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L.Adlon

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  1. L.Adlon
    Hi... I know this is a topic that has been going on for a long time, but it's driving me nuts. I've read the info on it, but it just doesn't seem to (always) be working for me... I've been trying very hard to move myself completely into proper, contemporary CSS and HTML methods, but the few things I still cling to, I do because I can never seem to get them to consistently work 'the proper way'. For example, the main two things I use still (when I know I shouldn't) are tables (for some formatting) and <center>. Tonight, I've been trying to replace my <center> tags with proper CSS equivelants, but it's just not working (consistantly)... which is why I keep falling back on them. I know it's because I'm doing something wrong, or misunderstanding something, but nonetheless, that's where I'm at... so, it's either do it 'right' and it doesn't work... or do it 'wrong' and at least it works (for now). So, for tonight, the thing I'm trying to figure out is how to simply center my main window/frame of the site in the browser window. My understanding, is the standard way is to use <div>, and define a style consisting of display:block, margins:auto... and I think that's it? Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't... and I'm really not clear on why. I'm trying to center two tables, so I have them both within a set of <div>, with the display and margin settings as I mentioned. Right now, it seems to center in some browsers, and not others. (I do have a DOCTYPE defined, BTW) So, I'm at a loss... much like I was the other times I tried (sincerely) to drop my bad habits and go full CSS. So, assuming my 'site' consists of two tables (one after the other), how would I go about centering them? What do I need to add to the method I outlined above? What could be causing it to not work? Also, is the use of <center> still compatible on all browsers/platforms, or has it been starting to get phased out?
  2. L.Adlon
    I figured out what was the issue. Even though both codes (YouTube vs w3schools) were almost identical, the key thing seemed to be that the YouTube video lacked the http in front of the url. Putting that in made the video appear. Very odd that they left that out in their suggested code. But, there it is, I think. [Late addition] I just tested it in Internet Explorer, and the w3schools method worked fine, and the YouTube <iframe> method showed the embedded video thumbnail frame, but 'an error occurred' when I tried to actually play it. Very, very weird.... Looks like the w3schools method wins.
  3. L.Adlon
    Hello again, guys. Well, I don't seem to have much luck... I just did a test of a simple YouTube video embed, and it's not working, regardless of what I do... which is even weirder, in that I've got it to work before, years ago. All I did in this attempt, is go to one of my existing YouTube videos, clicked the Embed tab in the Share section, set the options, copied the resulting code, and pasted it in a blank HTML page (...by that, I mean with just the bare essentials of the DOC TYPE, <HTML>, <head> and <body> tags). I first tried the 'new embed' method (iframe), and just got a blank element (....I set a border style, so I could at least see if the element itself was there, which it was). I then tried the 'old embed' method (object), and got a blank element again. Any ideas what might be happening here? (BTW, I'm testing it in Firefox on a PC) (BTW II) I checked out the YouTube embedding reference on this site ( http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_youtube.asp ), and both sample DO work for me... Weird. (BTW III) Why is it that your site suggests using the <embed> method (as an alternative to the <iframe> one), yet YouTube suggests the <object> method instead?[Late addition] I just tried the w3schools suggested <iframe> embed method on my test page, putting in the same URL as that from the YouTube suggested code... and it works. I really wonder why the suggested YouTube codes (both) don't work, yet the w3schools one does... even though the URL is the same. I'll have to compare the attributes and stuff, and see what the difference is.
  4. L.Adlon
    Thanks guys.
  5. L.Adlon
    Hi, DarkxPunk. Ya, that's the one I use on my blogs. Is that not exclusively for WordPress? I'm needing something I can just drop into my non-WP website. If it CAN, that would be perfect, as I like that one a lot. [Moments later]: Oh, neat! Looks like you CAN use it on a regular website... I think. It has a PHP version, which seems to be implying that I can just put it on a regular HTML page... I think. I'll read further on that and see. That would be awesome. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Even though I use it currently, I would not have realized there's a non-WP version unless you (re)pointed that out to me!
  6. L.Adlon
    Hi, DarkxPunk. Absolutely. My personal philosophy is to do what is correct/valid in HTML/CSS, even if browsers currently allow non-standard things to pass.... partially (as you say) to keep good habits, and partially because as browsers and compatibility evolve, it'll probably bite you in the butt one day. I personally would prefer to close all tags, but I posted this question because I was not sure if doing so was actually valid or fully supported these days. BTW, as a stinging bit of irony, your signature shoots a hole in what I just said about wanting to do what is correct, as I still use tables for some things... but only because previous attempts to do it with <div> have resulted in unexplained weirdness (as I still learn the quirks and details of CSS... as well as my own errors). Slowly getting there, though. Recently, I've been updating my site (which I previously TRIED to do all proper CSS, but couldn't get fully to work... resulting in a bit of a rats nest of new (good), and old (proper) methods) to a fully properly coded site.... aside from the tables.
