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Topic: Dreamweaver 4.0

Andrew McCrea
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 645
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 03-15-2001 06:03 PM

My mom just got me Dreamweaver (my dad also wanted me to design a pages for his radio station) & I think it's great!

When his domain comes, I'll post it for you to see! Also, if you want to see something I whipped up in 30 minutes, check out http://swingfire.virtualave.net/

I just wanted to know what webmasters out there are using and how I could start building forums like this!

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Andrew McCrea

"I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Drawn That Way!" - Jessica Rabbit

Ian Price
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1714
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-15-2001 06:28 PM

Well this forum is called Ultimate Bulletin Board. All you have to do is pony up the money to buy it. Most forums I visit now use this. The trick is having something to say and encouraging others to chime in. I visit this forum where there are dozens of people posting and hundreds reading. I visit another forum where there seem to be 7 of us posting.

I maintain my own web site. I use Dreamweaver 3.0 and Fireworks 3.0. I have learned a great deal. I didn't design my site, but I update it each week. A web authoring tool is just that, a tool. The art is in the mind of the creator. Good luck with your designs. I am still trying to deside if it is worth it to upgrade to the new editions. Not being that much of a designer, I suspect that I should leave well enough alone.

This package cost us $500 and the upgrade would be another $250.

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-15-2001 06:58 PM

Andrew -- there is something horribly wrong with your server configuration that is setting the Content-Type: header to "text/plain" rather than "text/html". I'm guessing that your server doesn't understand what an ASP file is, especially considering that ASP ("active server page") is commonly used on NT-based web servers running MS IIS and considering that swingfire.virtualave.net is a FreeBSD (Unix-derived) machine running Apache. There are some hacks to make Apache parse ASP, but it's probably easier to work with server-side includes (see http://www.apache.org/ for more info) if you need to do server-side processing, since it will likely be faster and work better on your choice of server platform. Alternatively, you might want to look into switching to an NT-based web server that supports ASP (not that I would recommend this).

As things are now, when people hit your site, they should see only the HTML code, since the browser isn't supposed to parse the page as HTML unless the Content-Type: header sent by the server says "text/html". MSIE (which I don't use) might actually try to parse it anyway, regardless of the Content-Type: header, but Lynx and Netscape handle this "correctly" and just display the code.

As for editing HTML, I've used the vi editor happily since 1995 to create web pages. It works great: http://www.darryl.com/vi.shtml

As for messageboards--most web boards suck horribly, although the UBB (what Brad uses) is better than just about all of the other options. If you want something "free", the "classic" web-board is called WWWBoard and is available from www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/ Like all web-boards, this requires that you have access to a server that supports user-written CGI scripts. This particular one (as well as the UBB and most others) also requires that Perl be installed.

I will also recommend that you look into "validating" your HTML code to make sure that it complies with the w3c specifications. Try running your page through something like http://validator.w3.org/ or a perl script called "weblint"; there are quite a few errors in your code, BTW, which should be fixed to ensure that it will render on all browsers both now and in the future.

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-15-2001 08:22 PM

Ditto to everything Scott said, except that I was under the impression that Apache could run ASP natively. IIS sucks, but I really do like what ASP can do for you. It's a hell of a lot better than CGI scripts, that's for sure.

My main HTML editor would be notepad if I was on the PC. I like to type the raw code and it makes me feel that I have absolute control over the HTML (which I do). I go the extra mile to make sure that the HTML is correct, as Internet Explorer will "fix" some mistakes for you, but other browsers won't. I test all of my code in both IE and Netscape, on both the PC and the Mac. Most people only test with their favorite browser! If your page doesn't work with a particular browser on a particular platform, you need to redirect them to a page built for that browser (such as if your page uses DHTML -- that doesn't work very well on Netscape at all).

PS - I loooove tables. Most HTML people can't create a complex table without a tool like Frontpage or Dreamweaver. Netscape Composer cannot build complex tables.

Andrew McCrea
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 645
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 03-15-2001 08:50 PM

I have no problems with my website or anything when I view it.

Microsoft Word 97 can create complex tables.

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Andrew McCrea

"I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Drawn That Way!" - Jessica Rabbit

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-15-2001 09:16 PM

The only reason it "works" for you is that your browser is broken and isn't paying attention to the Content-Type: header that the server is sending. Basically, it's hiding the error from you, rather than doing what it is supposed to do (which is follow the server's instruction about how to handle that particular data type).

