[Squashman]

Seems to display fine in Firefox 3.

I have never seen a website display a different page with the url looking like a subdomain. That is extremely odd. Why do you do that.

The website also seems to load a heck of alot faster in FF then IE6.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by Squashman

Seems to display fine in Firefox 3.

Does the "Events" link work for you?

Peace...

[Squashman]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

Does the "Events" link work for you?

Peace...

No, they don't. I was just focusing on the newsletter stuff. That is really weird but not surprising after looking at the source. That is horrible. All that crap for that main page is unacceptable. I sometimes wonder what MS is thinking.

[snorkytheweasel]

Originally Posted by Laura McCue

So, I think I may plan to restart to whole webpage using a different HTML editor. There are so many choices...perhaps someone could steer me in the right direction.
I need to work with photos, background color, multiple pages, a better choice of fonts than MS supplies, clipart, and music (from my midi file collection). Basic webpage stuff. Is there an advantage to purchasing an editor over the free downloads?
I have a contract with Hostmonster for another year so I'll be publishing with them.
Also, regarding my original question...will I still need to work through Firefox or can I just download the new editor (I have Windows Vista) and get to work.
I've been using IE directly to connect to Hostmonster as I could not reach the FTP area through Windstream (our DSL).
Thanks again!

RE: "a better choice of fonts than MS supplies"

Don't get your hopes up. When creating web pages, your own preview page and browser will show you what you expect to see. However, don't count on your users seeing what you expect them to see.

IE, or whatever other browser, renders only those fonts that are installed on the user's computer. It you code in a beautiful Papyrus and your user doesn't have Papyrus installed, your user won't see the Papyrus font. There are several ways to deal with this:

1. starting with the worst option - ms has a tool that enables you to mangle a font and then embed the font into your document; there are at least three problems with this: 1) it bloats your code and slows page loading; if everyone uses broadband connections, there's no problem, but dial-up users will hate you for it; 2) there are copyright infringment issues: each operating system comes bundled with fonts, most of which are licensed for use with the computer on which they are installed - but not with, and not on, every computer.
2. you could wing it and hope for the best; neither you nor your readers will be happy;
3. you could tell css how to help the browser by giving it a list of fonts in order of your preference; css will walk through the list left-to-right until it finds a font that it CAN use, and renders your pages with that font.

An example of the last (best) choice. Let's say that I want all of my <li> and <td> to use fonts as I specify (in order). here's how I tell css to work its magic on whatever browser it encounters:
li,td {font: 1.2em papyrus, verdana,helvetica,geneva,arial,sans-serif; line-height:1.3; text-align:left;}

If I were to put papyrus at the beginning of that list, on a user's PC that has papyrus installed, the browser will display p, li, and td as papyrus; if not, it will look (on that PC) for verdana, and use verdana if it finds it, and if not, it looks for helvetica, and so on.... if all else fails - if the browser finds none of those fonts on that PC, it will use whatever it decides IS on the PC and IS related to sans-serif.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by snorkytheweasel

Don't get your hopes up. When creating web pages, your own preview page and browser will show you what you expect to see. However, don't count on your users seeing what you expect them to see.

Yep, currently font issues on web pages are a constant source of frustration.

However, the CSS2 @font-face rule allows for dynamic loading of TrueType fonts over the web. The problem here is currently, only Safari really supports it even though I think Opera is close to supporting it.

You can get more info on @font-family here. If you have Safari 3.1 on Windows, you can actually see @font-face in action. I don't know when IE will support it, appropriately. Maybe IE8 will be one step closer to make widespread @font-face use a reality.

I don't know when Firefox and Opera will fully or at least adequately support @font-face.

Peace...

[snorkytheweasel]

...and another thing about the font thing:

• tomdkat is right about css2 & @font-face... especially the part about not being well implemented
• As his linked article points out, proprietary typefaces are an issue that is yet to be resolved
• In a recent article about this very topic, the author asked the designer of some "freeware" fonts if using his fonts (which are protected by copyright) was a solution to this issue; he said he wasn't sure if that was a good solution, but that he would prefer that people didn't use his fonts that way
• I don't consider @font-face to be a solution for those reasons
• There is a work-around that is universal (but limited in practicality) . Observe the page header on this page. That classy-looking font is papyrus. If you look more closely, you'll see that the header is not text rendered with a fancy font; rather it is a graphic - a gif.

