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L.Adlon

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Everything posted by L.Adlon

  1. So, here's where I'm at right now. And, again, please remember that although I do know some ActionScript, I am in no way a javascript coder type of guy. Completely out of my element here... The latest test has two 'instances' of the player (...and by instance, I just mean, the <audio> appears twice on my page.. it's not being called up by javascript or anything. In the first, I kept the accompanying <script> bit. In the second, I removed it (...again, with the (hypotetical) assumption that it only needs one <script> on the page? The stacking I was getting before (multiple copies of each player stacking on top of each other when viewed on an iTouch) seems 'remedied' as a result, with the two players now being two single players (with no other additional players stacked on top of them). My previous setup worked great on Firefox and Internet Explorer. Only IOS (...specifically, my iTouch) was doing the stacking thing. With this new test coding, I get two (single) players... each different (assumingly, the second is the fallback version, with would be Flash-based). What is strange, is that BOTH appear to work... which doesn't seem possible on an iTouch. How can the Flash-based one work? If so, what's the point of having the HTML5/Flash hybrid? Very confused and lost. Hoping someone can shed some light. Here's the test coding (...again, this is using the MediaElement Player scripts/files for an HTML page): <audio id="player1" src="mp3/Song1.mp3" type="audio/mp3" controls="controls" class="songplayer"></audio><div class="songtitle">This is song one, with the script.</div><script> $('audio,video').mediaelementplayer();</script><audio id="player2" src="mp3/Song2.mp3" type="audio/mp3" controls="controls" class="songplayer"></audio><div class="songtitle">This is song two, without the script.</div>
  2. ARRRGH.... Okay, I could really use some help with this. Sorry... Got another bit of frustrating weirdness happening. This is why I don't like using premade scripts... I don't know how it works, and I'm often powerless to modify it. So, what I can tell you is this... I'm using MediaElement Player (an HTML/Flash hybrid audio/video player). Works fine so far in everything, but is exibiting one major glitch. The HTML code for the player for each song is this: <audio id="player8" src="mp3/song8.mp3" type="audio/mp3" controls="controls" class="songplayer"></audio> <div class="songtitle">This is song number eight</div> <script> $('audio,video').mediaelementplayer(); </script> There's a MediaElementPlayer folder that contains a number of .js files, two .swf files, and some .css files. I'm assuming the javascript is for the HTML5 option, the .swf is the fallback method, and obviously the .css is to style the player interface. Beyond that, I'm out of my element. I have 8 'instances/occurrances' of the above code... each pointing to a differnt song. Originally, the ID's were identical (which I know is very wrong, but I wasn't sure if the code was specifically hardcoded with that one ID). Seemed to work either way. But, today, I changed it so that each instance used a different ID (Player1, Player2, etc)... with the assumption/hope that the IDs were somehow dynamically created within the script or something other than hardcoded. Now, the thing is... it all works. In Firefox and Explorer, it seems to work great. On an iTouch, the players appeared and worked... BUT, the one issue (that I know of) is that it would stack multiple copies of the player where a single player should be. More specifically, it seems that the first player instance would have 8 players stacked. The second instance had 7. The third had six... and so on. With the last instance (correctly) having just the one. Problem is, I don't know javascript, and even if I did, I wouldn't know the workings of the player and the support files... I'm (assumingly) slave to the scripts, and clueless what my options are. I thought originally it was because of the (previously) identical ID's, but it's doig the stacking even with unique ID's. I know there's not much here to go on, but based on your understanding of how this type of system would work, can anyone come up with some theories as to why it's stacking like that, and what I could try out? Hope someone can help. As usual, your efforts are always appreciated. (I should point out, the reason I have multiple instances of the player is because MediaElement Player does not have playlist capability. Otherwise, I'd just have one instance, and have it play multiple songs.) BIT OF A CLUE: Just out of curiousity, I removed all but one of the <script> sections from each instance... thinking that maybe only one was needed. I loaded that up and tried it on the iTouch. Interestingly, what I got was the first player (with the <script> displaying once (properly), and all the other players used the fallback method (showing a DIFFERENT player, but (properly) one instance of each). Even stranger (to me, at least) was that these fallback players (which I assume are the Flash versions) actually WORKED. Both player types (HTML5 and Flash) work on my iTouch. How is that possible?