  7. L.Adlon
    Yep, that's how I had my comments section on my wordpress blog. But, this is a non-WordPress site I'm asking about now. If there was a simple contact form type thing (with some form of spam deterrant) that I could easily slam into my regular HTML site, that would be great... but coding anything myself is well beyond me, unfortunately. Meh, I'll just have the email up there, and pray for the best. I guess I'll create a disposable email specifically for the website visitor contact emails, and change it every time it gets flooded. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with traffic, so hopefully it's not too bad.
  8. L.Adlon
    @Ingolme: Ya, like I mentioned, the audio version of the Captcha on this very forum was actually brutal. I don't think I would have been able to even guess what was being said, even after listening to the same clip for a week! I went to the audio one because the visual one was brutal as well. I totally understand that they have to be quite distorted, since the bots are getting really good, but it was now to the point where I personally could barely read it (and totally couldn't hear it). @davej: I've seen a math thing on a few sites, and that seems like a good solution (...if I had the actual ability to code!). I'm surprised the bots are doing those. The math (I assume) would be easy, so I guess it's something with the reading of the equation and the filling in of the form. At worst, I could just forward the visitor to my personal blog, and have them use the WordPress contact form (with Captcha) there... I just didn't want to mix the personal and business site (...and I can't have more than one blog on my webspace). In the end, I'm probably just using an email address on the site, and just weed through the spam, I guess. I'll see how it goes. Ah, web and telephone scammers... Life would be so much easier without you...
  9. L.Adlon
    Yep, it SEEMS like it's overriding some of the CSS. I just initially assumed I was doing something wrong. I'll try using a <div> tag instead, as that at least should have no pre-set style that might fight with me. The version of IE I have installed (unused) on my system is not fully up to date, so it may still work on the latest version... doubt it,though.
  10. L.Adlon
    Thanks for the link.
  11. L.Adlon
    Interesting... Well, normally, I'd have given up and resorted to the stretched pixel thing... but you have convinced me to keep trying! That's a good point about IE perhaps forcing the <hr> styling. Very weird that trying to override that is making the line disappear for me. Your arguement about the stretched pixel method resulting in the HTTP requests makes total sense, and has convinced me.
  12. L.Adlon
    I've been trying to shed away all the depreciated tags (as well as some of the traditional hacks and non-standard methods). Almost there... Still using tables for the main page layout (just the literal framework of the site.... graphic elements for the header bar, the side bar, and the footer. Just never seemed to get CSS-based positioning to fully work for me. I may play around with that now, and see how well it works for me this time. Weird... I could have sworn there was some issue with iFrame at the time I was tinkering with it (years ago). Maye I'll find the mention of that in one of my books. Well, if it's fully supported now, that's what really counts.
  13. L.Adlon
    Ya, I noticed the (alternative?) iFrame embed method (as opposed to the <embed> method)... but, I was looking into iFrame (for my scrolling gallery image strip thing I mentioned in another post) a few years back when I first did my site, and seem to remember something about iFrame not being compatible with some platform or browsers or something. Is iFrame fully supported on all things these days? Safe to use? I'll check out those links you posted, Ingolme. The read may make my brain wobble, though. (Complete side note: Wow, this forum is glitching out on me. As I type, the text is randomly switching from black to white, even on other people's posts. Something seriously funky with my machine, I think...)
  14. L.Adlon
    Yup, I've got a Transitional DOCTYPE tag there. I'm not using the single (ex. bottom) border method, but instead the background-color method you had outlined before. This is because the line needs to be centered vertically... although, if I were to do a single pixel top and bottom border together, would that end up with a centered 2 pixel line? Again, it's working great in Firefox, but IE is definitely showing a shaded line. If I make the height something like 10px, I DO get a thick line, but it has the bevel effect on it (1px wide). Adding any kind of border-style definition causes the line to completely disappear. Very weird... I haven't been able to sort anything further out about that. Seems very stubborn! Must be something I'm missing/doing that is affecting some discrepency between Firefox and IE. I might experiment with the top/bottom border method (rather than the background-color method), and see if that works better. Otherwise, I'll just use the stretched pixel method... a bit of a hack, but it's working at least.
