HTML: What if html tidy messes with the page layout ?

[digiweb]

Yeah the whole meta thing is out of control. Why are you changing over these pages to new ones? I mean, what are the differences?

[Linda in NY]

Originally Posted by CarolineBogart

Yeah the whole meta thing is out of control. Why are you changing over these pages to new ones? I mean, what are the differences?

As far as design, I'm seeing really quickly that css is so much easier than tables ! Thanks for the help, I've done about 10 pages so far and they are all validating in W3C !! I'm pumped up !!

As far as the meta descriptions for content, some categories, for example, Ford Car brochures, I have roughly 7 or more pages for the products. All the meta description tags are the same.

<meta name="description" content="Vintage and Newer Ford Car Sale Brochures.&nbsp;Ford Car brochures loaded with specifications, writeups and pictures, all originals.">

I read on these forums, that alot of peoples pages "including many of mine" are showing up as Supp results in google because the meta tag is the same for all of them. So I thought maybe if I mixed up the wording some on the pages where the description tags are the same, maybe it will help.

Then again I could be wrong.

However I am really happy that changing the pages from tables to css so far is going well and using copy and paste it only taking oh about 10 minutes a page total to make changes, ftp, check appearace, validate and move on.

And the pages I'm changing are somewhat smaller in size too, good for load time I'm hoping.

Gotta go to bed its 2:00 am here and I have to get up alittle after 7 to get the middle child to school. I was so busy doing the pages, I didn't realize it was so late.

Thanks again,
Linda

Thanks,

[Taltos]

Hi Linda, got your PM. Looks like Caroline's been doing a great job helping you through this. The new index page looks great, a lot nicer than the older page. Nice use of heading tags to get larger fonts and will help a little on SEO. The only design suggest I have is that text in the left and right columns smashes right up against the left edge of those divs. You might add a little padding to each and see what it looks like. Looks like you have the padding set for 0 in the styles sheet. Play with some numbers and see how it looks. 10px may be all you need. Be aware that it might shift things around a little bit as to where lines break and wrap. You may have to increase width a little bit on #left and #right. I don't think so but you might.

Have fun!

[Linda in NY]

Originally Posted by Taltos

Hi Linda, got your PM. Looks like Caroline's been doing a great job helping you through this. The new index page looks great, a lot nicer than the older page. Nice use of heading tags to get larger fonts and will help a little on SEO. The only design suggest I have is that text in the left and right columns smashes right up against the left edge of those divs. You might add a little padding to each and see what it looks like. Looks like you have the padding set for 0 in the styles sheet. Play with some numbers and see how it looks. 10px may be all you need. Be aware that it might shift things around a little bit as to where lines break and wrap. You may have to increase width a little bit on #left and #right. I don't think so but you might.

Have fun!

Thanks Much,

I'll look into that when I'm done with my pages, maybe 1/2 way through so far, but it's going quicker the more pages I do. And guess what ! All my test pages are passing verification in W3C !

I noticed it, but wasnt sure how to fix that, thanks for the advice on the squished up against the side links.

And you were so right, the CSS is SO MUCH EASIER !

I'm so glad I'm switching over, it's going to be alittle work, but it hasn't been bad at all, copy and paste, then remove those durn tables !

Thanks again,
Linda

[Linda in NY]

Taltos,

I tried playing with the padding in the menu divs, yuck it didnt work out at all. Everything got goofed up so I guess I'm back to square one one the right and left divs for now.

I tried 10px padding and increased the width, it didnt work. I tried not increasing the width, no good. I tried increasing the padding just alittle and the width, no good.

Any suggestions, I might be done with the new pages in about another day or two and then I'll be uploading the new pages, worst case I guess I'll leave them that way, could I center the text in the divs, would like an align=center work on the font ?? I think I'd rather have pages that verify nice, and look better, and are easier to deal with and have a slight issue, than use the old pages.

Thanks,
Linda

[Linda in NY]

Taltos,

Hold on I did text-align: center;

I think its better.

Thanks,
Linda

[Taltos]

Yeah, the text-align: center will work. It looks better than smooshed up against the left side of those columns. If you cater to an older crowd, which your site would seem to have that demographic as a big one, the centered text links will not be as comfortable. Not sure what happened when you added padding so I don't know what to tell you. The other option is to try padding like this:

padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;

This specifies padding for top, right, bottom, left in that order. So it sets all padding to 0 pixels except for the left. There are a few ways to do this but this is my preference because it specifies all the paddings in one statement. Sounds like it is going well though!