As an aside... I used that graphic trick on a website for a school. I created 20 or so page headers using graphics as described above. Each said the name of the school, each using a different font. Most of the fonts were non-standard/non-universal, but were mirthful in nature - fonts that conveyed the appearance of braille, LEDs (electronic scoreboard), the coca-cola logo,keycaps (keyboard), penguins with igloos, semaphore flags, and the like. With a few lines of code, the page displayed a randomly selected header each time the page loaded or refreshed. It was simple using graphics; it would have been a nightmare using @font-face, even if @font-face were more widely implemented.

.... and an oopsie - in the earlier post I wrote
here's how I tell css to work its magic on whatever browser it encounters:
li,td {font: 1.2em papyrus, verdana,helvetica,geneva,arial,sans-serif; line-height:1.3; text-align:left;}
If I were to put papyrus at the beginning of that list, on a user's PC that has papyrus installed, the browser will display p, li, and td as papyrus;

either the first line should read
p,li,td {font: 1.2em papyrus, verdana,helvetica,geneva,arial,sans-serif; line-height:1.3; text-align:left;}

or the second line should read
... the browser will display li, and td as papyrus; ...

That mistake could mislead someone who is just beginning to understand css. It confused me, and I'm the one who wrote it - and I've been using css for years

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by snorkytheweasel

...and another thing about the font thing:

• tomdkat is right about css2 & @font-face... especially the part about not being well implemented
• As his linked article points out, proprietary typefaces are an issue that is yet to be resolved
• In a recent article about this very topic, the author asked the designer of some "freeware" fonts if using his fonts (which are protected by copyright) was a solution to this issue; he said he wasn't sure if that was a good solution, but that he would prefer that people didn't use his fonts that way
• I don't consider @font-face to be a solution for those reasons
• There is a work-around that is universal (but limited in practicality) . Observe the page header on this page. That classy-looking font is papyrus. If you look more closely, you'll see that the header is not text rendered with a fancy font; rather it is a graphic - a gif.

Better @font-face support is just over the horizon. Safari 3.1 supports it today. I believe a development version of Opera 9 supports it (just like development versions of Opera and Safari pass Acid3 or come very close to it). I'm not sure of the status of @font-face support in Firefox. The real kicker will be IE's support of it and if it's not in IE8, I don't know what kind of future it will have. It seems @font-face support is being given attention as browsers are updated with more CSS3 support.

The issue of font availability is one I think will be resolved as the need to use web fonts without involving images increases. Right now, I think it's a "demand" issue. There just isn't much "demand" since the browsers (other than Safari) don't readily support it anyway. Once that landscape changes, I think we'll see more fonts become available for this kind of use. Another question is will someone be able to purchase a license of a font for web use? I'm sure that will be answered in the future.

As an aside... I used that graphic trick on a website for a school. I created 20 or so page headers using graphics as described above. Each said the name of the school, each using a different font. Most of the fonts were non-standard/non-universal, but were mirthful in nature - fonts that conveyed the appearance of braille, LEDs (electronic scoreboard), the coca-cola logo,keycaps (keyboard), penguins with igloos, semaphore flags, and the like. With a few lines of code, the page displayed a randomly selected header each time the page loaded or refreshed. It was simple using graphics; it would have been a nightmare using @font-face, even if @font-face were more widely implemented.

Yep, it sure would but it also sounds like your use of non-standard fonts wouldn't be something you would choose @font-face for anyway. @font-face would be perfect for sites that just want some aesthetic or esoteric font for the text on their site. Right now, they've got to embed that in an image and that image won't be search engine friendly. Also, using images doesn't address the acceptable "font use" issue, in that if someone uses some font they obtained somehow just because they like the look of it and they embed it in their site, would they have gotten approval to do so before hand? Distribution of the font via @font-face or an embedded image is still distribution of the font.

Peace...

[snorkytheweasel]

Originally Posted by Squashman

No, they don't. I was just focusing on the newsletter stuff. That is really weird but not surprising after looking at the source. That is horrible. All that crap for that main page is unacceptable. I sometimes wonder what MS is thinking.

I ALWAYS wonder what MS is thinking. Have you ever noticed that when there are several ways to do something, MS ALWAYS picks the worst choice? The default program settings ALWAYS leave people puzzled... many is the time I've made someone's life easier by showing them how to change a setting that they didn't know existed as something that is configurable.