  3. Hrmmm...I'm not familiar with parenting yet. Does that just mean it's within another element (nested)? I tried having text in the <div>, setting it to invisible, and then setting it to visible using a hover event... but it seems that making something invisible also makes the area of the div stretch to the entire screen, and essentially not exist (as opposed to just being invisible)... so, the hover didn't work then. Strange, but that's how it is supposed to work. Otherwise, that might have been a solution to that. Could I trouble you for some sample code of the technique you are explaining? I'm curious how it would be done. Basically anything that would cause an element (graphic or text) to become visible during a mouseover/hover (or appear, one way or another... maybe having it go from offscreen to onscreen?
  4. Hi, guys. I'm wondering if there's an easy way to have text appear (preferably in a different location) when a hyperlink gets a hover event. Basically, a sort of tooltip, but locked to the screen (in some spot on the screen), rather than the pointer. Can that be done with CSS, without having to resort to javascript or anything complex?
  5. Ah... Well, as is seemingly traditional with me, I figured it out only AFTER posting about it. Can't really say what the issue was before, but following the instructions again, it worked this time. Cheers!
  6. Argh... Okay, so apparently, you can't just put the code on a regular HTML page. The form doesn't show up. (This is apparently normal, if you know anything about PHP...which I don't). The page has to be .php rather than .html. So, I changed the extension, and it still doesn't show up. So, I found an article outlining how to make PHP work in an HTML page. Hopefully that works, but I'm into territory where I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm cool with modifying the .htaccess, as it says I need to do... but the workings and coding of PHP is not something I'm familiar with at all. Anyone have any words of wisdom, guidence and/or caution on how to proceed? The page would be a contact form page that I'd have brought up (from various parts of the site via a link/button) as a new browser window.
  7. I'm trying it out now. If this works, that will help with a lot of stuff.
  8. So, at this point in time, if using a HTML4.01 page, what is the 'best' way to embed a YouTube video? I was using the <iframe> method that w3schools recommends, but (at least MY copy of) Internet Explorer would work up to the point where you play the video, then it would just go black and crash the site. I wasn't sure if I could use the alternate <embed> method that w3schools suggests underneath that, due to my (mis)understanding of the browser support.
  9. Hi. I'm a bit confused about something (...go figure). According to the w3schools page on HTML helpers (plug-ins), <embed> and <object> are supposedly supported by 'ALL major browsers'. Did I miss a meeting or something? I thought IE didn't support <embed> (...or was it <object>), and that's why we have to do the <object> and <embed> combination as a fallback. If using HTML4.01 (...I know, I know... but just go with me on this...), can you now just use <embed> without the <object> fallback (...or vice versa, if I got that reversed)?
  10. I just found these. Any thoughts on them? <object width="346" height="280" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=redacted"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=redacted"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param></object> ...and this one that is supposedly 'valid' when you run it through a validator: <div> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_DV9b0x7v4" width="425" height="355"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_DV9b0x7v4"> </object></div> (Again, I'm asking from a HTML4 page standpoint)
  11. Odd... I'm using IE11 to test it. Even the w3schools Try It samples weren't working on it. Granted, I'm not using IE11, so nothing has been set up on it. Maybe some setting is off. I was getting bombarded by alert messages and stuff, about cookies, activeX, etc. The initial 'link' seems to work, since the interface and still image show up. I was reading an interesting thread (although old... post from 2008-2013), where they were trying to get it to work as well. The earlier posts were complaining that even after 8-9 years, IE still wasn't properly supporting HTML4. After a lot of experimentation (and finding solutions that would then not work in other versions, etc), they came up with this: <object width="346" height="280" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=redacted"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=redacted"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param></object> A later post revealed that one of the solutions that previously worked, now didn't... and that including something like the 'movie' attribute back into it made it work again. Ugh... We can rebuild a human heart, but we can't get a simple method to embed a video without redundant code or multiple formats. I'll have to get one of my friends who actually uses IE to give it a test. Are there still a lot of people using IE these days? I imagine it would be less, if it wasn't the default/included browser in Windows (and a lot of people don't know about or how to install alternates).
  12. Internet Explorer is giving me the trouble. Firefox works fine. Haven't got it tested on Safari yet. The DOCTYPE is 4.01. Does the <iframe> method only work with HTML5? I was considering using the <embed> method that w3schools also suggests on that page, but I'd assume that it wouldn't work in IE that way. The method that YouTube itself offers doesn't work. The w3schools <iframe> method works fine with Firefox, even at HTML4.01. Just IE that is giving me trouble.
