nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 14, 2012 2:19:57 GMT
Right, since Em seems worried about the compatibility of the main site, I took out the cranky grammar Nazi of web browsers (Dillo) and pointed it at the site. It doesn't speak JavaScript or flash, so the adverts, chat box and banner were missing, but the page still rendered (remarkable, really). It reported 8 errors, mostly related to surrounding tables and div tags with paragraph formatting tags (<a> and <p>), but other than that it gave the site an all-clear.
Consequently, if a site is broken in some obscure browser, it's probably not worth the headache to fix it. If you find out what the browser is, I'm happy to take a look at forcing compatibility, but it's probably not really worth it to try every last browser in history on the page.
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 14, 2012 6:46:08 GMT
I think the main concern for the moment is mobile browsers you would find on smartphones such as an Android phone or an iPhone. Other phones like a Blackberry or Windows Phone would be useful as less popular but still meaningful platforms.
For my part I'd be surprised if there were any significant issues, but my dinosaur phone with its peanut-brain has no idea what all this business about webs from the intertubes is all about. I should probably get a new phone someday.
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Post by Emily on Feb 14, 2012 9:13:23 GMT
maybe you smart folk could help out with another problem then, this has never happened to me but certain people report that the homepage loads without significant (and seemingly random) picture links, sometimes because of adblockers, sometimes for no good reason... care to hazard a theory?
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 18, 2012 12:00:48 GMT
Well, for starters, there are spaces in the birthday picture URLs. That may cause pickier browsers to crap a brick at them. Lines 122, 124 and 126 according to Dillo. Line 53 has a space in the top11 copy URL, which may cause similar issues.
Line 74 has three <a> tags and only two </a> tags. Where the missing </a> goes, I don't know, but that may cause problems in pickier browsers. Line 96 you have a <div> tag inside a <p> tag. That doesn't work; <p> and <div> are both block types, so you should probably remove the <p> and </p> tags there.
Line 134 it looks like you should close the <p> tag there instead of at line 140, where it is encountered before the </form>. That, or swap lines 140 and 141.
Finally, you should really have the script in your <head> block, then call it onload, but that's probably not causing anything other than Dillo to cry.
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Post by Emily on Feb 19, 2012 12:21:21 GMT
ah specifics! always a help i'll set to work on these- what do you mean by "script in the head block"?
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 19, 2012 19:24:32 GMT
I mean you put your arm around its neck and hold it slightly below your shoulder, possibly while giving it a noogie and telling it to say unc-- Oh, wait, not that kind of head block.
And like I said, that's probably not much of a concern, but technically your <script> tags should be in an external file, using <link href=...> syntax, or simply embedded inside the <head> and </head> tags, since tags in the body are effectively the same as having them in the head with an onload='function(); function0;..." parameter on the body.
Of course, if you do that, all the scripts need function names or a wrapper, and I'm not convinced that's a big deal, so unless you've tried everything else and there are people specifically complaining about not seeing things that JavaScript is supposed to generate, and they're using a browser you intend to support, you probably just shouldn't worry about it. Dillo was complaining about having <script> tags outside the header, but that's Dillo.
Saying Dillo complains about something is like listening to an American giving a Brit English lessons: there are many ways to say things, and if you say them reasonably, most people will still get what you wanted them to, but there are always those cranky folks who just won't listen unless your grammar is perfect.
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Post by Emily on Feb 19, 2012 20:21:12 GMT
^still have no idea what you just said about head blocks. *small words for the very inept*
implemented the other coding changes, hopefully this will help.
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 20, 2012 15:08:06 GMT
Short answer: Don't sweat it; it's probably not the problem.
If you want a full explanation, I can provide it. Just bear in mind that "small words" rarely applies when talking about technicalities.
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Post by Emily on Feb 20, 2012 22:58:54 GMT
Lol, I can send you the site index file if you wanna have a crack at it yourself? here's the latest update on what isn't working from Inanna- I'd say this was probs just her pc if she was the only one I'd heard it from... but it's not so lets keep chipping away see if we can fix this OK, I tried to copy the screen so you could see what was missing but it doesn't come out the same! I get the spider banner, then a big gap presumably where your banner should be, then it says comics in ordinary type in the middle, I get proper working cherry and D spring buttons side by side, but no footloose one, (and the shoutbox on the left) then below that, 2 blue "subscibe to RSS feeds", a heading for "Artwork and fiction" (heading only) and then a heading for "shop online" (only a heading), the TWC rank and donate to the site (side by side), Ally's blurb and your blurb side by side but no pictures,, Ally's twitter link, Buy now and gingerbread art links under yours, and at the very end mail links for both of you.
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 21, 2012 6:25:35 GMT
Ok. I see what's happening. It's blocking all the image in the "banners" directory. I can duplicate that effect exactly simply by blocking everything from (www.footloose.com/banners). The best you can do in this case is rename the "banners" folder/directory to something that makes it sound less like ads and retarget all the references to the images stored there. Inanna is definitely having issues with an ad-blocker.
