problem with my website

[Guest]

I am creating my own website, kuhnscreations.com, using Flash and Dreamweaver. It is not showing up correctly. It shows up the best(still not correct) in Google Chrome, but in Firefox, and Internet Explorer it is really messed up. It looks correct in Dreamweaver but then when I make the site live, it moves everything around and adds white spaces inbetween the different parts of the page. Each of the .swfs is the corrrect size and I don't know what is wrong, they are working correctly the page just displays different than it's supposed to. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Ned Murphy]

Chances are it has nothing to do with Flash and everything to do with your html page design.  I can see you are using tables to control the layout, which is old-school design and may not gel well with some modern browsers, though it should still work well enough for any browser that is worth using. One thing I see in at least a few cells of the table is where you specify height values for table cells and that is rarely a good idea.

You should probably take your issues to the Dreamweaver forum and see if folks there can help you out.  Just be forewarned that all of your Flash contentmight raise hairs on their necks, so bring a thivk skin with you... a number of the prominent denizens have a stroing bias against Flash.

[Guest]

Thank you for your response. I just learned the very basics in my web design class. I'm an animator, not a web designer. We just need to learn the basics to get our portfolio out there, as a way to show our work to prospective employers. The only way that was taught to us was using tables. Like I said we just learned the basics, but I'm trying to make my website well, so that it actually looks good. It would make me look more impressive to employers. So if using tables isn't the best way to go, how would you suggest doing it. I really want this to look good.

I know you're probably very busy, but I'm an idiot when it comes to computers (I know, Animation is a weird job field for a tech Idiot). But if you care enough, and have time would you mind writing up a quick step by step for how to create a site the right way.

PS

This was in Response to Ned's post but anyone is welcome to post some help for me

[Ned Murphy]

If you've no intention of pursuing web design as a hobby/career, then learning the current ways of web design is likely not worth the effort - you won't have time to learn it... it is rather involved where you need to actually know the languages (html, css, javascript, etc....) and cannot rely on a tool like Dreamweaver to do it properly for you without having the knowledge first. 

If you had an older version of Dreamweaver you might be in a better position to design using tables without having to know alot, as that was the norm before css took hold.  Even the folks in the DW forum will tell you that DW is not a tool that lets anyone design great web sites without having to know the science behind it (if it ever was).

So if you were shown using tables, and you have some level of comfort using them, then continue... I'll spare you speeches you'd get from the Dreamweaver folks regarding Flash and tables and anything else that would make a rookie feel bad about trying.  I have no intentions of doing that... I commend anyone for trying/doing even if they are not following the best practices or latest trends.

What you can try to do is head back into the table structures and see what you can do to remove width and height specifications, especially heights.  It is not always necessary to specify widths and it can sometimes be better to let the content define the dimensions and just let the table collapse to surround it.

For the buttons that run down the left side, you should consider placing them inside a table of their own within the table.  You might have already done that, but I haven't look that far into the page design to tell.  That would allow you to have the main structure of the page divided into three basic stable cells/ections... the banner at the top, one area to the left containing a table of your buttons, and the larger area to the right for the content you are displaying.  Try creating one template page that you can build the content into.

If you wanted to try your hand at the more modern approach using CSS for layout, then you could find a template in Dreamweaver for the same basic layout you have that does it without tables, and then you could have that as the starting point and add within that structure.  To go this route just open Dreamweaver and to the far right of the opening menu choose a starter page (basic) and then choose a blank template that resembles the layout you have.