  13. Hello again... So, I used the <iframe> method of embedding YouTube videos on a webpage, and that worked great offline, but now I'm testing my site online, and I've got problems. Works just great in Firefox, but Internet Explorer is giving me all kinds of grief. The YouTube interface and the thumbnail/still video image seems to appear fine, and when I click the video thumbnail/image, it seems to start loading (if that grey bar I'm seeing on the otherwise black frame is the loading bar)... but then it just sits there, and eventually IE will say that the site is not responding. <sarcasm> Golly, I love embedding video more than anything in the world! </scarcasm> Any theories as to what is happening? I only need that one line of code, right? <iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN1p8BLLO9s?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0"></iframe> There's no support files needed or anything, right? [Additional note] I just tried using the Try It page from w3schools (of their YouTube video code), and it too did the same thing... Interface and frame appear... You click on it, and the screen goes black, and nothing else happens. The <embed> method (as opposed to <iframe> one) didn't even show the interface or frame... just a white screen with a square icon in the top left corner. Something getting blocked?
  14. Cool. I'll tinker with that as well, and see where that brings me. Although I've moved to CSS for most things on the site, there's still a few little things I cling to, just because I'm still not fully comfortable (and knowledgable enough) to make it work properly. Ya, I still sometimes use tables for formatting... but only when my attempts to do it with CSS fail repeatedly, and I can't sort out why. My previous site was sort of half CSS, half.... well, bad format (standard HTML tricks). I had intended to do it full CSS, but was just getting a rats nest of a mess in both formatting and in text styling... mostly due to me misunderstanding some aspects of CSS, or inadvertantly having some other item affecting it. Now, I'm having another go... and doing much better this time around. The site is much cleaner and easier to update, and (although not fully complient), it's a heck of a lot closer to proper form now. I love CSS... when it works for me. Again, it's just a matter of me learning what I'm doing wrong, or learning some of the new methods and stuff. Thanks for your help so far, dsonesuk.
  15. Ya, background images. The header is all locked sizes and unique top/side/bottom graphics. The main content area is vertically flexible, with a vertically repeating 20x100 graphic, and a vertically repeating 920x100 background image. I'll have to play around with your code some more. It's a little tricky, as some of the syntax (and the grouping/combining of definitions, etc) is a bit new to me. I understand it all. It's just a bit tricky for my brain to wrap around some of it... kind of like reading a foreign language that you 'know', but it's not your native language... A bit tricky to wade through, even though you get the main content. And, when I modify it a bit, to work with my content, I inevitably (and inadvertantly) mess something up, that causes things to go all over the place. Wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't for the 'foreign language' aspect of it, as I would easily be able to follow the logic and modify it to work. I'm just racing to get this site revision done, otherwise I'd be experimenting and hitting the books much more.
  16. Thanks for the code, dsonesuk. Although I generally understand the logic, I get a bit overwhelmed by parts of that. I would still need to replace the placeholder content you have there with repeating images, and apply your coding to make those images start at the top properly. So, it gets pretty cryptic for me. I tried sorting through it, and it broke on me. Not sure what I screwed up. Sections get positioned wrong, and even overlap. What's the CDATA thing at the top? I am totally unfamiliar with that.
  17. Yikes... Ya, you're right! I guess I was relying on the correct syntax by memory, when I did that, a few years ago. I'll fix that now. Thanks, Ingolme.
  18. Ew... Well, what I'm after is really simple... A vertically flexible webpage content area that has a vertically repeating/tiled image on either side. Done with a table, it would be something like: <td background="edge.jpg" width="20"></td> <td background="contentbg.jpg" width="920"> .....website content here... </td> <td background="edge.jpg" width="20"></td> ...and those cells would stretch vertically to fit the content (and the edge images would repeat as needed, creating a tiled edge frame), and the contentbg.jpg (which has a width to match the content cell size, 920), would also tile vertically). Done in CSS... I'm not fully sure how to do that. <div> with the two edge images inside, floating left and right, respectively? (or, would the edges be their own divs?). But, then you have to deal with the images not starting at the very top, as dsonesuk, points out... which I tried, but that put the graphics in the zero postion (top left corner) of the monitor screen, as opposed to the top left corner of the <div>.... as I was probably doing something wrong, or that solution assumes certain things that aren't the case. No idea... which is why I kept reverting back to tables. I'd love to have a working CSS solution, as I do want to go 100% CSS. So, ya, basically just looking for a standard vertically flexible <div>, but with vertically repeating edge graphics (20x100). There will be a whole framed header thing and a footer above and below that, but I imagine I can figure those out. It's just the repeating edge and contentbg graphics that I don't fully know how to do properly in CSS.
