I understand the whole thing about having to check out how sites look on IE as opposed to FireFox. My question is if I build on Firefox and it looks screwy on IE then when I fix it on IE will it look screwy on Firefox? Really I want to know which browser should I build on so it looks fine on both.
I also notice that the design I chose looks great on Firefox but on IE the top left of my homepage gets cut off by my school photo (the one that is apart of the "design") Right now its a school lunch.
I took such care to keep things centered and visually organized. Then when I look at IE I get all depressed. I don't want my classmates who use IE to think I was on drugs when I was building it. Any advice? I know- stop looking at IE- pretend it doesn't exist.

What version of Internet Explorer are you using? I really don't see that many differences between IE and Firefox when I view your site. I do see some centering/formatting things, but minor overall. Note, I am not seeing a problem with the school lunch photo in IE. Looks just fine. Make sure you're using at least Internet Explorer 7.0, or the brand new Internet Explorer 8.

Having said that, welcome to the world of browser differences. Fortunately, making things look good across browsers isn't as hard as it may initially appear. Often just a thing or two, a tag or two, will fix things right up.

The best advice I can give you is search Google for "html tutorial", and on page 1 several good free one will come up. Yea yea, I know, html is something most people don't want to dive into. Yet, just 2 or 3 hours with a basic tutorial will make all the difference in the world when it comes to you knowing how to tweak your page. Bite the bullet and invest an afternoon -- you won't regret it.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, that explains it. The good news is, nearly nobody else sees your page like that. If you'd like to see what your site looks like in all browsers and versions, go to www.browsershots.org and plug in your web address.

Wow Brad, what a great site! I had no idea there were so many different browsers! Most of mine looked pretty good but I had one that was peculiar, attached. I can't really read it and don't know if you can. What do you think?

I agree with Brad. I have the newer browsers and rest assured that your site looks fantastic. The "lunch" looks the same on both.

Brad,

I decided, since I had some free time, to play around with an HTML Tutorial...this thing is great! What a great thing to recommend to everyone, because I have learned a lot, in the little bit that I have covered; answered some questions about how people have done some things on their sites.

For those who want to play around with one, check out this site: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp This site lets you try everything that it shows you, step by step, so you can play around with changing the fonts and the background colors etc. Have fun!

Vicki

Bonnie Andrian wrote:

Ah, don't worry about Opera. Way, way less than 1% of people would be using it. If a browser version is really old or the browser is incredibly obscure, don't fret it. The odds of any of your Classmates seeing it that way would be about 0%.

Brad and all,

Out of curiosity, I took a look at my site in www.browsershots.org and the difference in layout on the various browsers was quite amazing.

Fortunately, I would expect most of my Classmates to be using IE but even the earlier versions of that don't show the same design as I get with IE7, which is what I use, and some won't display it at all.

In Firefox 3, the Home Page text doesn't even start until below the right hand colum modules so anyone coming to the site, who uses Firefox,and I know of a couple, is going to be met with almost a blank screen.

I hadn't realised the differences in browsers would be that great. As all I appear to need to do is get the Home Page text to start at the top in Firefox, and I'm no whizz with HTML, can someone please advise a quick fix that might help.

I know of one Classmate that has used Safari as well but my main concern is that someone browsing the Net might see the site, think it doesn't look too professional, and decide not to hang around.

Any help/thoughts would be useful and appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark

Mark, Maybe your glitter graphic "Your School Needs You" is too wide? Maybe make it smaller to fit in the left side of the page along with the things on the right. Just a guess. Jim

Jim is dead on. Your glitter graphic was just slightly too large for the spage into which you were inserting it. See this thread to learn what Firefox does when this happens.

I shortened the plugin by 10 pixels while I was in there. Fixed. Check out the page in Firefox or Browsershots.org again. You've hit upon a very good example of why it's important to check your site in all major browsers.

Oh by the way, in IE turn on your browser's status bar and load your home page again. There is an error in the status bar being caused by your localendar plugin. The overwhelming liklihood is that third party code is conflicting with some other third party code you have on your home page. I'd fix that. You can fix it in two ways:

1) One by one, remove other third party objects on the page until the status bar error goes away. The moment you've removed a third party plugin and the error is gone, it's a safe bet that the plugin you just removed was causing the conflict.

2) Move your calendar to a sub page of your site instead of your home page

Despite the status bar error, all plugins are seeing to function correctly anyway, but due to the fact that many IE users have their status bar turned on by default, they'll all see "Error" in the left corner of your page currently, which will certainly give the impression that something is wrong with your web site.

Brad and Jim,

Thanks so much for your help. Appreciated as always.

The graphic causing the problems on the Home Page seemed ok until I changed the Site apearance.The additional pages I've put on the old design seeemed to 'squeeze' everything up which is why I've now gone for the layout with no buttons across the top.

The only reason I had the calendar on the Home Page was convenience and the fact that I could enclose the code in its own little Announcement Box and not have to search for it if I had a problem with it but I'll take your advice and move it elsewhere.

Thanks again both of you.
Mark