Same Page, Three Experiments, Two Different Results

[iwato]

EXPERIMENT ONE: Open to the Grammar Captive Podcast Hostpage without a Query.

Observe the vertical alignment of the sidebar in relationship to the page's banner.
If you experience the same as I, the sidebar will be top aligned with both the navigation and middle content panels.

EXPERIMENT TWO: Open to the Grammar Captive Podcast Hostpage with a Query String Attached to the HTTPRequest

1. Open to the Proxy Request Page.
2. Click where it says Proxy Link.
3. Observe the middle panel that opens.  It should be a reference to Podcast No. 21.

Observe the vertical alignment of the sidebar in relationship to the page's banner and other aforementioned elements. 
If you experience the same as I, the sidebar is no longer top-aligned with the page's navigation bar and middle content panel.

EXPERIMENT THREE: Repeat Experiment One, but Open to the Podcast No. 21 Panel from the Already Opened Page.

1. Click where it says ALL in the navigation bar.
2. Click on the phrase Podcast Index ...
3. Find Podcast No. 21
4. Click where it says Discover more ...
5. Click on the command Click and Listen.

Observe the alignment of the sidebar.  It remains top aligned with the navigation bar and middle panel.

QUESTION ONE:  How might one explain this phenomenon?

QUESTION TWO:  And, what corrective action can be taken to prevent it?

Roddy

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by iwato

[dsonesuk]

For some reason with Experiment Two, the pagewrap element is not enclosing the sidebar and footer elements, the border along with bottom margin appears wrapping round the header only, which pushes the unenclosed sidebar down.

I think you have a extra misplaced closing div after closing main tag, as when viewing page source, the last div is highlighted in red, indicating there is no relative opening div tag to go with it.

[iwato]

I will check.  I use BBEdit as my software and regularly use its HTML checker to insure proper that my HTML elements are properly specified.  I have noticed that the editor does not know how to account for the presence of PHP and confuses the opening and closing tags for PHP with HTML.  I will suppress those tags and check again.  Let's see what happens.

Thanks.

Roddy

[iwato]

I just checked with the suppression of the PHP element, and my editor could find no error.  

Any other suggestions?

Roddy

[iwato]

OK.  I did a very thorough check of the HTML page podcast.hostpage.php and even revised certain aspects of the HTML and javascript.  What I found were several structural problems that were not picked up by the BBEdit HTML checker including a <header> element that had not been closed, as well as unclosed <li> and <p> tags.   I learned an important lesson.  All that appears well, may not be well.  Correcting these errors, however, did not solve the problem.

Please try again.

Roddy 

[dsonesuk]

I checked again and the problem still exits? Are there any php/JavaScript code that is generating an extra unnecessary closing div.

A browser will attempt to close elements with no closing tags, but it doesn't always get the placement correct.

[iwato]

I do not see any.  There are quite a few HTML comment tags,  and I am generally suspicious about how they function in the presence of other code.  Do you see a potential source of problem in the use of HTML comment tags:  

<!-- ... -->

Roddy

[dsonesuk]

Well my editor Netbeans highlights jquery code with html comments within them as missing a end quote, so i removed these html comments and warnings disappear? but it could be over sensitive, which it can be, very annoyingly sensitive.

Your html code now shows me through editor, that you have misplaced closing div just before closing main element.

[dsonesuk]

Ex 2;

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?showsource=yes&doc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.grammarcaptive.com%2Fpodcast_hostpage.php%3Fhash%3D30a6836a3f7c5fc57751a61098e5c221%26podcast_no%3D21#l452c96

Compared to

Ex 1

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grammarcaptive.com%2Fpodcast_hostpage.php&showsource=yes

Ex 3

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?showsource=yes&doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grammarcaptive.com%2Fpodcast_hostpage.php%3Fhash%3D30a6836a3f7c5fc57751a61098e5c221%26podcast%3D21

Even though they have errors, they don't have misplaced or extra closing elements, which is causing alignment issue because the wrapper only wraps the header and does not wrap sidebar OR footer elements. The wrappers bottom margin causes the misalignment of sidebar.

Edited February 15, 2018 by dsonesuk

[iwato]

Thank you, Dsonesuk!

The gap was removed when I eliminated the bottom margin.

Solving one problem appears, however, to have created another.  Please compare the placement of the footer in Experiments One and Two!

I had a look at the https://validator.w3.org/nu/ results, and they are certainly more revealing than what I have been able to obtain with BBEdit.  This said, it may be due to my lack of knowledge of the refinements of BBEdit, than BBEdits' short-comings.  I keep discovering more about BBEdit as time passes.

In any case, I must disappear for a couple of hours before I can give them the attention that they are obviously due.

In the meantime, if you have any more suggestions, please let me know.  It appears obvious that the source of the problem lies in the absence and presence of the following two optionally inserted resources:      

 $("<link/>", {
   rel: "stylesheet",
   type: "text/css",
   href: "./_utilities/css/podcast_list.css"
}).appendTo("head");
$("<link/>", {
   rel: "stylesheet",
   type: "text/css",
   href: "./_utilities/css/podcast_select.css"
}).appendTo("head");

 For,  these are absent when the podcast_hostpage.php is accessed with a  query statement external to the webpage (Experiment Two).

Roddy     

[iwato]

Hooray!  Hooray!  Hooray! 

Thank you, Dsonesuk.  I found the extra </div> tag and removed it.  Experiment Two now produces an outcome similar to Experiments One and Three.

Two thirds of a day were spent in an effort to overcome this problem.  As always, the time was not completely wasted, for I successfully eliminated the scoped style attribute from my imported <div> and made my page more browser robust.  What is more I was introduced to a new HTML and CSS checker.  But, still ... 

Roddy