[WEB4LIB] Can I have everything I want?

[glen.davies at cce.ac.nz]

Hi

Unfortunately no matter how much you play around to get it looking 
right all it takes to blow it apart is for somebody to have there 
default fonts set larger than normal. With your tables being relative 
sized the columns will just resize to accomodate the bigger font 
and so they won't line up over the background image. 

The only way to achieve what you want with support for older 
browsers is to put the backround colours in the table cells, ie. 
make the document background white, the left table cell blue, a 
thin table cell with nothing in it except maybe a transparent gif for 
spacing and a black background and then a right cell with a white 
background. 

It is not the way html is supposed to work though, that is using 
tables for layout. But I am not enough of a purist myself to give you 
a lecture about this. (no doubt there are others on the list who can 
though :-) )





On 8 Mar 00, at 17:37, Valerie Lawrence wrote:

> Well, maybe that question's a little too broad... here's what I want to
> do.
> 
> I have a page that I want to use a background graphic with blue on the
> left, a thin black line, and white to the right.  So far, so good.  The
> background graphic looks the way I want it to.  The page copy is all in a
> table.  I want the table to be relative-sized (percentage rather than
> pixels) so it will display "decently" (I know, relative term! I mean
> without too much white space at the right) on any monitor resolution.  I
> know it can't be perfect on all, but I want it to be acceptable on any and
> I don't want low-res users to have to scroll to the right. My main problem
> is that I want to force the navigation bar to display within the blue
> area, and the main copy to display within the white area, for all
> resolutions, for all browsers, for all time.  ;^)  Not that I'm a control
> freak, or anything.
> 
> Can I do this?  If I size the table using percentages, can I still specify
> that table cells be specific pixels wide -- and have any browser
> understand this? I've already found, based on the table's current
> specifications, that 1) the pages look awful at 640x480 and 2) Netscape
> and IE interpret the size instructions differently.  NS will size the
> table for the screen width (95%) but IE only fills up as much as the
> graphics at the top of the page specify.  (I hope this makes sense; I'm
> kind of fried.)  I keep thinking there's got to be something I'm missing
> here that would make this easier/possible/etc.
> 
> Sample pages may be viewed at http://www.wschiro.edu/test -- there are
> links to three options but they're all essentially the same except for the
> photo in the upper left corner.
> 
> Ideas & suggestions will be much appreciated!
> 
> Val
> 
> Valerie Lawrence, MLS, Assistant Librarian	<lawrencv at ohsu.edu>
> Western States Chiropractic College
> 2900 NE 132nd Ave.			       Voice  (503)251-5756
> Portland, OR  97230			       Fax    (503)251-5759
> Opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent those of 
> my employer.  Goodness knows why they hired me.
> 


********************************************
Glen Davies
IT Consultant
Christchurch College of Education
Dovedale Ave
Christchurch
Ph. 64-3-343 7737
glen.davies at cce.ac.nz
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