  15. L.Adlon
    Odd thing I'm finding... I'm using the hr.line type thing you were illustrating above, and it's working except for in Internet Explorer. The lines appear shaded or something... not the solid colour I was defining. In Firefox, it was working. So, I added a border-style:solid; to the style definition (with the assumption that IE was still shading the line, despite the border/outline removal), and found that using any border-style declaration causes the lines to disappear in IE. Not sure what the deal is there... So, in IE, hr lines (which have been styled to be solid black, with no border or outline) appear like they are shaded or seomthing.... and adding any border-style definition causes the lines to disappear in IE. I'll keep tinkering here, and see if I can figure out what's going on.
  16. L.Adlon
    I'll look into that, but it's probably beyond my abilities at this point.
  17. L.Adlon
    @davej: I hear ya! Ironically, the captcha I had to endure to register for this forum was unbelievablly hard to read... Then, I tried doing the audio version, and that was a total joke. I don't think any human can understand what is being said by the audio version. Took me a few tries just to get the visual one right, finally. I'm glad I don't have to keep doing that. @Don E: Damn, too bad you need a Google account. I agree, having to do Captcha sucks, overall... I'm open to any other method. I just want something in place on my contact form so that I don't get bombarded with spam. I'd simply just put my contact email address on the site, but that gets easily read by bots, and I get spammed. So, I use a contact form, but that gets spammed too, if there's nothing in place to at least slow down the process. The internet is fun...
  18. L.Adlon
    Hi. I'm wondering... Since YouTube seems to be using Flash to do their videos, does that mean I'll have compatibility issues with things like some mobile devices (or anything without Flash support) if I try and embed a YouTube video on my website (via the usual <embed> method)? Or, does it switch over to some other (compatible) format if viewed on a non-Flash supported platform? Otherwise, mobile devices wouldn't be able to watch YouTube vids, right? I use embedded YouTube videos, because I pretty much gave up trying to figure out how to embed locally stored videos myself years ago (with all the redundant code for compatibility, and the multiple formats, etc)... figuring I'd let the techs at YouTube keep up with the latest methods/formats, and I just embed the video, hosted on their site. But, now I am wondering if their Flash method is going to give me compatibility problems. If there will be problems with just embedding a YouTube vid, can someone point me to the current/best method to embed a video on a regular HTML page?
  19. L.Adlon
    Yep. I set one up before (premade scripts/files). My web host supports that sort of thing. Just wondering what's latest and greatest (...well, simple and compatible, actually!) these days.
  20. L.Adlon
    ...preferably something that doesn't need a membership, excessive coding, etc. Just a simple, compatible contact form with Captcha, or some other anti-spam measure, for a regular HTML website (not a WordPress one).
  21. L.Adlon
    I suspect the one I'm using is Flash-based. For one thing, it mentions SWFObject... which, oddly enough, I just 'discovered' a few days ago, trying to find an alternate/better method of embedding Flash movies in my website. My current method was a bit of premade code and stuff from some person online, and I now replaced it with SWFObject.... but, looking at it, it may very well be the same type of thing (...just a newer/better version/utilization of it, I guess). The new SWFObject thing solved a number of issues I was facing with the Flash integration in my site, which was very welcome. I also realized I could replace some of the looping Flash animations with looping animated GIF versions, which solved a few things, too. Even if they fail, at least they will show the first frame, which works great, too. Ya, I never really thought about it, until you just mentioned it now, that the present jukebox thing may not work on mobile devices. I addressed the whole Flash support thing wtih the Flash movies, but never thought to consider the jukebox.... (Again, that's the very reason I avoid premade code... especially where I don't understand how they work!) Damn... That has really got me wondering, now... I thought that jukebox was a really nice solution, but you're right, it may not work on some mobile devices... or computers with Flash disabled/uninstalled, for that matter. I'm not sure about the HTML5 thing, though... Their seemingly simple and all-powerful <video> tag ended up (to me at least) a ridiculous joke... The TAG is simple enough, but the amount of support code that was required seemed to make it even more complicated and inconvenient than the methods it was made to eliminate/simplify! (I may be wrong, but from what I read up on it, when trying to switch over to it, it seemed far more complex than the regular HTML ways) I guess that even though they don't natively support it, some of the mobile devices have Flash playing plugins installed by their users, enabling them to view Flash sites. Kinda sucks that the music may not work. The other Flash stuff is purely aethetics, so it's not a complete loss if the site is viewed on a non-Flash system... but not being able to listen to the music portfolio is a serious letdown. I guess I'll use the current jukebox for now, but if anyone knows of some existing (and more compatible) method, please let me know. I guess I could go really barbaric, and just have links to the mp3 files? Let the native media player on the computer play them?
