeace · #13 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 02:17 AM

Well I haven't completely debugged it, the main problem causing the conent to "disapear" seemed to be the CSS class ".siteContainer". By changing this to an id "#siteContainer" in the CSS and the tag from <div class="siteContainer"> to <div id="siteContainer> the content is showing up fine.

The problem now comes (which I have encountered before) where IE tends to ignore the height:100% and you effectively loose the background colour and border of the "siteContainer".

There are ways to fix this in the CSS but I haven't time now to look at the structure of the nested divs etc to see the best way to get around it as I have "real" work I have to get onto, but if no-one else steps in I will try have a better lkook at that later.

Tania

dugfresh33 · #14 (**permalink**) 06-24-2004, 02:36 AM

masterpeace

you're awesome, thanks. I will make that change right away.

I've been doing some reading on the IE hacks for the 100% thing. I'll give some a try and let you guys know whether or not they worked.

appreciate all the help.

I'm going to bed now...

masterpeace · #15 (**permalink**) 06-28-2004, 12:24 AM

Sorry I was busy over the weekend but I had a look and it seems you sorted the problem of the background colour of the main content box disappearing.

Just one thing I noticed I thought I'd mention. The additional scrollbar (which I assume is part of the CSS for the mainContentbox but haven't double checked) seems odd. Was that intentional?

Tania

dugfresh33 · #16 (**permalink**) 06-28-2004, 12:46 AM

I thought this thread was dead and buried...

Thanks for not forgetting the little guy...

Your advice was much appreciated and heeded - but for some reason it never worked for me. This is not to say that you were wrong; I expect things not to work for me like they do for everyone else. It's just one of those quirky (like IE...hmmm) things that make my life so interesting.

What you saw was the "in-progress, for approval" version of the site I just posted for the client today (Sunday). I had to remove the DTD completely for full x-browser compliancy...well, maybe "compliancy" is not the right word for it...but it's the only way it worked.

So, here's my thinking: The site will go live without the DTD (deadlines, my friends, deadlines) and while users of IE 5.5/6.0, Netscape, Moz, FB, FF, and Opera are busy surfing it, I will be busy troubleshooting and, more than likely, redesigning it so that it works as intended. I really don't like things that have no apparent reason for doing what they do - it makes me nervous.

But...the "Resource Center" links (Kids' Corner, Parents' Place, and Donation Station) all work fine: all CSS; all with XHTML 1.0 Trans DTDs; all perform flawlessly in ALL the browsers I have to test with.

O.K. Now for the good stuff (this is a moot point because apparently I missed Microsoft's IE 5 recall, but humor me anyway):
My CSS hover on a text link works fine (in IE 5).
Then I add a "title" to the tag.
Now the hover sends the content flying approximately one mile down the page (in IE 5).
I remove the "title" and all is well again (in IE 5).

This would make sense only if it held true for ALL elements that used the "title" attribute - but such was not the case...

That one keeps me awake at night.

dugfresh33 · #17 (**permalink**) 06-28-2004, 01:08 AM

Sorry...I blew past one of your questions...

Yes, that scrollbar is an intentional part of the siteContainer div. The entire site is contained in that 624 pixel box and I thought having the scrollbar closer to the navigational links on the page would be handier than flying back and forth across the screen to click a link after scrolling and vice-versa. Of course, this is handier only if you have a 1024 x 768 monitor res and you've maximized the browser. If I get complaints from the client or the users, I'll change it.

Thanks for everything. This is not the last you'll hear from me as I am hooked on CSS and the power it holds, and thus I am bent on learning as much as I can to make sure I do it right. As I said before, having a document out there that works but shouldn't, makes me nervous...

Tally-ho,

Niko Holopainen · #18 (**permalink**) 06-29-2004, 06:08 AM

Works fine on IE 6 & Firefox and I for one am not forgetting to test on other browsers, personally I use mainly Firefox and 8% of our visitors use something other than IE - I'm not ruining my site's impressions with dedication to only IE.

Neat design and courageous use of colors, neat!

masterpeace · #19 (**permalink**) 06-30-2004, 03:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugfresh33

As I said before, having a document out there that works but shouldn't, makes me nervous...

Ditto on that one!

