Dreamweaver 8

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21

Maybe because they already had that version? Many people stayed on mx for a long time after 8 was available, though I don’t know why (something I’ve noticed). Maybe because they didn’t trust an Adobe product? Possibly it cost a lot to move up to 8?

I am interested to know how it goes with you and if you are able to get the updates some other way… and then if the updates help.

As I said, if they don’t, let us help your code. I just can’t imagine that it’s anything terribly complicated that’s making IE8 puke.

22

BPartch:

Thanks for the link. It works fine. I was not able to access that page for the past two days.

It appears to be all moot, anyway. The updater says that it will update to Dreamweaver 8.0.2, and that is the version I already have, so it won’t help me.

Appreciate your help. At least now I know that there are no “updates” available that will solve my problem, and I can explore alternative solutions.

deesy

23

This is a segment of offending code:

<div id=“TBSH-Controls-Left”> <!-- Sets TBSH-Controls-Left Division –>
<ul>

                          &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="link1"&gt;Capabilities   &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
                          &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="link1"&gt;About Us   &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
                          &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="link1"&gt;Case Histories   &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
                          &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="link1"&gt;Contact   &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
                          &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="link1"&gt;Sitemap   &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
                          &lt;/ul&gt;
						  
                    &lt;/div&gt;   &lt;!-- Closes TBSH-Controls-Left Division  --&gt;

This appears to be the CSS generated by Dreamweaver to format the text in the list:

#TBSH-Controls ul {
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px 0px 0px 10px;
font: italic bold 90% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
display: inline;
}
#TBSH-Controls-Left {
font: italic bold 100% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #0000FF;
text-align: left;
float: left;
word-spacing: 20em;
margin: 0em;
padding-bottom: 0px;
width: 65%;
}

#TBSH-Controls li {
display: inline;
text-align: right;
margin: 0em;
}

[B]I found that Dreamweaver generated a whole lot of redundant code that I deleted. I don’t think I deleted anything that was not a duplicate. It has been two years and an illness, so I don’t remember for sure.

deesy [/B]

24

First, I would sugget to put things in order because order often affects CSS and rendering (although with the instructions you have, that shouldn’t be a problem)

Floats always go first as they are taken away from the normal flow and they need to be calculated first. In addition to that, you floating the div where you have the unordered list. Since it is the box that contains the rest of the code, it makes sense that it goes first.

Secondly, if this is your code and you really didn’t miss anything, I am surprised that it looks like you wanted in any browser.

Your div has an ID of “TBSH-Controls-Left” but when you target the ul and the li, you’re targeting to a list that’s contained by a box with an ID “TBSH-Controls”

I put in bold the lines that need correction, if I am right.

25

Also a description or at least screenshot of what IE8 isn’t doing (and what you do want it doing).

26

First, I would sugget to put things in order because order often affects CSS and rendering (although with the instructions you have, that shouldn’t be a problem)

Floats always go first as they are taken away from the normal flow and they need to be calculated first. In addition to that, you floating the div where you have the unordered list. Since it is the box that contains the rest of the code, it makes sense that it goes first.

Secondly, if this is your code and you really didn’t miss anything, I am surprised that it looks like you wanted in any browser.

I believe I indicated that this CSS was generated by Dreamweaver 8, and I believe that DW determined the order of the items. I suspect, and have suspected for some time, that the CSS might be incorrect, but I tried to design my Web home page by following the step-by-step instructions in Rachel Andrew’s excellent book. I changed the content, of course, and also some of the formatting. It was quite difficult, and I believed that I was making progress. Then, when the design view suddenly differed from the preview after I updated Internet Explorer to Version 8, I knew something else had gone wrong. The CSS I posted is only a portion of the CSS file, of course. Maybe I am missing something, but the fact that the links display properly in the design view of DW is mystifying.

It has been my experience that when something works well for a period of time, then suddenly malfunctions, it is useful to ask: What changed? In this case, the only thing that had changed was the browser. So, I sought advice first from Adobe, then on this forum.