  19. For those following along: The horizontal shifting/gaps were seemingly resolved with the style 'border-collapse:collapse;' applied to the <table>. I still have about 2-3 pixels padding at the bottom of the cells. I actually managed to get rid of that in my test, but I don't recall exactly how now. I think it ultimately was some sort of a border thing. I had set the borders and margin and padding all to zero (which I have in this current one), but there was something more, that was similar, that I did. I'll let you know if I run into it. [Moments later...] I got it. I added a 'line-height:0px' to the style of the <table>. Just checking things over now, seeing if everything is resolved... including on other browsers.
  20. Hi. The battle to go HTML5 continues... So, the latest thing is that I have a table that contains a 960x20 image (and the cell is the same size). In HTML4.01, it's fine. In HTML5, the side and bottom of the cell expands a few pixels. I tried applying a style to the cell, setting the padding and margins to 0, setting the width and height, yet the 4(?) pixel padding on the sides and bottom remain. Set the DOCTYPE to HTML4.01, and it all snaps back to how it should be. I know that HTML5 doesn't support a lot of attributes, but I'm really not sure what is happening with this, or how to fix it. Everything I try (via CSS) hasn't had any affect. Any help?
  21. Is there a way to upload an image to this post, or is it required to be hosted on a webspace somewhere? I can't find a way to just upload an image here from my drive.
  22. Hi, guys. Okay, to answer all your questions... 1) Yes, the <meta> looks like that... HTML4 style? I'm not aware of HTML5 style, if there is one. Even so, the pages are (currently) set with HTML4.01 DOCTYPES. I'm really not sure what the deal is there. I'm just using the standard 'keyword' and 'description' attributes. No idea why those are considered proprietary. If anything, I would just think that they are obsolete or pointless (not used by search engines?)... but not proprietary. The structure is just like this: <meta keywords="planes, trains, automobiles" /> (Yesterday, I added the closing /, as the validator pointed the lack of them) Question is, will this break the site, or (at worst) the meta data gets ignored in some cases? 2) I wasn't aware that the <td background="image.jpg"> was proprietary, until now. I am using <img> in the <td>'s for most of the items (...the literal frame of my website), but (believed) I had to use <td background> for certain ones... like for cells that had flexible lengths, and for backgrounds. For the background ones, I figure I can use CSS (...I'll have to give that a go). For the flexible length cells, it's a bit trickier (...and something we discussed in another thread). I understand that repeating image tiles within a flexible length <div> can certainly be done, I've struggled with it (and the explanation of what to do to actually make it work). I'll give it another go, though. Up to now, I've had a 'fallback' of setting the cell color, in case the image is not displayed. But, ya, I'll see if I can get the CSS alternative happening. I'm not denying it can be done... it's just whether I can get it to work myself. I still have my battles with CSS, despite really wanting to be 100% in. 3) The ID thing is tricky... I'm fully aware that an ID can only be used by one item, but the problem is, I'm using someone else's scripts. This is the MediaElement player I'm using. On my site, I have individual songs listed, and a player for each (using a combo of an <audio> and a <script> thing, outlined in my initial post above). This coding, required by the player, includes an ID=player2 in the <audio>. Now, even to me, it's clear that if I have multiple instances of the <audio> (for each song), you have a conflict, as the ID SHOULD be unique for each one. Easy enough for me to change the ID=Player2 to Player3 or whatever... The problem is, I have no idea what (if any) scripts or other elements are referencing that... and I would assume that they are hard coded to reference 'player2'. Me not being a script guy, I coudln't go in and modify the script so that it references several IDs... I'm not even sure how that would work. The way it's coded, it seems like you could only have ONE instance... and therefore only ONE song, since they use ID. Why not use CLASS instead? I don't know... So, there seems to be a conflict, and I'm not sure how (or if) it can be addressed. The player doesn't seem to support multiple mp3 files... but, I could be doing it wrong, or something. (I tried doing the usual song1.mp3|song2.mp3|song3.mp3 thing in the attribute, but that just broke it). Weird thing is, it seems to work just fine, regardless. 4) Regarding the height attribute in the table.... Well, you are going to shoot me for this, but I was forced to use the old trick of encasing the website in a 100x100% table in order to center it vertically. I tried (...really, really hard) to do it pure CSS, but I just couldn't get it happening. I'd be more than happy to replace it with CSS if I could get it to work. I replaced all the other uses of tables for formatting now... but this one (my splash logo screen) just wouldn't vertically center with CSS. Again, not saying it can't be done (...although doing searches on the web reveal a lot of arguments, and solutions that are promptly followed by someone pointing out how they WILL break). I'm not an expert, so I'm sure I'm oblivious to many methods, and am doing my share of mistakes and such... I'm really trying to move completely to CSS (with some success), but some battles continue. I've added coding and scripting from various other sources... some work, some partially work, some break with a vengence... but, more importantly, the coding of my page quickly becomes very unfamiliar and cryptic to me. That's one of the big problems with grabbing other people's scripts and such. I'm a one-man-band here... site design, building, maintenance, etc... so if things get all cryptic and foreign to me, I have no idea how to fix things when thing go weird. Almost there... The site code has definitely been cleaned up, made more compatible and stable, and is ALMOST full CSS. Learning as I go...
