3:27 a.m.
My local doctors practice is now proud to have a website where one can - in
theory - make appointments, etc. One annoying feature of the site is that,
on Netsurf at least, the page does not scale in width. Viewed on Windoze it
looks fine :(
The site is http://www.kenmoremedicalcentre.co.uk/default.asp
It looks as if http://www.opg.co.uk/contact.asp would be the place to
complain but can someone tell me what specifically is the problem before I
do so? Or is it just a Netsurf problem since it also scales properly on O2?
Thanks,
John
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. . . using RISC OS 5.13 on an XScale powered Iyonix computer.
4 a.m.
In a dim and distant universe <4f7691cca6mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com>,
John <mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com> enlightened us thusly:
It looks as if http://www.opg.co.uk/contact.asp would be the place
to
complain but can someone tell me what specifically is the problem before
I do so? Or is it just a Netsurf problem since it also scales properly on
O2?
It contains contradictory HTML, so I assume NetSurf's priority is different
to other browsers - so not necessarily wrong.
At the beginning is a table width="100%" tag (which I presume O2 and
Windows) are obeying, to fix the table as wide as your screen window.
However, later down in the code (line 160) there's a td width=2000 for the
inner column, which is forcing it to be very wide. I assume NetSurf is
interpreting this correctly and allowing it to overrule the outer table
width="100%" of the page, hence the horizontal scroll bar.
I would say that NetSurf is acting correctly, but correct action in the
case of contradictory HTML is possibly subjective anyway.
Paul
7:37 a.m.
On 25 Feb, Paul Vigay <lists-nospam(a)vigay.com> wrote:
In a dim and distant universe
<4f7691cca6mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com>,
John <mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com> enlightened us thusly:
[Snip]
However, later down in the code (line 160) there's a td
width=2000 for
the inner column, which is forcing it to be very wide. I assume NetSurf
is interpreting this correctly and allowing it to overrule the outer
table width="100%" of the page, hence the horizontal scroll bar.
I would say that NetSurf is acting correctly, but correct action in
the
case of contradictory HTML is possibly subjective anyway.
Paul
Hadn't spotted that. Thanks for pointing it out.
Armed with this information, I have just had a word with those responsible.
The pages were apparently created on a Mac using Dreamweaver software. The
chap I spoke to admitted that it does seem odd specifying a width of 2000
and he will "look into it" - it seems the site was created as a freebie so
done in a rush.
Hopefully things will be changed for the better now.
Thanks to all for the info.
John
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/____Mail from mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com
. . . using RISC OS 5.13 on an XScale powered Iyonix computer.
4:28 a.m.
On 25 Feb 2008 John wrote:
My local doctors practice is now proud to have a website where one
can - in
theory - make appointments, etc. One annoying feature of the site is that,
on Netsurf at least, the page does not scale in width. Viewed on Windoze it
looks fine :(
It comes out OK on Oregano 1, except for the nav bar at the top.
However the page fails to validate and the source looks as though it
has been sicked up by some extremely nasty page generator.
However there is a general problem with NetSurf's handling of tables
containing unclosed elements. Just try to view the SWI list on the OS3
PRM CD. It will stagger table cells to the right instead of placing
them in a column as intended. Also mixing up percentage widths and
absolute widths is a nightmare to sort out unless you're very careful.
--
_
|_|. _ Richard Porter http://www.minijem.plus.com/
|\_||_ mailto:ricp@minijem.plus.com
5:40 a.m.
In a dim and distant universe <c06697764f.ricp(a)user.minijem.plus.com>,
Richard Porter <ricp(a)minijem.plus.com> enlightened us thusly:
However there is a general problem with NetSurf's handling of
tables
containing unclosed elements. Just try to view the SWI list on the OS3
PRM CD. It will stagger table cells to the right instead of placing them
in a column as intended. Also mixing up percentage widths and absolute
widths is a nightmare to sort out unless you're very careful.
I'm not sure if there's an official (W3C?) recommendation, but I'd have
said that absolute widths should precedence over relative widths.
My logic for this is that if you want something say roughly a 1/3rd of the
page you could use a table/column width of say "30%", which is more of a 'I
want it to look narrower than the rest', whereas if you specifically want a
navigation bar or something to be a precise size you'd use something like
<td width=200> or something.
Thus, exact sizes are generally chosen because that's exactly what you
want, whereas percentage/relative sizes are chosen because you're not
/that/ fussed but you want it roughly that size relative to the browser
window or rest of the page etc.
6:34 a.m.