I will attempt to capture a portion of a screen shot that will show what the text is supposed to look like. However, if anybody has access to Ms. Andrew’s excellent book, what I was attempting to do is very similar to the image at the top of page #151. I wanted the four links to be five links, and I wanted them to be at the left side of the page, rather than the right side. It looks fine in the design window, but not in IE8.

Remember that this is a work in progress. It is nowhere near finished, perhaps because I began to encounter difficulties when I began to use the CSS capabilities of DW.

deesy

27

I have tried to attach the images as a Word document.

The attachment is pending approval.

deesy

28

Yes, it does… but I insist on the fact that WYIWYG editors are fantastic and help a lot when you know what you’re doing. DW generally creates the CSS in the same order you’re are applying it to the items.

As I said, in this case, I really doubt that it is affecting your specific issue. This particular problem should be for every browser. I may be that you had a block named THBS-Controls and you may have deleted, and then created the box THBS-Controls-Left.

You’re making progress :smiley: Your CSS is not incorrect in the sense that all the rules are valid… you simply have two set of rules that will only work on a box with ID THSB-Controls.

Different rendering engines render differently… Welcome to our world!

There are differences between IE6, IE7 and IE8. Although their rendering engine has the same name (trident), Microsoft rewrote the whole engine for IE8.

We all have to live with this, I am afraid :smiley:

It is nobody’s fault. Technologies changes and (we suppose) they move forward.

The trident engine changed. Anyway, the engine used by DW8 was Macromedia’s own rendering engine… right now they use webkit, if I remember well. This is the engine used in browsers like Safari.

That’d be great.

29

I approved your attachment. I think that you can get rid of this rule or change it to something more normal (like 0.5em or 1em) and the problem will be gone (i put it in bold)

#TBSH-Controls-Left {
font: italic bold 100&#37; Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #0000FF;
text-align: left;
float: left;
[B]word-spacing: 20em;[/B]
margin: 0em;
padding-bottom: 0px;
width: 65%;
}

20em is a huge amount of space (your screen is approximately 70em wide so this is almost a third of your screen width)

30

Agreed and they can also help you get to a stage where you know what you’re doing. The altermative is learning HTML/CSS from scratch to a point where you could use notepad to build a website and that’s not an option for everybody.

As far as cross browser compatibility goes, the majority of people use IE7, IE8 and Firefox (WC3 Browser Stats). I have a few rules of thumb to cope with it:

  1. If your code displays correctly in FireFox but not in IE, your code is fine and IE is wrong. The opposite is true also and this is extremely useful in figuring out where problems are.

  2. What worked in the last version of a browser is unlikely not to work in the new version.

  3. If I always have the last version of IE installed on my pc and the current version of Firefox, along with Chrome and opera, I don’t test for Macs, I just cross my fingers and if it works in Firefox it’s going to work in Mozilla and netscape since they run the same engine.

  4. I have IE6 installed on my laptop just for the persistent few but IE6 will be a thing of the past soon, like 800x600 screen res.

  5. I always try to find a technique that works in all browsers rather than using browser specific hacks, just don’t like them.

31

^they also have no bearing on people like me, who build websites for the Dutch, or people like my husband, who needs to keep in mind that the Russian and former Soviet States have a very high Opera usage.

32

W3Schools is in no way affiliated with the [URL=“http://www.w3.org/”]W3C](http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp). Those stats are for visitors to this particular website, not a broad overview of internet users as a whole.

33

#TBSH-Controls-Left {
font: italic bold 100% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #0000FF;
text-align: left;
float: left;
word-spacing: 20em;
margin: 0em;
padding-bottom: 0px;
width: 65%;
}

That code will render almost the same in IE6, 7, 8 (and others) and will look more or less as the attachment posted.

As molona mentioned above the culprit is the massive word-spacing that was used causing the great big gaps to appear as would be expected from that code.

