I'm working on a web page for a design contest. We are creating a layout for the site. The page looks fine in Internet Exploroer, but the tables are really messed up in Netscape. Look at http://dev.thinkquest.org/C002006/layout3.htm and you'll see what I mean. Please help us! We've tried many things and even some javascript that was supposed to fix it. Just reply to this message or e-mail me if you can help. The site is non-profit and for educational use, so we can't have any advertising, but do need help.
Thanks,
Timothy
[This message has been edited by Timothy (edited June 12, 2000).]
Make sure all of your table cells have something in them. If you want the cell to be empty then put in a non-breaking space (& nbsp; - without the space).
Hopefully this should fix your problem. If not let us know.
I'm not Wayne, but I did notice that you do have one cell with nothing but a div tag in it. That is probably the cell that's causing you the problem (I saw it on the main page and the products page).
The div tag doesn't actually take any space up. It is just a formatting tag. You still need at least a & nbsp; there.
You don't need to use div AND tables. You should try to use one or the other.....
I changed the body tag to read:
<body topmargin="0" rightmargin="0" leftmargin="0" marginheight="0"
marginwidth="0">
I added the marginheight="0" and marginwidth="0" because these tags
"fix" the code for Netscape and force a page to start right at the
top of the browser window. The topmargin="0" etc. are the "fix" for
Internet Explorer.
Well margins are something totally different than messed up tables. Your tables will get out of alignment if you have empty tags, unclosed cells, overlapping tags or unclosed tables.
All documents have margins and unless you set them to zero you will always get a little white space surrounding your page.
I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but adding these margins tags worked for me. I didn't change anything besides them and it was fixed... Maybe it was just luck or something...
Timothy
[This message has been edited by Timothy (edited June 12, 2000).]
The problem with the JTKnives site is not inherently table related but instead related to your layers. You have the right hand layer define before the left hand layer but have no absolute positioning in your code. Netscape handles layers poorly. I would move the layers in position in the document so that the appear in the order they would be drawn. Namely left to right, top to bottom.
I would like to thank both Wayne and Timothy for their insights. I have no question that both their points are valid, which only confirms my desire to sharpen my HTML skills! (Remember when it all seemed so easy? )
But what solved the problem for me in Netscape 4.X was the removal of the horizontal rule, or <HR> tag, in the right table. It was pushing the table past its boundaries, and I honestly don't know why. Now I can live without the HR tag in this instance, but I would really be curious now how to rein it in, or why it wasn't reined in automatically, even in Netscape.
I'll post both URLs so you can see the difference.
I did take out the <div> tags and added the   's but it still isn't working! I couldn't upload the changes since I'm at work, but i downloaded the html and tried...i tried!!!! DOESN'T WORK!
i guess i'm just frustrated with netscape's extreme inferiority.
- sam
(timothy, I even tried what you recommended)
jfiliss: I think your problem has to do with the fact that your tables are overlaying each other. Try experimenting with the WIDTH attribute on your <HR> tag. It will except the same values as your table does so you can use a percentage or a strict value. I would go with a strict value a little shorter than the right hand table and see what happens.
I didn't change anything besides them and it was fixed... Maybe it was just luck or something... 
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