Interesting layout issue in IE5 for Mac

[grock]

Dear friends,

I've got an interesting HTML layout problem that shows up ONLY in IE5 for Mac... the other platforms and browsers work well. It appears to be Table related.

Have a look in IE for Mac, and compare in another browser for the intended design. It's a Frames page... the black lines should align (you'll see).

Feel free to offer input - I've messed with the table dimensions ad nauseum.

best,
PG

[edited by: grock at 1:00 am (utc) on Jan. 24, 2003]

[piskie]

Welcome to Webmaster world

You may wish to edit out your URL as it is not allowed to be included in posts.

Having said that, I once had a persistent problem with IE 5.x on a Mac and in the end it had to be tollerated. IE 5 on a Mac is a strange animal.

[grock]

My apologies about the URL. How does one refer to an external Web page then?

[martinibuster]

Hmm. I still see your url. Please delete it. You aren't getting any help from me until you do.

See the little "owner edit" button on the side? Click that and edit out your url.

[mivox]

One does not refer to external webpages by way of example in most cases... it's preferred that you perhaps describe the layout problem in more detail. Try to describe exactly what your problem is.

What looks different about the table in IE5/Mac as opposed to all the others?

BTW... Welcome to WebmasterWorld, grok! :) Our members are almost certain to know the solution (and be happy to share it) as soon as we know exactly what the problem is.

[grock]

OK. I have removed the URL as you instructed. Interesting.

The problem is difficult to explain... I honestly think a picture would be worth a thousand words as they say. But... I will submit ;)

In short, I've got a table in a framed page that is seemingly ignoring HEIGHT assignments, both in the TD and TABLE tags. However, I think the problem has something to do with the particulars of my table, because IE 5 for Mac usually renders Tables well.

[mivox]

Is the table used to hold together a sliced graphic, or does it contain text? If it's for a graphic, do all the slices have their sizes specified in their <img> tags?

With text it hard to keep anything precisely sized because of different text display sizes between browsers.

<added>Just going through the usual suspects first... ;) </added>

[grock]

(Yes, usual suspects first =)

It's a very LONG table (~10,000 pixels), three rows, with mixed text and images.

The graphics all have HEIGHT & WIDTH assignments. The thing is really a frickin monster from a technical point of view. What's odd is that all the other platforms/browsers render properly.

[mivox]

At first thought, I'd be inclined to blame it on the text... Unless you're using absolutely/pixel sized text with CSS (which about half of our members will have a fit over... heheheh), there's no way to control the text size in every brower.

So, next question: in IE5/Mac, is the text filling the table cells, or are there weird gaps in the layout?

[grock]

I realize that there isn't actually text. IT's all images - non-continuous. A series of images in a long gallery (it's a portfolio type page).

It appears that I cannot control the height of the table using HEIGHT assignments in either the TD or TABLE tags. That's the essence of the problem.

PG

[mivox]

Have you tried adding a 1px. wide column, with the cells filled with exactly-sized spacer gifs? I shudder to suggest it, but it tamed some pretty impossible tables for me in the past...

What I would do is create a single transparent 1px gif (usually named "spacer.gif"... original, eh? ;) ), then I'd call that same image into each spacer cell in the table, specifying the image dimensions as width="1" x height="X" with X being whatever specific height I wanted that table row to be.

[grock]

Interesting idea. I'd never have thought of that meself. I'll give it a try...