Example: in Windows Explorer the default display is large icons with a filename but no extension. A directory 'listing' appears to be a huge, completely random leviathan, thus rendering it useless to most people. By making changes to default settings in two different places (why two different places), Windows Explorer loses that appearance of randomness and is a usable, orderly, detailed list that becomes a valuable tool. I could (and should) write a book about the sometimes laughable, sometimes maddening choices that MS makes.

Over the years (decades?) I've been involved with MS in several ways - beta tester, MS "Partner", user interface lab rat, tech writer, and more. I did a 6-month contract job for MS - at the Redmond Campus - on Windows 2000. Every day I was flabbergasted at the often-exasperating thought processes displayed there. As an outsider, I was able to show folks there things that didn't fit the prevailing mind-set. They weren't always grateful.

• Sometimes they agreed and made changes
• Sometimes they knew better than to rock the boat
• Sometimes their idea was better than mine, anyway

MS has been so successful, has so much cash available, that the company has survived dozens of blunders that would have sunk most companies. If you think I'm exaggerating, I have 2 words for you: Microsoft Bob. It was a multi-multi-multi million dollar prime example of stupid choices.

Then add in the legal problems that MS has brought upon itself by doing things that are crazy beyond most people's wildest imagination.

And don't even get me started on Windows ME and Vista. Those cost of those mistakes make the expense of the Bob Job look like an ice cream cone dropped on the sidewalk.

I'm so glad that I sold most of my MS stock. Those shares haven't grown since 1999 and barely pay any dividends (to be fair, there was a split 5 1/2 years ago - but the value is still below the 1999 value). I keep a few shares so that I can go to the annual meetings (always an incredible affair) and sit with other shareholders who ALWAYS wonder what MS is thinking.
</off-topic></rant>

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by snorkytheweasel

I ALWAYS wonder what MS is thinking. Have you ever noticed that when there are several ways to do something, MS ALWAYS picks the worst choice?

Peace...

[snorkytheweasel]

Right now, they've got to embed that in an image and that image won't be search engine friendly.

It is search engine friendly if you use the "alt" attribute in the <IMG> tag and the <META> tags for keyword and description in the <HEAD>.

Granted, those <META> tags have been diluted by spammers and other criminals, but search engines still give them some weight.

I'd like to see an open-source "movement" that addresses the problem of web fonts. If only there were a vast pool of high quality,*readily-available fonts that comply with css standards and apply the spirit of Open Source Initiative / GPL / Gnu / Copyright / Copyleft and such.

[snorkytheweasel]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

I don't think Expression Web is part of M$ Office, but I'm not 100% sure.

Peace...

It isn't part of Office 2007. I doubt that it's part of Office 2003, because

1. it wasn't released into the wild until late 2006
2. I've applied all Office 2003 Pro service packs, and it hasn't turned up.

Think of MS's position: why give away crap when people will pay for crap?

Microsoft: always me, too and always late for the party.

[snorkytheweasel]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

I don't think Expression Web is part of M$ Office, but I'm not 100% sure.

Peace...

It isn't part of Office 2007. I doubt that it's part of Office 2003, because

1. it wasn't released into the wild until late 2006
2. I've applied all Office 2003 Pro service packs, and it hasn't turned up.

Think of MS's position: why give away crap when people will pay for crap?

Microsoft: always me, too and always late for the party.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by snorkytheweasel

It is search engine friendly if you use the "alt" attribute in the <IMG> tag and the <META> tags for keyword and description in the <HEAD>.

Now, you're expecting people to actually code HTML standard sites which far too many people don't. Besides, I don't know how a search engine will deal with the text in an alt tag compared to "free form" text in a paragraph or just entered in the HTML. I raise this issue since you would have to have a "book" for the alt text of the image, if the image contained text in one or more paragraphs. META tags wouldn't help with the images since they won't be associated with the images.

I'd like to see an open-source "movement" that addresses the problem of web fonts. If only there were a vast pool of high quality,*readily-available fonts that comply with css standards and apply the spirit of Open Source Initiative / GPL / Gnu / Copyright / Copyleft and such.

I think this kind of thing will gain more momentum as more browsers support CSS3.

Peace...

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by snorkytheweasel

It isn't part of Office 2007.

I don't know. I thought it was a standalone product offering, and probably an expensive one.

Peace...

[baileyrays]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

Ok, I've been playing with a version of the current newsletter site using a different web design tool (Kompozer) and using CSS primarily for the layout. There is only one HTML table, which I put in as a temporary measure.