Don’t use design view in DW as it is very unreliable. As already mentioned above I use DW (cs3) all the time but I use it as a code editor (of which there are none as good as DW). I never use design view at all as DW can only handle the basic of css.

Obviously if you were expecting DW to handle CSS in wysiwyg format then you would be disappointed as it is very poor at that. (Although I don’t believe other editors are much better.)

The problem with css is that the author needs to make the choices as a machine can’t fully understand the dynamics as it varies with situation. Even those that don’t use editors run into the same problem because there are so many ways to make something happen with CSS but very often there is only one right way for the job in hand and that comes with experience.

34

(of which there are none as good as DW)

Oh? DW is better than vi or emacs?? : )

35

I should rephrase what I said :slight_smile:

“of which there are none as good as DW from what I’ve seen” :slight_smile:

I’ve tried loads of editors because I’ve been trying to switch to using my new 27" imac rather than this old PC but none that I’ve tried have all the following; code collapse, code highlighting, missing tag/quotes highlighting, code indenting and code formatting options (not to mention the built in validators, references for css,html and javascript, code suggestion and built in ftp facilities).

36

Ah. I have no clue if vi or emacs do all that… I like the unix philosophy, do one thing and do it well. So, one text editor, someone else does ftp, someone else does validation… the highlighting etc though is done. Esp I like :diff (comparing files) and being able to use regexes for text replacement.

I take that immediately back. Emacs will apparently do absolutely everything. Gary even knows the command for having it brew coffee for you.

37

lol :slight_smile:

I have issue with the word “command” … Does that mean I have to type and can’t point and click :slight_smile:

38

Lawlz, of course… but, brews coffee! DW canNOT brew coffee. Or am I wrong? : )

39

No you got it beat there :slight_smile: - all I get from DW is diet coke.

40

Don’t use design view in DW as it is very unreliable. As already mentioned above I use DW (cs3) all the time but I use it as a code editor (of which there are none as good as DW). I never use design view at all as DW can only handle the basic of css.

Obviously if you were expecting DW to handle CSS in wysiwyg format then you would be disappointed as it is very poor at that. (Although I don’t believe other editors are much better.)

If the WYSIWYG features of Dreamweaver are so unreliable as to be unusable, why would anybody ever purchase the product. It is not being sold as a text editor or a code editor, it is being sold as a WYSIWYG editor. Isn’t Dreamweaver a little pricey for a simple code or text editor? Aren’t there code editors available that are reletively inexpensive, or even free?

The problem with css is that the author needs to make the choices as a machine can’t fully understand the dynamics as it varies with situation. Even those that don’t use editors run into the same problem because there are so many ways to make something happen with CSS but very often there is only one right way for the job in hand and that comes with experience.

I understand that authors need to make choices, and it is apparent from browsing the Internet that Web authors do so all the time. I don’t understand, however, what that has to do with a WSYIWYG editor rendering and displaying incorrectly. Everybody on this forum seems to agree that there is an error in my CSS regarding spacing. What nobody can explain is why such a high-priced, and highly-regarded WYSIWYG editor as Dreamweaver renders and displays improperly.

It is either a very good product that can reliably produce good Web pages that render correctly, or it is not. If it is not, then it is way, waayyy overpriced, and the company that supplies it (now Adobe) should be ashamed to sell it.

In the past, I have been in the business of manufacturing and installing special-purpose computer hardware and software. Our philosophy was always to provide the very highest quality products within our capabilities, and to fix any problems that were our responsibility. Now, users of Information Technology products worldwide have become conditioned to accept poor quality products, and to pay for “upgrades” that are really little more than bug fixes. Imagine if Toyota were to tell its customers that there might be a problem with its automobile accelerators, but that owners would have to pay for a repair kit and installation. Would that be tolerated by customers? By governments?

Even though my copy of Dreamweaver is old, it still should be able to render a Web page properly, shouldn’t it? My personal automobile is ten years old, but it still runs, and I can still get it serviced by a dealer, even though the five-year warranty has expired. Color me disappointed.

deesy