Style in Head with XML error

**cweaver** · Sep 30, 2006, 13:07

I'm getting a bizarre error from FF Firebug:

Code:

   missing } in XML expression    margin-bottom: 110px;

Here's the context between (<head> and </head>):

Code:

<comment>
     <style>
     #AlientameLinerNotesTop	{
     	margin-bottom: 110px;
     }
     </style>
     </comment>

And here's the doctype:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Didn't intend to create any XML and I don't get that there is a missing } either. All I intended to do was create a "non-IE browsers" style override. The technique worked perfectly on another site:

Code:

	<comment><style type="text/css" title="">
    		#BigOverview	{
    			margin-bottom: 0px;
    		}
    	</style></comment>

Sometimes the alignment resolutions in IE and FF don't work exactly the same. So I've taken to making adjustments for the compliant browsers by inserting a style within the document that will override the CSS file and be invisible to IE through the use of <comment></comment>.

**stymiee** · Sep 30, 2006, 13:17

Just so you know there is no such thing as a <comment> tag in (X)HTML, Maybe if you remove that you'll have better luck.

**cweaver** · Sep 30, 2006, 13:27

Yeah, I know. It's an IE only thing, which is why it can be used to hide things from IE. FF sees the style which, by virtue of it being closer to the html, overrides the CSS file which is external. It's a hack, and I would rather avoid it, but I don't know of another way yet.

**stymiee** · Sep 30, 2006, 14:43

Try using conditional comments instead. They only work in IE and won't bother any other browser.

**cweaver** · Sep 30, 2006, 15:13

I tried this:

Code:

<style type=&quot;text/css&quot;>
    <!--[if gte IE 5]
    #AlientameLinerNotesTop	{
    	margin-left: 400px;
    	font-family: Tahoma;
    }
    <![endif]-->
    </style>

Didn't work. What am I doing wrong here?

When I put the same snippet of code in the body of the document it shows up in IE but not FF.

**cweaver** · Sep 30, 2006, 16:16

This didn't work before because I had inadvertently told my PHP to put the stuff within a script area. I was focussed on the style tags and didn't notice the script tags above and below them.

Code:

<!--[if gte IE 5]>
  <style type="text/css" title="">
  
  #AlientameLinerNotesTop	{
  	margin-left: 0px;
  }
  
  </style>
  <![endif]-->

I like this better than the <comment> tags method because with this I'm creating CSS files that are for W3C compliant browsers while making what exceptions I must in the head of each page.

While we're on the subject, if anyone would like to chime in with "It's better done this way..." I'm all ears.

Thanks.

**zcorpan** · Sep 30, 2006, 17:47

It's better to understand what's causing the bug and possible ways around it without any hacks.

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