Board Width...

[mowdak1]

Anyone else seeing problems with the default template being used on the main board?? My monitors I have to scroll back and forth about 250 - 300 px to get everything on the monitor. It is however only on this template, the others run fine. Run all machines around here at 1024 x 768 and I can't believe everyone here is viewing at 1280 x 1024. Although our fearless leader may be.

If I'm not mistaken Chris the problem lies in the header graphic - http://www.theimportkiller.com/images/forums2.jpg - being 900 px wide. You need to resize that image to 760 px or so wide for 1024 res, 800 x 600 probably isn't a consideration given your target market here. Consideration must be given for the padding and margins in the template, which typically are not fluid, they're a fixed width as a rule. And, you pick up proobably 130 - 150 px on either end of that graphic in such, so you have to allow room for it.

[Chris]

The whole entire website is optimized for 1024x768 resolution (because that's what my laptop is, and the machine I made the site on - lol) using FireFox.

If you're using IE or any resolution below 1024x768 the forum will look fucked up.

[n0t y0 B!tch]

I use Helios Multi (in blue ) in IE and have no problems

[mowdak1]

Hey you're right... it goes to the age old problem of IE vs. Mozilla interpretation of padding and margins, wherein IE renders padding and margins differently than the mozilla browsers. Works fine in Fried Fox because the padding is substantially reduced between the image and borders on the templates. God I hate that shit! Why can't the browser folks just all get their shit together! There is no reason a web designer should have to design around the individual little quirks found in all of the browsers in the world. They should all work the same!!

But that having been said, you do realize that in that respect... you're designing for less than 10% of the viewing public! 

Not a problem dude, I can view in either or scroll.

[Chris]

Well IE is just plain & simple shit.

I could not for the fucking life of me get the forums to look correctly with my banner image in IE.

[mowdak1]

IE is something like the Edsel actually, it is ahead of it's time. Where IE runs into most of it's issues is in the fact that it allows for correction of errors on the webmasters' parts. Mozilla browsers don't do that, you have to work harder to find perfection, but once there it is perfect according to the Gods of the Internet at W3C. IE however assumes certain things are going to be broke by webmasters, because they usually are, especially if designed in Front Page, because it screws up and it's a prominent noob web designer tool, and they adjust acordingly for the anticipated screw ups, but they don't make allowances for those sites that aren't broke, so everything that's right gets all screwed up.

There are some serious differences in all browsers, and many point fingers at IE and suggest that it is all their fault, but they are not the only one who sins. I designed a fluid page with 30 px margin, 2 divs, set one absolute off top and left and floated the other right. I essentially defined that I wanted both divs with margins to add up to about 30 px shy of the width of the browser, to leave a gap between the two divs, or about 44% for each div in 1024, I got that in IE. Worked perfect, the math all fit, 30 px + 30 px + 30 px + 26 px for scrollbar leaves you with right at 90% of the width of the browser, I ran my center space a little wide in IE to allow for better resolution in 800 x 600.

When I pulled the damn thing up in Fired Fox or Nutscrape and tried it I had to reduce those divs to 37% to prevent them from overlapping and get the same gap between the divs. And, even then they were butted up tight in 800 x 600. If you do the math there Mozilla's shit ain't altogether copasetic either. The CSS gurus want to argue that it's IE's problem, that it isn't handling the margins and padding correctly, but as I told them 30px+30px+30px+26px does not, no way in hell, add up to 26% of 1024 px I don't give a damn how you slice it! And, in that both divs were fluid in design the gap between the two divs should not disappear in 800 x 600.  The math doesn't lie man! 

They all have their little quirks believe me, I've fought them all trying to get sites to render in all, at multiple resolutions, in different templates, and every one of them has their weaknesses.

[Chris]

Yeah, I had a bitch of a time designing the site to be compatible in both FF & IE. I was using dreamweaver, and the site would look excellent in IE - but look like total shit in FF. Then I would change shit around and it would do the opposite. I finally said fuck this and used Office XP Frontpage for template, and just edited shit in notepad from there. Got the site to look decent in both browsers, but the forum template is another story on it's own. I don't have a fucking clue with IE puts those two big chunks of space in front & rear of the banner image. I've tried messing with settings in the theme, but it just won't work correctly in IE for some reason.

[mowdak1]

Well it's over my head, but it requires a conditional statement in the CSS layout that tells the browser to handle it differently if it's IE.

[Chris]

I just put the <img src="blahblah"> in the HTML box to put the image up there. In all the other templates I had to manually add it.