Page width control that will work on firefox and IE

[cstmwrks]

Hello,
       My gallery is at www.hydroglove.com/galleries
My only issue has been with the header and footer. The rest of my web site will all display a width=966 and bgcolor=black.
Everything would display perfect in firefox but when the page would load in IE the gallery would scroll right off the page as the javascript buttons would load in my header. So you would see the header and footer but no gallery.
I have that issue fixed but it is at the expense of width control of the rest of the gallery. I tried to change the coppermine theme table width from 100% to 966 but this did not work and it also caused borders within the gallery to not display correctly.
My search attempts of this forum and reading and re reading the documentation have yet to zero me in on an answer, or at least one that I understand!

Thanks!
Bill

[Joachim Müller]

Upgrade first before doing anything else!

[cstmwrks]

OK.. I downloaded 1.4.19 and read the warning about not overwriting include/config.inc.php file, your anycontent.php file and your "albums" directory.  I checked the download and noted that in the include/ there is no config.inc.php , only one like this config.inc.php.sample.  Does it matter if I overwrite this or being a .sample does it even matter if I upload it?

[Gizmo]

You can overwrite the config.inc.php.sample file. It's just there to show you what the file looks like. If you have any concern that you might make a mistake then back up all the files and directories then follow the upgrade directions.

[cstmwrks]

OK I made the 1.4.19 upgrade without any issue. So before I start poking around is there a correct way to set the page width to 966 with a bg=black?  When I first set up coppermine I had the width controlled from a common table in the header.php. It worked in firefox but not IE. Attempts to change table data ( from 100% to 966 ) in the theme made no change in either browser.

Thanks for the help

[cstmwrks]

OK the more I tinker with the code it is starting to look like a freak accident that I had the gallery display as I wanted in FF.
Maybe what should be the correct question is this: By design is there a means to use the header.php file to limit the width to match the header and fill in the bgcolor of any coppermine theme?  Or is this a function of modifying a selected themes css, html and php page?

[cstmwrks]

Well I started to work on the template.html and more or less fixed the issue. I did not mean to hack away so much of the gallery but it makes it all look like a part of my web site theme. I also placed my header and footer in that html file.

[Joachim Müller]

Thanks for returning and (partially) resolving your thread. You should try to validate your custom theme - you've made some HTML mistakes that will make some browsers "burp" and result in different looks on different browsers.

[cstmwrks]

Joachim,
           Validation is yet another issue.. I did use one of the links at the bottom of the page to check that and saw some 70 errors. I then looked at my own files on my computer but they did not show the errors.. same when i checked page view from the browser. I did notice that it still does not view the same in various browsers. It now looks better in IE than FF.
    When I'm ready for a big head ache I'll try to figure out what is going on and clean it up.
Bill
   

[Joachim Müller]

I did use one of the links at the bottom of the page to check that

Don't display the vanity icons if your theme doesn't validate!

I then looked at my own files on my computer but they did not show the errors

I doubt that: your template.html contains invalid HTML markup: usage of HTML attributes for background colors, width and height are deprecated - you shouldn't use that at all. Use the corresponding CSS attributes instead. Want an example?

Code Select Expand

<td bgcolor="#DCDCDC" class="mainborder">is just bad. Better use

Code Select Expand

<td style="background-color:#DCDCDC;" class="mainborder">Got the idea? You're using a mixture of HTML and CSS to format your output, which is just a very bad idea if you want your site to be displayed the same in all major browsers. Take a look at the line

Code Select Expand

<td style="height:2" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#FF0000"><img src="../images/blank.gif" height="3" alt=""></td>You specify the height of the table cell as 2 pixels, but then you embedd a placeholder image within the table cell that is 3 pixels high? What is the browser suppossed to do? Obey to your first set of instructions or the second? Since you haven't specified what set of instructions is more important (overflow-attribute!), it's up to the browser to decide how to render.

[cstmwrks]

OK I'm starting to get the idea.. When I say my files do not show any errors I guess I should point out that I use a programmers notepad and it will only point out some typographical code errors. I do not think it helps me on what the validator is pointing out.
I'll work on it some more but I got a bit discouraged when I "cleaned up" my footer and got rid of a bunch of dead table ends and clutter... only to go from 31 errors back up to 60 or so.
Part of my code mess comes from the web site was a pro design that had a new cart added. Then a cool gallery .... Anyhow my web site is now a patch work and I am NOT an HTML pro. I know basics and with endless extra hours I can slowley and painfully get some things figured out.
I'll do some more clean up based on your examples.

[Joachim Müller]

If you think that the effort is beyond what you're willing to make (improving your HTML and CSS skills along the way), I suggest hiring a freelancer. A skilled HTML/CSS expert could make your page validate in approximately two or three hours or so. Since this doesn't have to be your friendly webdesigner next door, but could be done by a complete stranger (you wouldn't even have to grant that freelancer FTP access to your site if he knows his way around), maybe you can get a discount price. You appear to come from the US, where labor cost is comparatively high - one of the benefits of globalization is that labor cost in other countries is so much cheaper. So if I were you, I'd look for a pro from a country with small wages. You can find people with excellent skills for $5/h instead of asking the fourteen year old boy next door who hardly knows more about HTML than you do.
On the other side: you're missing all the fun if you don't do this by yourself...

[cstmwrks]

I'm still working on cleaning things up.. down to 14 errors from a high of 60. I lack the time to learn html from the ground up so I spend some time here and there trying to find the answers that fit the problem. Thanks for the hints that you did leave me. They helped allot.