Redirection

[pitzerwm]

I have placed my gallery in an iframe.  When someone gets their confirmation email at registration, it takes them to register.php which of course is outside the iframe.  Is there a place to add a redirection back to my page with the iframe in it?

I checked the search and didn't find this answered. And I checked in the documentation.  I also tried to put this in Misc, but it said that it6 couldn't reach the server.

Thanks for your time.

[pitzerwm]

Sorry forgot the link: http://www.autocareforum.com/index_frame.html

[Joachim Müller]

This has been discussed many times over - searching for the term "iframe" might have helped.
Here are just some suggestions that I posted, together with reference to the full threads:

Instead of fiddling with buggy frames/iframe solutions that have a lot of inherent drawbacks in common I suggest to come up with a custom theme instead for your coppermine gallery that makes it blend into your overall site.

To actuall accomplish that you can come up with a custom theme for the registration emails that contains a hard-coded link. You need to specify your gallery URL as suggested above for a detailed answer. Preferable, zip your custom theme folder and attach the zip to your posting as well.

I don't recommend the use of iframes, as they have drawbacks: one of them being that larger iframe content will result in scroll bars on the page.

I suggest you cure the core problem: most web designers say "frames suck"

Ouch - don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to put you down, but your page looks exactly like those pages that made me hate frames back in the mid-nineties. You have made nearly all design mistakes one could possibly make (using non-default fonts improperly, using scrollers, using background images not fit to be used as backgrounds, a right handed navigation that doesn't fit. As suggested, I'm not trying to put you down, but with this design you have more serious things to wonder about than just some scrollbars for the frame coppermine resides in.

Fix your overall design first (stop using frames!), then create a coppermine theme that matches the layout of the rest of your site.

If you don't want to do so, at least choose another coppermine theme - eyeball is not a good choice to be used inside a tiny frame because of the graphical menu. Removing the menu entirely is technically possible (and has been explained already - search the board), however I don't recommend doing this. Moving coppermine's navigation into your navigation frame is a bad idea really: after all, coppermine generates menus dynamically. As your navigation frame is not aware of this, it will display static menu items.

Sorry forgot the link: http://www.autocareforum.com/index_frame.html

Urm, way too many ads. Create a custom coppermine theme that matches your overall site layout instead of using frames - they suck. Pretty straightforward if you ask me. You will not only run into issues for registration, but for ecards and various other features as well.

[pitzerwm]

Thanks Joachim, I had read those posts, but hoped that God loved me enough that I wouldn't have those issues:o)  I'll go another direction, as for the ads, they make me a decent living.  Give the client what they want:o)

[Joachim Müller]

Well, then keep the ads and dump the iframe. As a result, your site will look much better (without the silly scroll bars) and you won't have all those issues that are inherent to the usage of frames.

[pitzerwm]

Actually, The actual home page wouldn't be an iframe, only when they clicked on Gallery, then they would go to this page which would be an iframe but actually the gallery.  I can live without it looking just like the main site.  I again thank all of you guys for creating and supporting this program.  I'm new at anything more complex than HTML, and I guess I'm not all that good at it:o)  I have learned a lot, playing with this and reading the forum (which I'm doing as we speak) for many hours.  Education is never free.

The main site is http://autocareforum.com

[Joachim Müller]

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autocareforum.com%2F nearly chokes and returns more than 100 errors.
Fix that page and I'll create you a custom coppermine theme based on your site design for free. Don't bother about cosmetical details (like missing double quotes around HTML attributes), but the serious flaws like improper nesting, missing closing tags etc. If your HTML output was valid it's a matter of some minutes to come up with a corresponding coppermine theme.

[pitzerwm]

Well, I guess that I better keep the day job:o)


Thanks for the offer, I'll take you up on it.  here is what I have now: http://www.autocareforum.biz/photogallery/index.php I think that I zipped the right files.

I'm down to 80 errors, and learning, screwing up just a fewer items than I'm fixing.  What confused me in the past was when it would say "missing >" but it was there.  I can see that its actually talking about the whole line.  My includes are slowing me down as the line numbers are off.  Thanks again.  I'm smarter today than I was yesterday.

[Joachim Müller]

Yes, that's indeed much better now.

[pitzerwm]

It would appear that most of the errors are compliance with W3.  I use Dreamweaver Studio 8 and a lot of the code is old.  So understanding the error and how to fix it, is a learning curve.  I agree that things need to be "up todate" so I'm working on it. Thanks again.

