Pop up menu problem

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Pop up menu problem

Error on page problem

Niamh

8:31 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

I've just added pop up menus to my navigation bar using Dreamweaver Behaviours. I've tested them in Dreamweaver and they work perfectly. However when I uploaded them to my site and tested them on the net, the pop up menus don't appear, and there is a message in the bottom left hand corner saying 'Error on page'.

I've checked on other computers both PC and Mac, I've re-uploaded the page several time, rebooted, etc, etc, but the same thing happens. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

TheDoctor

8:51 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

Niamh, welcome to Webmaster World.

The first thing to do when you get this kind of problem is to go to [validator.w3.org...] and validate your HTML. The validator will tell you what the errors are. If you're not sure what to do about the errors, then ask here again.

Hope this helps.

Niamh

9:21 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thanks for that advice. I did what you suggested and got this:

No DOCTYPE Found! Falling Back to HTML 4.01 Transitional

A DOCTYPE Declaration is mandatory for most current markup languages and without one it is impossible to reliably validate a document.

One should place a DOCTYPE declaration as the very first thing in an HTML document. For example, for a typical XHTML 1.0 document:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>

<title>Title</title>
</head>

</html>

If I'm honest, this really doesn't mean a lot to me. The page works perfectly, it's just that the pop up menus don't appear so I'm a little confused as to what I should do to fix this.

Can anyone help?

Niamh

9:44 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

Each link on the navigation bars at the top and bottom of the page should show a pop up menu when the mouse is run over it (apart from the HOME and SELF STUDY SCHOOL links). But as you will see this is not happening.

Does anyone know why this might be?

Thanks again for you help.

<Sorry, no personal URLs. See TOS [webmasterworld.com]>

[edited by: tedster at 12:45 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2004]

syktek

10:16 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

just curious but did you upload this file:
mm_menu.js

to the server in the same directory as your home page?

Niamh

10:21 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

No, I hadn't done that. I just did it and it works. Thanks so much!

This my first website so I'm still very much a newbie. Your help was really appreciated.

Thanks again. Smiling lots.....

TheDoctor

10:56 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

All web pages should have a doctype. It tells the user's browser what sort of page it's dealing with. Is it an HTML page or an XHTML page? And which version?

You say the page works perfectly. It doesn't. It works by accident, and tomorrow it may not work.

There should be an option in Dreamweaver to tell it to generate a doctype. I should use that if I were you. And then validate your web page again.

[edited by: tedster at 12:46 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2004]

Niamh

11:35 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

Apologies for posting my URL. I didn't know it was against the rules. How do I remove it?

I have addded the following code to my page, above <HTML>:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

This has fixed one of the errors specified by the validation site that you directed me to.

However, there are still many other errors listed. I guess I'll get busy trying to work out what those are about now, too.

tedster

12:53 am on Nov 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

Just to clarify - validating to the W3C recommendation is a very good thing, but the original question was about the "error on page" message. That message is not triggered by HTML errors but by scripting errors (jscript and vbscript usually). The W3C validator will not validate scripts, just mark-up.

Nevertheless, learning to write valid code is one of the best things you can do, IMO. You will comprehend HTML in an altogether new way - not as a layout program (which it isn't) but as a mark-up langauge (which it is.)

WYSIWYG editors like DreamWeaver, FrontPage etc try to build the illusion that HTML can be a layout tool, like Quark or something. That's a dangerous illusion and creates a very wrong-minded approach to web authoring. So, good for you for digging into all the validator's feedback.

TheDoctor

10:49 am on Nov 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

the original question was about the "error on page" message. That message is not triggered by HTML errors but by scripting errors (jscript and vbscript usually). The W3C validator will not validate scripts, just mark-up.

Er, yes. Sorry, I wasn't thinking straight with my original reply. Apologies for any confusion I caused. I hope that everything is clearer now than it was.