  22. L.Adlon
    On my current site, I'm using some 3rd party bit of code to display a sort of jukebox/mp3 player to play some of my music as part of my portfolio. It seems to work fine (although I haven't been able to test it on multiple platforms/browsers), but that was years ago, and I'm wondering if there might be something better. The one I'm currently using is from Premiumbeat. From what I see, the code defines a variable (SO) as a new SWFObject, then adds various variables/attributes, then does a write ("flashplayer"). (Sorry, I'm not an HTML scripting type) Whatever the case, the result is an embedded box/window with transport controls, and the songs displayed in a clickable list. That's all I need... the list of songs, and the ability to select any of them, and have it play. Anything out there that anyone would recommend? Simplicity is what I'm after. No need for bells and whistles. Just compatibility!
  23. L.Adlon
    Yep, there's plenty of scripts and premade things... Again, those work great, but I tend to lean towards things I am familiar with and understand the workings of. Premade scripts and such are great, unless I need to fix something... and then I'm completely lost and have no options. My limited knowledge in this is the limitation, as opposed to the tech. Plus, I can't account for how compatible things are, when I'm not clear on what they are doing! Oddly enough, my 'long image strip' method didn't present a loading delay. I tended to compress things pretty heavily back then, plus the image wasn't terribly huge. As well, back then I was still catering to dial-up people! For my new version of the site, I'm just picking 4 images for each section, and displaying them in a 'medium' size... small enough to load fast, but big enough to see enough detail. Seems to work great. I'm just curious what to best use if I wanted to do a proper gallery. I guess I'd just explore the existing pre-made gallery offerings. As I mentioned, I've even seen javascript-free versions that were pretty neat. I'm still a bit cautious, since I don't know their inner workings (and, therefore, limitations and quirks). At worst, I do the traditional thumbnail gallery hyperlinked to larger images on separate pages, as I've done up to now. I just was hoping to avoid having to maintain all those fullsize version pages, and creating the thumbnails. Not terribly tedious work, but if there's an easier way, I'd be curious to see it. Problem is, many of the solutions I did find (which were clever, efficient and easy to maintain) used coding/methods that were unfamiliar to me. Not a deal-breaker, but I do like to know how things work, rather than blindly slap them in and assume everything is fine. That code that dsonesuk shows, for example (...thanks for that) looks good, but it's wandering into unfamiliar territory for me (....I'm rusty with functions and some of the syntax). Much of the efficient, modular type methods are, unfortunately.
  24. L.Adlon
    The theory, at the time, as that this method meant that any addition to the library simply required the image strip to be changed. I'd have the Photoshop file on hand, with each image on a separate layer, but assembled side by side on the long white strip of the canvas. Rearranging the images meant just moving them in the Photoshop file (as opposed to the HTML code), and adding more pics meant just stretching the canvas further to the right in Photoshop, and dropping in the new images. Meanwhile, the online code would stay untouched (aside for, I guess, the width attribute of the <img> tag). On the site, you'd have this fixed size window with a scrollbar, and the first few images visible, and you'd scroll to the right to see the rest of them. Not saying it was the best way, by any means... Just the best way I knew how, with my limited HTML/CSS knowledge, and seemingly the safest as far as compatibility and ease of understanding. I did notice some scripts and such, but they were foreign to me, so I couldn't modify them, nor fix things when they went weird, so I tended to stay away from them. I wasn't sure of their compatibility, either. Not keeping up to date on current HTML/CSS trends and methods had left me kind of paranoid about compatibility of things I wasn'f fully aware of. I've recently seen java-free CSS gallery routines that seemed interesting. Over the last few years, I've noticed the jQuery stuff popping up, as well. Just kind of wondering if my method (even though it's not ideal) was still 'valid', or if it has compatibility issues or something. I'll be looking into the current offerings for galleries, but am always trying to keep things as simple as possible.
  25. L.Adlon
    Neat... I didn't know about some of those other styles. I had used double and dotted, but somehow wasn't aware of some of the others. Thanks again, Ingolme. I really appreciate all the help you're giving.
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