7 Replies Latest reply: May 17, 2009 12:14 PM by rlinsurf1 RSS

    Tables are skewed

    rlinsurf1 Community Member

      I have the following page:

       

      https://ssl21.pair.com/grndlvl/commerce/gl/indexa.shtml

       

      I had everything right, and changed one element, a text field in the form. DW changed (created?) a bunch of new css stuff, and now the whole thing looks like this. I've tried changing all the various definitions, and can only make things worse.

       

      The form is supposed to be centered, and the right and left sidebar tables are supposed to be only 149px wide (as wide as the images for their backgrounds). I can't seem to get this to happen and I've been working on it 10 hours now.

       

      Any suggestions?

        • 1. Re: Tables are skewed
          Mark A. Boyd Community Member

          I only took a quick look, but anything to do with the bad link to a CSS file?

           

          Try changing this:

           

          <link href="grndlvlcss.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all">

           

          to this:

           

          <link href="../grndlvlcss.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all">

           

          --
          Mark A. Boyd
          Keep-On-Learnin' :-)

          • 2. Re: Tables are skewed
            rlinsurf1 Community Member

            Thanks for catching that one. Unfortunately, no, that doesn't clear it up

            • 3. Re: Tables are skewed
              Mark A. Boyd Community Member

              I did some tinkering and got that table within the bounds, though not as nicely as the "Drumbeat - file sharing at its best" page. That whole section of dsRnnn code seems overcomplicated. Using sledge hammers, wedges & duct tape all over the place. I suppose agl rulekind is some sort of left over from Adobe GoLive? Does it really create tables that way? Tables have a lot of built-in features that some of that CSS seems to be trying to force unreasonably. Anyway...

               

              Let's fix a bit of invalid CSS.

               

              Change this:


              .dsR311 /*agl rulekind: base;*/ { width: 149; height: auto; }

               

              to this (missing px and height is auto anyway):

               

              .dsR311 { width: 149px; }

               

              And change this:


              .dsR177 { width: 716px; height: 5px; }

               

              to this:

               

              .dsR177 { width: 100%; height: 5px; }

               


               

              Just a personal preference for legibility...rather than have all those comments in the rules, why not use a comment section? I often have something like this:

               

              /***************************/
              /*** agl rulekind: base; ***/
              /***************************/
              .dsR5 { width: 645px; height: 75px; }
              ...
              .dsR339 { width: 475px; }
              /***************************/

               

              I do hope you have some system in place to help understand what all those rule names mean. Otherwise, those and names like "style4" will be meaningless to you in a year.

               

              --
              Mark A. Boyd
              Keep-On-Learnin' :-)

              • 4. Re: Tables are skewed
                rlinsurf1 Community Member

                Hi, Mark--

                 

                As you can see, that's a big improvement. And I was able to fix just about everything else. There's still one thing I don't see how to fix.

                 

                The left sidbar is supposed to be big enough to show the bar twice -- meaning, to match as the image looks on the right.

                 

                I can't seem to get this to happen.

                 

                Also, just so you know, as you saw the DB site, I had nothing to do with this page design. I have no idea even what those comments mean. I'm just trying to adapt it, and obviously, it's a bit out of my ability to understand.

                 

                Thanks again for your help with this.

                • 5. Re: Tables are skewed
                  Mark A. Boyd Community Member

                  The left sidbar is supposed to be big enough to show the bar twice -- meaning, to match as the image looks on the right.

                   

                  Change the width for .dsR27 and .ds244 to 169px.

                   

                  Note that the backgrounds, left-buttonbkg.gif and right-buttonbkg.gif do not have two vertical bars. They are 149 wide, but the right side is set to 169 in one of those rules, so it starts to tile. You might want to change left-buttonbkg.gif to right-buttonbkg.gif to get a similar effect.

                   

                  That should get you closer. That is quite a jumble of CSS and nested tables to maintain. With a sprinkling of deprecated <font> elements, to boot . I have a feeling that you could do this easier if you start from scratch. Perhaps going for one of the Faux Columns methods or Nancy O.'s 3-Column Page Layout.

                   

                   

                   

                  --
                  Mark A. Boyd
                  Keep-On-Learnin' :-)

                  • 6. Re: Tables are skewed
                    rlinsurf1 Community Member

                    Ah, that doesn't seem to work. That stretches that little table and forces the sidebar table out. If you don't stretch the little table, changing the other parameter does nothing. I just don't understand that.

                     

                    Also, the graphic for left is just right flipped. Yet even when the table is at 169, it never wraps the way right does. Again, I don't understand that.

                     

                    Yes, I thought of just starting from scratch. In fact I worked on that all night as well. It still winds up being incredibly complicated as DW keeps adding all this CSS -- and making new ones (and adjusting things to what it thinks it should be) based on my moving particular elements around. It's almost impossible to keep track of and have everything come out right. I wish I could just turn that "feature" off.

                    • 7. Re: Tables are skewed
                      rlinsurf1 Community Member

                      Well... looks like I got it.

                       

                      I have everything where I want it now, except (of course) for one thing. I can't get the little Groundlevel store table to be at the top of the enclosing table(s?). Can I get your help with that?

                       

                      But thank you for all the great help. I never could have done this page without you.