[pitzerwm]

Joachim, well I'm down to < 20 errors most in the Google sense code.  Just to learn, I started from a blank page and started adding modules.  There were some nesting errors but mostly w3 issues.  Now, I'll work on the rest of the site.  Thanks for the motivation to get it right and learn new stuff.

Not to push you any time frame for the template.

[Joachim Müller]

You already have a custom theme, and you haven't fixed the validation errors on your main page. Hence I haven't even started to create a theme for you.
Anyway, you drifted in another thread

I did, how are you doing on my "touch up" )

and

Actually, I'm becoming pretty use to/attached to "rainy day"  Thanks for the offer, though. 

and bumped this thread in those other postings, so I went ahead and created a theme for you. Attached is the theme based on your overall home page.

[pitzerwm]

Thanks Joachim, but I did post in this thread, a few days ago and you didn't catch it. 

And I did straighten out my code www.autocareforum.com from 120 errors to less than 20.  Which are mostly in the Google code.  Not because of you but just to educate myself, I went back and started with a blank sheet and rebuilt the page fixing the code as I added it. 

I really do appreciate all of your & the others hard work and care for the product.  In light of your insistence on following the rules, I have read more in the last week or so than the last month.  Good for both of us:o)

I appreciate the time you spent creating my custom template. My rainy day is just a few tweaks from the original. 

Oh yeah, www.autocareforum.biz/photogallery/ )

 

[Joachim Müller]

And I did straighten out my code www.autocareforum.com from 120 errors to less than 20.  Which are mostly in the Google code.

No, that's not the case: I strongly doubt that Google advised you to use improper code nesting. The complaints about the improperly nested form tag are only two out of nineteen. The rest is pretty easy to resolve. Take a look at http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autocareforum.biz%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=1&verbose=1&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.654 - in

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<td class="module"width="44%" align="center" valign="top">, there's only a missing space, it should be

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<td class="module" width="44%" align="center" valign="top">instead. WIth only a little more effort you could make your page compliant, so please don't stop now: you have come so far already.
You should really adopt to some indentation rules - it makes your code much more readable, especially for pages like yours with a lot of nested tables.

In light of your insistence on following the rules, I have read more in the last week or so than the last month.  Good for both of us:o)

Great to hear that. I'm very fond of your improvals.

To preview the theme I have created for you, take a look at http://www.autocareforum.biz/photogallery/?theme=acf
To go back to your theme, click http://www.autocareforum.biz/photogallery/?theme=xxx

[pitzerwm]

Thanks for you help.  That was one of the enlightenment/frustration that it was just one little thing that caused 15 problems.  I fixed the space.  Now there are 4 errors with the Google code.  The Google code is old, but what they generated and give to you, I imagine that I could go back and get a new version.  I placed that piece of code on a blank page, http://www.autocareforum.biz/googletest.html if I'm reading it right it says that you can't use "form".  Obviously, that is beyond my understanding.  I can live with 4 errors, which is actually probably just one.

Thanks again with the template, I thought you hated iframes:o)  When I uploaded the theme and switched to it, I didn't see that it was meant to or did fit in the iframe. I will play with it.

[Joachim Müller]

That error is incredibly easy to fix if you know the nesting rules of HTML. One of the reasons why using tables for page layout purposes is considered to be bad is the fact that they are composed of nested tags and one tag nesting mistake will confuse the browser and thus result in display issue in particular browsers. That's why the validator is so picky about tag nesting.

This is what you currently have:

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       <td width="44%" align="center" valign="top"><p><a href="http://www.autocareforum.com/t-shirts.html"><img src="images/140_banners/473.gif" alt="Forum T-Shirts" width="300" height="152" border="2" /></a></p><p>                      </p>

<table width="325" align="center" bgcolor="#FFCC00">
                       <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" >
                         <tr>
                           <td width="325" height="32" align="center" valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"><div align="center">
                               <input type="text" name="q" size="40" maxlength="255" value="" />
                               <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Go" />
                               <br />
                               <span class="edit-title">Google Search</span>

                               <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3818261540992887" />
                               <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" />
                               <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" />
                               <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" />
                               <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" />
                               <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" />
                             </div></td>
                         </tr>
                       </form>

                     </table></td>
and this is how it should look like:

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       <td width="44%" align="center" valign="top"><p><a href="http://www.autocareforum.com/t-shirts.html">
         <img src="images/140_banners/473.gif" alt="Forum T-Shirts" width="300" height="152" border="2" /></a></p>
         <p></p>
         <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" >
           <table width="325" align="center" bgcolor="#FFCC00">
             <tr>
               <td width="325" height="32" align="center" valign="top" nowrap="nowrap">
                 <div align="center">
                   <input type="text" name="q" size="40" maxlength="255" value="" />
                   <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Go" />
                   <br />
                   <span class="edit-title">Google Search</span>
                   <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3818261540992887" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" />
                 </div>
               </td>
             </tr>
           </table>
         </form>                      
       </td>Note that I just put the form tag around the entire table element and added proper indentation for better readability of the code. The validator complained because you had tag soup in your code: by definition only the tags <tbody> and <tr> are allowed to reside directly within the <table>-tag. Putting that <form>-tag in is just wrong. Just moving the <form>-tag one level up inside the HTML nesting puts everything right. As you can see, it's not that hard to get valid code if you know your HTML.

Finally, let me talk about the use of a separate table cell in above code: what is the use of the table suppossed to do: all table content resides within one table cell, so you don't use the feature of a table to nicely align various cells next to or on top of each other, so what's the deal? Finally, you warp the entire content of the table cell in yet another needless <div>-container. Why's that? The entire search form can be handled so much easier if you just get rid of the table bullshit: replace the one-table cell-nonsense from above with

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       <td width="44%" align="center" valign="top"><p><a href="http://www.autocareforum.com/t-shirts.html">
         <img src="images/140_banners/473.gif" alt="Forum T-Shirts" width="300" height="152" border="2" /></a></p>
         <p></p>
         <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" >
           <div style="text-align:center; width:325px; height:32px; background-color:#FFCC00">
             <input type="text" name="q" size="40" maxlength="255" value="" />
             <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Go" />
             <br />
             <span class="edit-title">Google Search</span>
             <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3818261540992887" />
             <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" />
             <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" />
          </div>
         </form>                      
       </td>Note that I have assigned all the deprecated formatting you had assigned for your table to the div container as CSS. You have to understand that there has never been a parameter "height" for the <td>-tag. Microsoft just added support for that silly attribute back in IE4, and that's what beginners use from that day one. But it's bad. It's invalid. It's stupid. Don't use it.

One final design mistake is left in that cose: the useless starting and ending of a paragraph. Of course everybody understands why you are using it. In a human converstion, one would say "I understand what you're trying to say". But: a paragraph is not the correct method to create some space between the element on top and the element beneath it. You have no control over the height of such whitespace and not guarantee that there will be whitespace at all. The paragraph tag is a logical one (similar to the <h1> to <h6>-tags, not one you should use for design purposes. What you're trying to accomplish is making sure that in front of your little custom Google search form there will be some whitespace, so you should just do that: tie the command to the element in question by assigning properties to the <form>-tag. Change the code from above to

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       <td width="44%" align="center" valign="top"><p><a href="http://www.autocareforum.com/t-shirts.html">
         <img src="images/140_banners/473.gif" alt="Forum T-Shirts" width="300" height="152" border="2" /></a></p>
         <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" style="margin-top:15px">
           <div style="text-align:center; width:325px; height:32px; background-color:#FFCC00">
             <input type="text" name="q" size="40" maxlength="255" value="" />
             <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Go" />
             <br />
             <span class="edit-title">Google Search</span>
             <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3818261540992887" />
             <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" />
             <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" />
             <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" />
          </div>
         </form>                      
       </td>and that should be it.

The discussion if you actually need that custom search form (i.e. if your site visitors actually use it) is another thing: with all the ads on the site I'd mistake it with another advert if I were a regular user. The label "Google Search" is bad and misleading and will send users away from your page. You better change the label to "search Auto Care Forum" and change the custom search form definition to do a search on your site only, similar to the search on http://documentation.coppermine-gallery.net/en/index.htm (hover your mouse over the "table of contents" block at the top left).

[pitzerwm]

Thanks for your time and patience Joachim.  I will make the changes.  Actually, it is a Google search as I get paid when people use it.  I agree with you about leading people away from your site.  I try not to unless, I'm getting paid to send them.  I'm an old fart and self taught so I appreciate the guidance.  I try to learn something every day.  My only worry is that I've killed too many braincells and I'll forget what I learn.  That is why its midnight here and I'm still reading and learning.

Thanks again.