Auto-sizing popups in FireFox

[JP Cornelissen]

Hi,

I found that when you use Auto-sizing popups and view the topic in firefox, it does show the popup, but it does not automatically resize to fit it's contents (an image). It works if I use the custom sized popup setting, but I don't really like that. Is there another workaround to get it to work?

thanks

[MEP45]

Would love to know what people auto-size to because this is really a pain to deal with. I am now adjusting all of my pops up because my SQA team is logging bugs against them not working.

[Linux Rules]

This has been covered/beaten to death over the years (mostly pre RH7).

Have your testers write the defects against RoboHelp - almost all of these issue are due to RH not Firefox, etc.

Note that IE does not follow international standards very well (only what M$ wants to call a standardard -THEIR standard) and ignores most poor html coding.

For example, I just created an RHX5 test page with a autosizing popup. I generated the project (one page, one TOC entry, one popup page), uploaded to the Internet then ran W3C validation against the generated code. Take a look at the results and see the numerous and obvious errors generated by RHX5. Also note the outdated code generated as the X5 engine pre-dates current standards. Now try to open this code in a modern browser that is well-behaved regarding valid html code.

Regards,
GEWB

Results are in follow-up posts due to size limitations.

[JP Cornelissen]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Linux Rules
This has been covered/beaten to death over the years (mostly pre RH7).
Have your testers write the defects against RoboHelp - almost all of these issue are due to RH not Firefox, etc.

---

Linux, thanks for explaining, but it does not really answer my question. I honestly don't care if the issue is caused by bad html code produced by RH or by FireFox or whatever browser is out there. All I look for is a way to get around it (without updating RH). I don't like the garbage that RH puts in the source either, but this is simply something I have to live with at the moment.

[Linux Rules]

Follow up post with W3C Validation results on GEWB's project.
---------------------------------------

Here are the results:

The following missing or conflicting information caused the validator to perform guesswork prior to validation. If the guess or fallback is incorrect, it may make validation results entirely incoherent. It is highly recommended to check these potential issues, and, if necessary, fix them and re-validate the document.

1. No Character Encoding Found! Falling back to UTF-8.
None of the standards sources gave any information on the character encoding labeling for this document. Without encoding information it is impossible to reliably validate the document. As a fallback solution, the "UTF-8" encoding was used to read the content and attempt to perform the validation, but this is likely to fail for all non-trivial documents.

2. Unable to Determine Parse Mode!
The validator can process documents either as XML (for document types such as XHTML, SVG, etc.) or SGML (for HTML 4.01 and prior versions). For this document, the information available was not sufficient to determine the parsing mode unambiguously, because:
o the MIME Media Type (text/html) can be used for XML or SGML document types
o No known Document Type could be detected
o No XML declaration (e.g <?xml version="1.0"?>) could be found at the beginning of the document.
As a default, the validator is falling back to SGML mode.

3. No DOCTYPE found! Attempting validation with HTML 4.01 Transitional.
The DOCTYPE Declaration was not recognized or is missing. This probably means that the Formal Public Identifier contains a spelling error, or that the Declaration is not using correct syntax. Validation has been performed using a default "fallback" Document Type Definition that closely resembles "HTML 4.01 Transitional", but the document will not be Valid until you have corrected this problem with the DOCTYPE Declaration.

(continued in another post)

[Linux Rules]

W3C Validation, continued.
---------------------------------------
Validation Output: 14 Errors

1. Line 2, Column 0: no document type declaration; implying "<!DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM>".
<html>
The checked page did not contain a document type ("DOCTYPE") declaration. The Validator has tried to validate with a fallback DTD, but this is quite likely to be incorrect and will generate a large number of incorrect error messages. It is highly recommended that you insert the proper DOCTYPE declaration in your document -- instructions for doing this are given above -- and it is necessary to have this declaration before the page can be declared to be valid.

2. Line 3, Column 35: required attribute "TYPE" not specified.
<head><script language="javascript">
The attribute given above is required for an element that you've used, but you have omitted it. For instance, in most HTML and XHTML document types the "type" attribute is required on the "script" element and the "alt" attribute is required for the "img" element.
Typical values for type are type="text/css" for <style> and type="text/javascript" for <script>.

3. Line 26, Column 29: required attribute "TYPE" not specified.
<script language="javascript">
The attribute given above is required for an element that you've used, but you have omitted it. For instance, in most HTML and XHTML document types the "type" attribute is required on the "script" element and the "alt" attribute is required for the "img" element.
Typical values for type are type="text/css" for <style> and type="text/javascript" for <script>.