On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Paul Vigay wrote:
I'm not sure if there's an official (W3C?) recommendation,
but I'd
have said that absolute widths should precedence over relative widths.
The various HTML specifications over the years have failed to provide
sufficient detail on the effects of combining multiple units in tables
or describing the behaviour when the units add up to strange amounts
(for example, more than 100% on one row). As a result, browsers seem to
have organically evolved a "what users expect" mechanism and if you
spend a while trying some tests out with MSIE, Firefox, Opera, Safari or
the like, you'll discover that the behaviour is exceptionally complex.
Browse attempted to walk the line beween Navigator and MSIE behaviour
back in its day. It was reasonably successful at matching the widthing
algorithms in common cases, but not edge cases. Have a look at the
Browse table widthing source, in particular tables_width_table from line
554, for an idea of the full horror.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yrctao
CSS adds an additional layer of complexity by being able to specify its
own width constraints in various different units. Although their
interaction within CSS is better described by the specification than
HTML widths in tables, the interaction between CSS widths and HTML width
is not so well covered.
--
TTFN, Andrew Hodgkinson
Find some electronic music at: Rowing in Cambridge, UK? See:
http://pond.org.uk/music.html http://nines.rowing.org.uk/
6:56 a.m.
On 25 Feb 2008 Paul Vigay wrote:
In a dim and distant universe
<c06697764f.ricp(a)user.minijem.plus.com>,
Richard Porter <ricp(a)minijem.plus.com> enlightened us thusly:
> However there is a general problem with NetSurf's handling of tables
> containing unclosed elements. Just try to view the SWI list on the OS3
> PRM CD.
I should have said the Basic manual index page.
> It will stagger table cells to the right instead of placing them
> in a column as intended. Also mixing up percentage widths and absolute
> widths is a nightmare to sort out unless you're very careful.
I'm not sure if there's an official (W3C?) recommendation,
but I'd
have said that absolute widths should precedence over relative widths.
My logic for this is that if you want something say roughly a 1/3rd
of
the page you could use a table/column width of say "30%", which is
more of a 'I want it to look narrower than the rest', whereas if you
specifically want a navigation bar or something to be a precise size
you'd use something like <td width=200> or something.
Thus, exact sizes are generally chosen because that's exactly
what you
want, whereas percentage/relative sizes are chosen because you're not
/that/ fussed but you want it roughly that size relative to the
browser window or rest of the page etc.
Yes, I agree with you entirely. But the problem occurs when get a
conflict between the percentages, the fixed widths and the width of
the window. For example you might have a window which is 800px wide,
and a page containing a table of width 100% i.e. 800px, with a row of
three cells of widths 200, 50% and 30%. This implies that 200 is
equivalent to 20% so the table width should be 1000 and not 800. I
haven't even considered borders, margins, cellpadding and cellspacing!
What is the browser meant to do? It could scale everything down by
80%, it could just scale down the 50% and 30% columns, or it could
extend the page outside the window so you have to scroll it.
Then what happens if you have subsequent rows which conflict with the
first row or which impose further constraints, such as a fixed width
cell in column 3? What happens if you have an image inside a table
cell with an explicit width that exceeds the implicit or explicit
column width? I think that absolute image widths take precedence over
column or table widths.
--
_
|_|. _ Richard Porter http://www.minijem.plus.com/
|\_||_ mailto:ricp@minijem.plus.com
8:43 a.m.
John <mail(a)JohnWoodhouse.plus.com> wrote:
My local doctors practice is now proud to have a website where one
can - in theory - make appointments, etc. One annoying feature of
the site is that, on Netsurf at least, the page does not scale in
width. Viewed on Windoze it looks fine :(
[...]
can someone tell me what specifically is the problem
before I do so? Or is it just a Netsurf problem since it also scales
properly on O2?
Don't mention RISC OS specifically or anything like that. Take a
screenshot of the browser window so they can see what it looks like.
Either send that to them attached to an email or, if it's a contact
form (I didn't look at the page you mentioned for complaining), upload
it somewhere and tell them the URL.
The wording of the complaint itself should simply refer to the
screenshot, and point out that this is caused by poorly handled tables
- an extremely high fixed width, in a *nested* table, neither of which
is sensible (and nor should tables be used for layout.)
--
Vince M Hudd
Soft Rock Software
http://www.softrock.co.uk
4711
days inactive
4711
days old
netsurf-users@netsurf-browser.org
7 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Andrew Hodgkinson -
John -
Paul Vigay -
Richard Porter -
Vince M Hudd