tables jumping around

when clicking on my navigation system

[burningwheel]

i tried fixing this according someone on another forum but still have the problem. it's particuarly bad with Safari

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

[edited by: tedster at 11:33 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2004]

[tedster]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, burningwheel.

Sorry we don't allow URLs to member sites. You'll need to fill us in a bit about layout with words and code (short snippets only please).

[burningwheel]

that's strange. i've never heard of that. most people want to see the entire code or site. ie macromedia forum

when i click on the navigation system of my site, it jumps around from section to section on the site. ie it changes location slightly

i created it in dreamweaver and used templates so all page should be the same.

it seems only to be a problem with sites i've created with dreamweaver

[burningwheel]

i think i figured it out. it has to do with whether or not there is a picture in the side/picture column of my layput. if one section of the site doesn't have a picture in the side column and another section of the site does, then it causes it to shift

anyone know how i can fix this?

[tedster]

It sounds like you've got a width declared for the table cell that holds the picture, but that width is slightly narrower than the possible image. Thus if there's no picture, you get a narrower width, but when the image is there you get a slightly wider cell -- because the browser will automatically adjust, no matter what width was declared.

[tedster]

By the way, one really down-and-dirty fix would be to always plug in an image of a similar width -- use an all transparent gif if you don't need a real image for a given page.

[burningwheel]

thanks ted.:)

now i have the problem on some other sites of mine and i don't think the pictures or lack thereof are causing the problem

[tedster]

I often see this kind of thing during early development. It may not be images, but the principle is usually the same: you can't really fix a width with the width attribute or with a css rule. Browsers always have the "right" to overrule you if they need to to render your code -- this may be because of font differences, line break rules the browser uses internally, images, etc.

It just takes some detective work to see what's distortng the original layout - sometimes tedious and frustrating, but basically a process of elimination, one factor at a time. The sneakiest cases are those pages where more than one factor is widening the table cell or div.

[burningwheel]

well it was mainly happening if i was using a cellspacing of 15. but now that i removed that i still have a page or 2 that is a problem

then on a new site of mine. i'm not using pics on the margins or cellspacing and i'm getting lots of the table jumping around

also on some page just adding one word can cause it go haywire