[WEB4LIB] Re: Is it Netscape or is it the computer

[Araby Greene]

It's probably both. We had this problem (when I was at another lib) a year
or so ago, with an ATI Rage II video card and NT4. When ATITECH finally
upgraded the video driver, we installed it and the problem went away. The
cause was an incompatibility between NS and the NT video driver in
displaying transparent gifs. For a time, we had to remove all transparency
from graphics on the home page, but other Web sites displayed transparent
gifs as black blobs. Refreshing the screen did not always solve the problem,
but upgrading the driver did.

Hope this helps,
Araby Greene
___________________________
Araby Greene
araby at unr.edu
Web Development Librarian
Getchell Library/322
Univ. of Nevada, Reno
http://www.library.unr.edu/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eileen Lutzow" <elutzow at csuniv.edu>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 7:41 AM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Is it Netscape or is it the computer


> Michele,
>
> We also have this problem with a variety of sites when we use Netscape
> 4.08 and 4.7.  We see it primarily on the computers running WinNT 4.0 sp4-
> 6.  I don't use our Win95 machines enough to notice if it happens there as
> well.  I think it does, but not as frequently as on the NT machines.  It's
> epecially annoying with the SilverPlatter databases, but I've seen it with
> InfoTrac and even some regular Webpages (like our new campus
> homepage at http://www.csuniv.edu ).  Icons and buttons just disappear or
> come in as black or with some other image instead.  I'm assuming it has
> something to do with the HTML or CSS on the page and how Netscape
> handles it (or fails to handle it), but I don't know for sure.  One thing
I do
> know that helps a bit:  if you open more than one window, then toggle
> between the two windows, the missing icons and buttons usually display
> properly, though you have to do this almost any time the screen changes.
> Not intuitive to the public, but it does help a bit.  If anyone has a
permanent
> fix, I'd love to hear it.  We're getting ready to banish Netscape from our
> public PCs (which are mostly WinNT) because of this problem, especially
> now that I.E. has Print Preview.
>
> Eileen Lutzow
> Charleston Southern University
>
>
> On 30 Nov 00, at 16:16, Michele Seipp wrote:
>
> > We are having a problem with the left side navigation buttons in
> > InfoTrac disappearing randomly.
> >
> > There are 6 computers, all using Netscape Navigator 4.08, but we can
> > only get this to happen on one computer.  The buttons on the left side
> > are all visible on the first page, but as you go further into your
> > search, they begin to disappear from the screen as the new pages load.
> > Reloading may or may not bring back some of them.  You can still use the
> > buttons if you read the ALT tags, but it is not obvious to the public
> > that a button even should be there, so they don't know to look for the
> > tag.
> >
> > Because it only happens on this one computer, we are thinking it isn't
> > Netscape.  But if not, what else is there to blame?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Michele Seipp
> > Lafayette Public Library
> > Lafayette, CO
> > micheles at cityoflafayette.com <mailto:micheles at cityoflafayette.com>
> >
>
>
> Eileen Lutzow
> Systems and Electronic Resources Librarian
> L. Mendel Rivers Library
> Charleston Southern University
> 9200 University Boulevard
> P.O. Box 118087
> Charleston, S.C.  29423
> voice (843) 863-7951
> fax   (843) 863-7947
> email elutzow at csuniv.edu