I just got round to checking back in on this thread and it's got me puzzled... I've downloaded the new CSS and source and am determined to get to the bottom of this puzzle...

dugfresh33 · #20 (**permalink**) 06-30-2004, 12:45 PM

masterpeace,

This is certainly one of those things that gets you scratching your head, isn't it? (Or in my case, pulling all of my hair out.)

And thank you again for dedicating so much time to this... :)

The funny thing is, everything I've done since this, works. The Donation Station Resource Center, The Parents' Place, the Kids' Corner...they all work as I intended them to (though I'm still tweaking the Kids' Corner from a design standpoint). I'm working on my personal site, which was done in tables initially, and I'm converting it to pure CSS...and it works perfectly. If anything, my more recent designs are pushing the CSS envelope more than this ENM thing.

I've been thinking about some of the weird problems, and have come up with a theory...just haven't gotten around to trying it yet. It goes a little something like this:
The main site container (the one with the scrollbar) is constrained to a fixed width, like most everything else on the site. Maybe that width is too precise and doesn't allow for IE's margin/padding/extra 3-pixel thing. I've thought that maybe if I bump the width out by 5 pixels or so, it might fix a lot of the strange box behavior.

Niko,

Quote:

I'm not ruining my site's impressions with dedication to only IE.

I hear ya!

Quote:

Neat design and courageous use of colors, neat!

Thanks! "...courageous use of colors..." — That's what I was thinking! Well put. (I assume you were referring mostly to the "Kids' Corner" page?) Actually, I'm having the hardest time leaving that page alone. I wanted it to be a little loud because it's for kids...but, I'm not happy with it yet.

masterpeace · #21 (**permalink**) 06-30-2004, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugfresh33

I'm working on my personal site, which was done in tables initially, and I'm converting it to pure CSS...

I don't know if you looked at the code for my site but it is LONG overdue for an update! I did it about 12 months ago before I got into CSS and I have been so busy with clients work I haven't got round to fixing my own!

I am thinking of a complete re-design anyway and have some ideas on what I want to do which will push my CSS knowledge further. I'm also in the process of working through the "Visual Quickstart" book on PHP and MySQL and I hope to eventually be able to set up my sites portfolio using PHP/MySQL... It will be a good practical test and as I have a couple of clients who have art galeries etc it would be a great start to enabling my clients to have more control over content update...

But one step at a time!

masterpeace · #22 (**permalink**) 07-01-2004, 12:35 PM

Well I have got a little further with it and the background etc work fine in IE 6 & Mozilla... but I'm not sure now about older browsers...

I had to remove the template markup, but the htm and CSS are in a zip file here

To start with I added teh DDT and then played with the CSS to see what affected it...

There was an error in the original CSS on line 69. The "z-index: 0" had no semi colon at the end.

Also I noticed that you had used the ID "sideNavContainer" twice... ONe of the things with ID's is they must be unique so I changed that back to a class.

From there I tweaked... Getting the layout to work involved altering the way the box model worked a bit. I could get the basics to work OK but then "siteContainer" background disappeared. TO get around this I converted some of the positioning to use float & clear which I have found useful in the pat to get around similar problem.

The only thing that is now causeing me frustration is that IE 6 has lost the scrollbar on the "siteContainer"!

If nothing else, maybe the files I have done will give you a comparison and some moreideas on alternative ways of acheiving the end goal...

I always enjoy a puzzle.. but I guess I had better get back to work!

Let us know how it all ends. Tania[/code]

dugfresh33 · #23 (**permalink**) 07-01-2004, 04:12 PM

masterpeace,

where to start...?

How 'bout with the obvious: THANK YOU! VERY, VERY MUCH! I'll stop yelling now...

Quote:

used the ID "sideNavContainer" twice... ONe of the things with ID's is they must be unique

I knew something about that was bugging me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I just chalked it up to the fact that it looked weird because of the "#" — I was so used to seeing "." Thank you for that...can't believe I overlooked it.

Quote:

I added teh DDT

Ahh...returning to a bit of normalcy at last....

Quote:

IE 6 has lost the scrollbar

Of course it has! But it's not IE's fault...it was just built that way. And like Frankenstein, never had a say in the matter...

I am suffering from a lack of sleep right now (web site's due and daughter's sick on top of the full-time job) so I will check out those files you did as soon as I get a chance.

Again, thank you so much for your invaluable help.

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