Topic: wab.org

I need some help with this one.

First, I need overall comment on the design and layout, especially the interior pages under Classes & Workshops.

Second, there's a specific issue under NS4 with the home page's Picture of the Day (a specific client request) overlapping the text below it. Even a nested table doesn't seem to solve the problem. What am I missing?

Other requirements:
- The client is standardized on Macs, most of them the original iMac from a few years ago (in teal green). The site must be happy on them under NS4 and IE4.5.
- The design should look "newslettery" and may form the basis for the redesigned paper newsletter.
- The existing sliced PS based site is pokey on modem connections. This one should be be snappier.
- Ultimately, a blog will control the home page and the Publications section.
- The client's Program Development director wants to be able to perform routine site maintenance from his PC at home using FrontPage.
- Colors are taken from paint swatches used in the building's renovation, snapped to the nearest "web-smart" (4,096 color palette See: http://www.morecrayons.com) color (not the 256 color web safe palette.) They're great on my LCDs and the iMacs. I'm not so sure on PCs with CRTs.

And all the usual stuff about improved structure and navigation applies.

Whadaya think?

http://www.brucew.com/clients/wab/


"the most incredible feats are often accomplished by
those who have had the most incredible challenges"

[This message has been edited by brucew (edited 04-23-2002).]

[This message has been edited by brucew (edited 04-23-2002).]

Ooh, trying to do an entire site primarily using CSS for the fancy layout is not a good idea if Netscape compatibility is an issue. (As it will be, especially on older Macs. IE5.1 is a decent browser for the mac, but Mozilla is way slow, and Opera is buggy. Netscape is stable at least.) If I needed to make this site look the same for both Netscape and MSIE, I'd probably end up re-writing everything to use nested tables with bgcolors instead of <p> tags with classes.

Oh! A quick fix that might get you by, you could always just specify the height of the table, I tried it at 250px and it allowed the picture to be seen without over-writing the text in the next section. The caption still got buried, and I'm not 100% sure why, I didn't dig into your stylesheet. (Though removing the text above and below the photo also allowed the table to expand to it's full height, even without the hard-coded height=250.)

Your pal, -doc-

Thank you Doc!

I hadn't taken the nested tables far enough. I'm sure you saw the remnants of a failed 2x2 table experiment in the CSS. I'd tried the height thing before and, like you did, I got everything but the caption.

In thinking of how to reply to you about the buried caption being the result of NS4 not liking mixed line-heights it hit me: Remove the mixed heights from the cell. Doh!

A quick and dirty 2x3 table...

coltitle - coltitle
quote - pic
nbsp - caption

...seems to do the trick. I've got to tighten up the white-space, but it works!

Yes, I know it's ambitious to attempt an NS4-happy site with CSS. I hoped that by stucturing the thing with table, and just this one nested table in the whole site, I could get by.

I'm hoping the client will say it's close enough and give the go-ahead to upgrade the browsers on the Macs. Otherwise, I was thinking of enclosing the headings in divs for the background color. Worst case, depending on the client, is to nest the headings within single-cell tables.

Still, I'm trying to use this a a learning exersize for me and a teaching exersize for the client. In the autumn semester I teach a course there in self-publishing on the web. It doesn't seem right to start newbies off on the wrong foot with font tags, bgcolors and all that.

Your recommendation on the iMacs is IE5 rather than NS6 due to NS6 being slow? I'd forgotten about that issue entirely and was going to suggest NS6. At least one of the Macs in the office uses IE5.1. I'll nudge them in that direction.

Thanks.

B

"the most incredible feats are often accomplished by
those who have had the most incredible challenges"