4. Line 128, Column 277: end tag for element "FRAME" which is not open.
…width=\"0\" title=\"Toolbar\"></frame><frame src=\"whskin_frmset01.htm\" fra
The Validator found an end tag for the above element, but that element is not currently open. This is often caused by a leftover end tag from an element that was removed during editing, or by an implicitly closed element (if you have an error related to an element being used where it is not allowed, this is almost certainly the case). In the latter case this error will disappear as soon as you fix the original problem.
If this error occurred in a script section of your document, you should probably read this FAQ entry.

5. Line 128, Column 408: end tag for element "FRAME" which is not open.
…eight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\"></frame></frameset>";
The Validator found an end tag for the above element, but that element is not currently open. This is often caused by a leftover end tag from an element that was removed during editing, or by an implicitly closed element (if you have an error related to an element being used where it is not allowed, this is almost certainly the case). In the latter case this error will disappear as soon as you fix the original problem.
If this error occurred in a script section of your document, you should probably read this FAQ entry.

6. Line 128, Column 419: end tag for element "FRAMESET" which is not open.
… marginwidth=\"0\"></frame></frameset>";
The Validator found an end tag for the above element, but that element is not currently open. This is often caused by a leftover end tag from an element that was removed during editing, or by an implicitly closed element (if you have an error related to an element being used where it is not allowed, this is almost certainly the case). In the latter case this error will disappear as soon as you fix the original problem.
If this error occurred in a script section of your document, you should probably read this FAQ entry.

7. Line 134, Column 15: there is no attribute "COLS".
<frameset cols="100%,*" frameborder=no border=0>
You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Transitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in the document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error message for further information.
How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, (Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both allowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this attribute. If you received this error when using the <embed> element to incorporate flash media in a Web page, see the FAQ item on valid flash.

(continued in another post)

[Linux Rules]

W3C Validation, continued.
------------------------------------------

8. Line 134, Column 36: there is no attribute "FRAMEBORDER".
<frameset cols="100%,*" frameborder=no border=0>
You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Transitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in the document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error message for further information.
How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, (Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both allowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this attribute. If you received this error when using the <embed> element to incorporate flash media in a Web page, see the FAQ item on valid flash.

9. Line 134, Column 46: there is no attribute "BORDER".
<frameset cols="100%,*" frameborder=no border=0>
You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Transitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in the document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error message for further information.
How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, (Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both allowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this attribute. If you received this error when using the <embed> element to incorporate flash media in a Web page, see the FAQ item on valid flash.

10. Line 134, Column 47: element "FRAMESET" undefined.
<frameset cols="100%,*" frameborder=no border=0>
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
o incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "<frameset>" element),
o by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "<spacer>" or "<marquee>" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
o by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case).

11. Line 135, Column 13: there is no attribute "SRC".
<frame src="whnjs.htm">
You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Transitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in the document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error message for further information.
How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, (Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both allowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this attribute. If you received this error when using the <embed> element to incorporate flash media in a Web page, see the FAQ item on valid flash.

12. Line 135, Column 24: element "FRAME" undefined.
<frame src="whnjs.htm">
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
o incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "<frameset>" element),
o by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "<spacer>" or "<marquee>" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
o by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case).

13. Line 136, Column 40: "NORESIZE" is not a member of a group specified for any attribute.
<frame src="whskin_blank.htm" noresize>

14. Line 136, Column 40: element "FRAME" undefined.
<frame src="whskin_blank.htm" noresize>
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
o incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "<frameset>" element),
o by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "<spacer>" or "<marquee>" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
o by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case).

[MEP45]

Considering FF holds 41% of the market for the most commonly used browser online help tools should fix this.

It also appears that when you do a hyperlink that is a bookmaker, FF won't open the link.

JPNL, check out this link, I use this information all the time! It appears you can set an custom-size when you set the popup and it appears to work.
http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/browsers/browsers.htm

[JP Cornelissen · Accepted solution]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: MEP45
JPNL, check out this link, I use this information all the time! It appears you can set an custom-size when you set the popup and it appears to work.
http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/browsers/browsers.htm

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MAP45: thanks for the link. I know it and (used) it a lot. Peter's site is very useful and full of good info! Doesn't have a solution for this issue though (except for updating to RH7 or setting your own size).

quote:

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Originally posted by: Linux Rules
Well, the only other idea I have is to manually "correct" the generated output files.

---

Linux: thanks, but that will be too much of a hassle :)


I think I will go ahead and set a fixed size for these pop ups. It's for a 'zoom view' of a screenshot, most images are the same size, so I suppose that's the easiest for now.

Thanks both!

[Linux Rules]

Hello John-Pierre -

Well, the only other idea I have is to manually "correct" the generated output files. If you run W3C Validation against your output files you will get the report such as what I posted. On the validation page you can select to "Clean up Markup with HTML Tidy" which will attempt to display a re-write of your code. Compare, manually fix what you can and re-test, re-publish.

Note that RH7 is a lot better at writing cleaner code.

Wish I had better advise...

Regards,
GEWB