  23. Ya, initially, that's what it seemed like... the GIF playback pausing as the SWF hit a (relatively) large frame to download.... but, what I don't get is why, in some instances, the GIF would completely stop... AND why it could be immediately restarted by hovering over a completely unrelated hyperlink. My only guess is that the act of triggering an a:hover causes the screen to refresh... or HTML to 'recalculate'... or something? BTW, these tests are all offline... so no downloading. I'll be uploading the site in the next few days, so I can see how it performs with actual downloading. From what I'm reading elsewhere, this (or something similar) is a known issue with GIFs... playing for a second or so, then stopping (...aside from the cases where it is doing that because it's set to only play once). It's really odd...and somewhat random (...or, more accurately, is probably affected by other items, and therefore sometimes happens, and sometimes doesn't, based on the activity of that other item, or something like that). Well, it's not bad now. I've got a preloader (which I really hope is okay), and I reduced the total frames and FPS of the GIF. At this point, it either plays for 1 sec, pauses for 1/2 sec, then plays fine... or just plays fine from the beginning. So, if I can't improve on it further, it's not a show-stopper.
  24. Yep. The HTML5 that I am using (that I'm aware of) is <audio>, as part of the MediaElement player for my demo songs. It falls back to Flash if HTML5 is supported. I previously was using a Flash-only player, but wanted to upgrade, as I figure a lot of my visitors may be on Mac devices. So, I guess by what you're saying, I can safely set all my pages to an HTML5 doctype, rather than just the music page? I was a bit concerned about the whole self-closing tag thing, as there seems to be controversy about whether it's supported or what... From the latest I'm reading, it 'ignores' self-closing tags' <image ...... /> = <image.... > , but it closes standalone tags automatically... so, ignored, but it doesn't matter, from what I'm understanding. Ya, this forum and the W3Schools site is my reference place for HTML and CSS. As long as my pages work, I have no problem moving to HTML5.
  25. Hi. I ran my updated website through a validator, cleaning up things it finds, but there's a few items I'm not sure about... whether I should be concerned, and how I would remedy them (if they really needs to be). Here's some of them. Please let me know if this is something critical, or I can just let them slide (for my own personal website, not a clients or anything): -My <meta> are using 'proprietary' description and keyword attributes. -A table is using a proprietary height attribute -Some of my <td> use proprietary background attribute -On my music page, the <audio> (from an HTML5/Flash mp3 player code (MediaElement Player) I got from the web) uses proprietary type attribute. -This last one is a bit trickier... Using that MediaElement Player, I have an <audio> (with some attributes) and <script>$('audio,video').mediaelementplayer();</script> after it, for each of the sample songs I have. Everything works great, but the validator gives me an error about the id='player2' in each of those <audio>. Looking at it now, that makes sense, since id's can only be for one item. Fair enough.... However, I'm not sure if I can just change the id names, as I assume there is probably a script or something referencing that. I'm not sure how to check that (or if I even can)... I don't do scripting, for one thing, and I'm sure I won't follow the scripting logic anyway. Again, it seems to run just fine, but I'm not sure if it's a problem. So, those are the issues the validator found. I know ideally, I'd address them all, to be 'up to standards'... but are any of them really critical (...would break on some platform)? If so, what platform would have trouble with them, and how might I address them? Hope you can help. Thanks.
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