[Linda in NY]

Hi again,

Okay I redid the whole site at least all the html pages. I have to see if I can remember how to change the colors in the php ecommerces pages.

Anyways, I changed the colors, added a banner and redid my H1's and meta stuff. My problem is when I did the padding deal its sort of working, it helps with the text align better in the menus on the sides. Its alittle off with my titles for categories, but I can live with it.

However, the site looks awful in Firefox, its fine in IE. Any suggestions ? But about 10 percent of my hits according to stats are coming from Firefox browsers and I gotta fix it. Also in Firefox its the right side thats more out of whack.

I just check with the Opera browser and in that the left side is off, geez I hate all these different browsers and trying to adjust !

Thanks,
Linda

[Taltos]

Hi Linda,

There are a couple options to fix the titles. And more for FF. I have to bail right now so I will try to look at this tomorrow and give you some more detail if no one has already.

[Linda in NY]

Originally Posted by Taltos

Hi Linda,

There are a couple options to fix the titles. And more for FF. I have to bail right now so I will try to look at this tomorrow and give you some more detail if no one has already.

Okie Dokie,

thanks much ! I also changed the look of the php pages of the store to try and make it look more like the html pages, I think it came out alright. I believe there's not much you can do with that portion unless you download template contributions, so I guess I can live with the php pages just fine LOL.

My shopping cart

I was told to make the website and shopping cart as much alike as possible so people don't think that they've let your site. Do you think this is close enough ?

Thanks again,
Linda

[Taltos]

Ok Linda, try this. In your style sheet, for the left and right navigation links:

/* --------------left navi------------- */
#left {
float: left;
width: 200px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;

}
#right {
float: right;
width: 200px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#left a, #right a {
position: relative;
left: 10px;
}

I've reset the #left and #right padding back to 0px. Then created a style that is anchors in #left and anchors in #right will get shifted to the right 10px. See if that works for you and gets the headings going all the way across. This should help the problems in FF also.

[Linda in NY]

Taltos,

It worked like a champ in IE, FF is kind of weird but still tons better than it was. It's weird, the underline under the links in the nav menus goes all the way to the left and the first few px there is a line nonclickable but its still better aligned than before.

And the titles are now perfectly aligned ! Thanks so much.

I appreciate the help,
Linda

[Taltos]

Hey Linda, sounds good. I think you can fix the weird underline problem in FF by getting rid if the <u> and </u> tags on your links. You notice in FF the Categories links don't have that weird leading underline. They also don't have the underline tags around them. That is, unfortunately, a lot of editting but I think it will fix that problem.

[Linda in NY]

Originally Posted by Taltos

Hey Linda, sounds good. I think you can fix the weird underline problem in FF by getting rid if the <u> and </u> tags on your links. You notice in FF the Categories links don't have that weird leading underline. They also don't have the underline tags around them. That is, unfortunately, a lot of editting but I think it will fix that problem.

Yup, thats some stinking editting, havent had a chance yet. Why is it that stuff in IE looks okay, in Firefox and Opera it looks a mess. Why can't they come up with browsers that are universal so to speak and everything looks the same. Everything always has to be so darn difficult. Thanks for all the help. I sure needed it.

Thanks again,
Linda

[exam]

If you need to remove the <u> and </u> tags from a bunch of files, you should download textpad and use their search and replace function. You can open all your website's files and remove the <u> tags automatically. It should take you about 3 minutes (including downloading and installing textpad.)

[Linda in NY]

Originally Posted by exam

If you need to remove the <u> and </u> tags from a bunch of files, you should download textpad and use their search and replace function. You can open all your website's files and remove the <u> tags automatically. It should take you about 3 minutes (including downloading and installing textpad.)

But what if I want to remove only the <u> tags in the nav menus and not the whole site ?? I have that tag in other spots as well as the nav menus. Oh well, I think its one page at a time. At least they will be easy to find.

Thanks,
Linda

[exam]

It's just a matter of finding a unique string of text to look for. If the <u> tags are inside another tag in your nav menu, then you can still do the search and replace. As a last resort, you could search and replace file by file, by selecting the nav menu in the file and doing the search and replace only within the selected text. You should never have to do this stuff manually .