Webdesign en SEO nieuws

Out of something bad something good must come. How true!


Messed up design in Chrome and Opera
If i did not have had problems with FireFox i probably wouldn't have been pointed (thanks Frosch ) to the fact that the design of my blog appeared somewhat awkward in Chrome and Opera.

To position the logo and the top menu i used 'position:absolute' and a negative margin. FireFox responded fine to that and did exactly as supposed only Chrome and Opera decided that it should be placed somewhere in the middle of the page directly over an article i wrote earlier on dropping FireFox as my standard browser. How ironic is that!

To fix this i spend a few hours trying the usual, putting elements around it, setting different positions and margins. Nothing worked. Chrome and Opera simply would not place the elements accordingly to what 'position: absolute' and 'top: 0;' should do - taking them out of the flow and placing them on top of the page.

Dont tell me positioning with negative margins is not done, its perfectly fine according the W3C "Negative values for margin properties are allowed, but there may be implementation-specific limits." Hm, again browser specific?

Yep! It would be a perfect world if browser-builders-would-not-have-their-own-ideas-on-implementing-recomandations-every-one-should-use!!!

You build a browser? I know you are tempted but:
Dont, no dont follow the dark path of your own i know it better ideas. Microsoft already appologized for IE6 (they should for every version) you want to be next?

The case:

Positioning Logo and menu to the top of the page from within a layout consisting of tables.

• Serendipity as a blogging tool
• Template chosen: MT Rusty
• Layout in tables
• HTML Headers on top of the table in a div (dont ask me why)
• The elements to be positioned are inside that table
• CSS to control the style and layout for the table, values set to:
  • border-collapse: collapse;
  • border-spacing: 0px;

The solution:

As mentioned i tried many things but nothing worked, Chrome and Opera refused to place the elements outside the table. In a table-less design they worked fine, so the table must be the problem when using negative margins and i decided to place it all in the table and work from there.

I had to do the following:

• Creating a space for the elements on the top of the page by setting a padding for the top of the table
• Placing the div with the headers into the reserved space i created in the table with a position: absolute;
  
  • The div will be taken out of the flow and the table will move to the top of the page, used a z-index:2000; to get the div on top
• Placing the logo and menu into that same space by using position: absolute;

I put a padding to the table and noticed it didnt reserve the space wanted??? What now, a new problem?
Searched for it and ah okay i knew that but forgot: "The border-collapse table definition gets rid of the spacing and the padding in this instance removes all padding from a cell." What meant my padding set was ignored. So i took out the rule completely and it worked.

Played a bit with margins and bingo, the elements moved according to the rules.

Browsers are your gateway to the internet, those nifty little apps that open almost any document, make sure you can enjoy the net.

Since many years now, i am using FireFox, it clearly was the best browser to use. For me no IE(..) that messed up sites and had so many holes in it, a mole would be proud having them digged. An alternative was Opera, but somehow i never got that 'feeling' it connects. So, Firefox was the way to go.

It truly was the better browser in speed, in safety in showing sites the way they were meant to be and for the many plug-ins and add-ones one could get.

Processes active
Sad to have noticed that since they introduced a 'plugin-container' in FF 3.6.4 to handle flash, quicktime, silverlight for videos, audio and online-games it keeps slowing down and even crashing.

One thing that may explain why is FireFox 'plugin-container'. It is literally feasting on memory as much as it can get. Up to 1Gb i have seen it use.
To put that into perspective, Google Chrome used in the exact same situation no more than 100 mb. Up till today that is, Chrome also choked on Flash and used almost 1Gb today.

Next to that the User Interface has changed so much that it still takes time to get used to the position of buttons. Why? Why would one change the UI so much after years? Never thought of users getting confused? Did someone shove his ideas down the throat of all?

I call upon the programmers of FF, Chrome and Adobe to fix the problems! For the mean time i wont use FF as my main browser anymore. Sad but true, a once genius browser has gone bonkers. Wish i never ever had switched to the new ones

(updated: march 30)

Na jaren een blog handmatig bijgehouden te hebben in puur Html-pagina's werd de handling ervan me toch een beetje te veel.

In drukke tijden wordt het schrijven voor zo'n blog dan op de achtergrond geschoven wat zich uit in het uitblijven van postings terwijl er toch nog wel wat te schrijven valt over SEO en Webdesign.

Het oude blog, dat we natuurlijk wel bewaard hebben, blijft beschikbaar onder: SEO nieuws archief. Het werd goed bezocht en er was animo genoeg om commentaar achter te laten. Helaas kon dat toen niet, in deze opzet kan dat gelukkig wel.

De postings worden natuurlijk wel nagekeken voor we ze toelaten, we zitten niet te wachten op pillendraaiers en scharrelaars die hun zaakje komen dumpen .

Rest mij nog eenieder ook hier veel leesplezier te wensen en tot schrijfs.