Here is the HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
  <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type">
  <title>Artyfacts - The North Georgia Arts Guild</title>
  <style type="text/css">
.pagebody {
  border: 1px solid black;
  display: block;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-left: auto;
  position: relative;
  margin-top: 40px;
  width: 672px;
}
.header {
  background-image: url(artyfacts_files/image002.jpg);
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  display: block;
  background-position: center top;
  height: 358px;
}
#titleImg {
  display: block;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-left: auto;
  padding-top: 30px;
}
.header-text {
  color: #99ff99;
}
#navcol {
  display: block;
  padding-left: 10px;
  padding-right: 10px;
  float: left;
  width: 150px;
}
#content {
  display: block;
  margin-top: 0px;
  padding-top: 0px;
  top: 0px;
  margin-left: 0px;
  padding-left: 0px;
  left: 0px;
}
.site-nav {
  border-bottom: 1px solid black;
  list-style-type: none;
  display: block;
  margin-left: 0px;
  padding-left: 15px;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
}
.site-nav a {
  text-decoration: none;
}
.site-nav a:hover {
  color: red;
  font-weight: bold;
}
#content-body {
  border-top: 1px solid #66ff99;
  border-left: 2px solid black;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #66ff99;
  display: block;
  margin-left: 170px;
  padding-left: 10px;
  padding-right: 10px;
  font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
}
.footer {
  border-top: 1px solid black;
  display: block;
  bottom: 0px;
  left: 0px;
  width: 100%;
  position: relative;
  text-align: right;
  font-style: italic;
  height: 25px;
}
  </style>
</head>

<body style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(102, 255, 153);" alink="#000099" link="#000099" vlink="#990099">

<div class="pagebody">

<div class="header"><img id="titleImg" style="width: 542px; height: 122px;" alt="North Georgia Arts Guild title" src="artyfacts_files/image003.gif"><br>

<table class="header-text" style="width: 100%; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td style="text-align: center;"><big> </big>
      <h1 style="font-family: papyrus; font-weight: bold;"><big><big>Arty
Facts</big></big></h1>
     </td>
      <td style="text-align: center;">
      <h2 style="font-weight: bolder; font-family: Comic Sans MS;"><big>Newsletter</big><br>
July/August 2008</h2>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<br>
</div>

<div id="content">
<div id="navcol">
<h3 style="text-align: center;">Front Page News</h3>
<ul class="site-nav">
  <li><a href="#">Events</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Workshops</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Secretary's Report</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Member Links</a></li>
</ul>

<h3 style="text-align: center;">Previous Newsletters</h3>
</div>

<div id="content-body">
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">Come visit us at our next
meeting!
July 17, 2008</h3>

<p>The topic of discussion (in lieu of guest speaker)
will be the upcoming <span style="font-style: italic;">Art
at the Lake</span> show in Lakemont. This art show is
being held at
the beautiful Lake Rabun Pavilion on Saturday, July 26. </p>

<p>Many North Georgia Arts Guild members will be exhibiting in
their own booth and the guild will also have group tent set up. Those
who have
signed up for the group space will need to be aware of the limited
space per artist (approx 4’ by 4’). Only the two North Georgia Arts
Guild browse
bins will be available so there will also be a limit on the number of
unframed, matted pieces artists can bring.</p>

<p>In addition, there will be discussion on the opportunity to
exhibit our art at the Rabun County Library through most of the month
of
August.</p>

<p>As usual, the North Georgia Arts Guild meeting will be held at
the St Helena Catholic Church on Warwoman Road in Clayton. Meeting
starts at 10am with a coffee reception starting at 9:30.</p>

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Hope to see you there!
</h2>
</div>
</div>

<div class="footer">footer</div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

This HTML doesn't contain ALL of the text on the original newsletter page but the above is just less than 5kb in file size. Attached are screenshots of the above HTML in Firefox 3.0.1, Opera 9.51, Safari 3.1.2, Maxthon 2.1.1 (IE 6 rendering engine).

The "Events" link which is red is the result of the mouse hovering over it. I did this to show how the link works in all the browsers I tested. I tested using the above specified browsers running on Windows XP.

Peace...

Very well explained.
I too feel use of MS smart code might be the problem.

Most of the user used Automated WebSite Builder, which often creates problem.
Even while using any Automated WebSite Builder tools, one must know about the HTML and CSS code.