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 21, 2012 6:27:39 GMT
Em, I've asked Inanna a couple of times for the OS and browser that she's using. Seriously, that's the easiest way to check if it's specifically the browser or some other software she has loaded. Without knowing what she's using, it's almost impossible to diagnose the problem. The OS should be something like Windows XP, Mac OSX or Debian GNU/Linux. If she can't tell me directly what the OS is, I can probably guess it from a screenshot.
At a bare minimum, I can guess a fair bit from a screenshot. Does she know that the [Print Screen] button will take a full screenshot in most OS? If she's using a laptop, it may be harder to find and we can explore other ways to get a screenshot. After pressing the Print Screen button, she needs to open up a bitmap editor and paste it there. If I knew what OS s/he's using, I could recommend a program based on what's probably already installed. I know MS Paint handles it reasonably well in Windows XP/2000/98/95...
Once I have a screenshot of the browser pointed at the FL homepage, it may be easy enough to diagnose, and I should be able to guess the OS and browser. Until I have something other than a textual description of the problem, however, there really isn't much I can do. That's not me being a jerk; there really are too many variables for me to even begin looking right now.
The GIMP is a really useful program for taking screenshots without needing the Print Screen button, but it requires an install from the GIMP's site, which may be intimidating. Of course, if s/he is running a Linux or BSD distro, it should be available pretty easily through traditional install methods.
== EDIT == (X'o'Lore posted in the time it took me to write all that...) X, what browser were you using? I tried that in Chrome and it blocked a bit more than just those particular images...
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Post by Emily on Feb 21, 2012 8:01:33 GMT
also from Inanna (who is a she- my aunt actually) Innana has had a brainwave: She currently uses Windoze XP home dition 2002 with service pack 3 (but may abandon this for Linux of some sort when her shit is together), runs Google Chrome 17.0.963.56, which has Ad Block Plus Beta 1.2 on it and also Social Fixer 6.401 (which doesn't make her appointments with cool people).
ohhhhh mannnnnn renaming all the banners and relinking everything will be a find-and-replace-apalooza -_- EDIT: it really wasn't that hard emily you lazy POS. images are now in the cunningly titled "siteimages" folder.
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 21, 2012 8:41:46 GMT
nilam: I use Opera. I modified it quite a bit so it's not quite a standard install of it. I see the renaming is in. Hopefully it's enough to keep overzealous ad-blockers from blocking too much.
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Post by Emily on Feb 21, 2012 9:54:23 GMT
we shall see, i'm still happy to email the index file to anyone who *wants* to play with it, but don't wanna waste your time...
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Post by tangent on Feb 21, 2012 15:06:42 GMT
POS? Pretty Ol' Silly?
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 21, 2012 18:22:58 GMT
I can already play with your index file. As a simple html file I basically download a fresh copy just by visiting the site. I'm not likely to do much though. If I started messing with it I'd be inclined to rewrite the whole page to eliminate the tables, but if I was going to go through that much effort I could just as well build a whole new site. That'd be a bit much just for playing around.
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Post by Emily on Feb 21, 2012 23:02:41 GMT
Tables are simple. I know everyone thinks they're for idiots, but it's easy and hard to mess up.
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 22, 2012 0:57:45 GMT
I don't think they're for idiots; I spent my first few years in HTML using tables, because they were what was available. They're like GOTO, though: It's easy to make a mess, and because so many people did when they didn't have a better option, they're considered a poor choice by many people who have seen how much cleaner other options can be.
If you don't expect your site to really evolve much, a table is perfectly acceptable. X probably just means that s/he'd feel compelled to make it more maintainable, which is a rather common pathology in coding, and by the time hir compulsion is satisfied, it would drive hir to the heights and depths of madness simultaneously. I'm of a like mind, but would probably DO it if I got sufficiently bored. Of course, I'd be more likely to re-write the cast page than the main page, but w/e.
Glad you have the compat issues sorted (for now... meh-heh-heh-heh-ennnh).
==EDIT== Em, did you change the link for Fairy Boutiques as well? I'm getting that image as a 404 error in Chrome under Linux...
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 22, 2012 4:55:23 GMT
The fairy boutiques image is linked from a different site. I think her find/replace got a little overboard. Currently the image is targeting: fairyboutiques.gotop100.com/lists/fairyboutiques/custom/siteimages/62296.jpgbut it should be: fairyboutiques.gotop100.com/lists/fairyboutiques/custombanners/62296.jpgThat should fix that. EDIT: nilam: I feel like I should point out that this forum has a gender field for people. I'm male as it shows so you can safely use he/him/his pronouns with me (though the gender neutral pronouns are amusing). You're pretty well correct about my compulsion. Tables seem dated to me. Anyone with sufficient comfort with CSS doesn't really need tables anymore for site layout. Regardless, I'm not ready to designate myself Emily's technical support on this, so I'm just gonna leave it alone for now.
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nilam
Bucaneer
Awful alliterator, antagonist, activist, artist, application artificer, all-around awesome!
Posts: 29
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Post by nilam on Feb 22, 2012 6:59:47 GMT
Oh, my! There is a gender field, isn't there? I feel unobservant now.
I suspected that was the problem with the banner, but thought it should still be brought up.
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