Web design is both and art and a science, which is why really good web designers get paid big bucks, since they have to understand both graphics and layout stuff and code. This isn't my strength, but I can tell you for certain that your server configuration is broken. It either needs to be changed to support ASP or you need to redo the page to not depend on ASP. Also, I have yet to see any HTML code which is produced by MS Word which is compliant with the w3c specs; literally every bit of HTML code produced by MS Word which I have seen is horribly broken. If you have lots of .doc files to convert and don't want to do it by hand, better results can be achieved by converting them to RTF format and using a freeware thing called "rtf2html" to convert to HTML. The MS Word HTML component is total junk, IMHO. Amazingly, though, Excel produces HTML code which is generally pretty good.

Joe -- I am honestly not entirely sure about the extent to which ASP is supported under Apache. Last I checked, it was experimental and spotty at best, but that was a while ago. I've never used ASP myself...only server-parsed (.shtml) html (includes, etc.).

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-16-2001 01:10 AM

I wouldn't use Word for HTML either. I've tried it and it sucks. It also depends on what a complex table is to you. The following is something that I crudely drew with my mouse as an example of what I would consider a complex table:

Why anyone would ever need a table like this is beyond me, but invisible tables are perfect for aligning elements of the page. This table has many, many nested tables. There is no way that Word could do something like this, save it as HTML and have it function on every browser that supports tables. But writing the raw code yourself, you can.

Create a page with this table and post the link here. Note that this table uses a combination of visible and invisible borders.

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 03-16-2001 03:31 AM

Andrew, the guys aren't messing with your head...all that displays is raw html code.

If you are interested in the UBB, you can purchase a license for about $200 (actually I think it's gone up now). The only problem with it is that how it comes "out of the box" is not ideal for everyone's situation. The UBB that is being used here has been highly modified by me over many hours of headaches. If you have the patience and most importantly, the spare time, then you can make it do what you want. Be forewarned that the company that makes the UBB keeps changing the routines in newer versions and has completely dumped the general version that I am running off of now. Many hate the upgrades, but some seem to like it. Personally, I do not like the newer versions, but you can no longer purchase the versions in the "5" range. People who have dumped the UBB since they went to version 6 are now purchasing something called the Vboard.

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-16-2001 04:31 AM

OK after reading Brad's post I checked out Andrew's site with Netscape (Mac). It's all just raw HTML code like Brad says. The page shows up in IE5. I know Brad uses a PC so obviously it doesn't work in the PC version of Netscape, either. Scott is coming off of a Unix box I believe, and it doesn't work there. So it only will work with users who choose to use IE 5. I think it is unfortunate how Internet Explorer "fixes" broken code. It inspires poor web design. The w3c and XHTML will fix this. Netscape and other browsers are very literal in the code that they process.

I hope I don't sound too harsh, but a good web designer ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS checks his work on as many browsers as he has available to him/her. No exceptions and no excuses. We all may prefer one browser over another, and that's why you should always check your work on various browsers. Are you going to force people to use IE? There will be a lot of people who won't like that, and therefore won't like you or your business. You can't rely on the user. The user must rely on you.

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-16-2001 06:56 AM

I have had this theory for a while, but recently confirmed it with a friend who is one of the "big-bucks" web designers: MSIE is really permissive about dealing with broken code, and so it is possible to write invalid HTML that will work with MSIE (right now, but not necessarily in the future) and nothing else. That's why MSIE is really a bad choice of browser for testing your code. This confirms what Joe has said above.

Writing code which is truly valid per the w3c specs is the only way to ensure that it will be viewable in everything, both now and in the future. If you had written valid HTML code in 1994, you would still be able to view it on current browsers. That's the whole purpose of HTML and the web in general--to provide markup that is client-independent.

Two browsers that are worth using for testing your code are Amaya (available from the w3c site: http://www.w3.org/Amaya ) and Lynx (available from http://lynx.browser.org/ ). Amaya is the w3c official browser and is the only browser that I am aware of which is fully compliant with w3c specs. Lynx is a text-based browser which is commonly used by blind people and users of dialup shell accounts. Lynx is super-fast, which is why I use it most of the time; once you learn how to use it, you can zip through forum sites like this in about 1/4 the time that it would take with something like Netscape. Anyway, both of these browsers pretty much force you to write valid code, which is exactly why every web developer should be using both of them, in addition to MSIE and NS; if something is viewable in Lynx and Amaya, it will almost certainly work in just about anything else.

Note that this isn't supposed to be a flame; we're trying to help you understand what is wrong with your current web site and trying to show you how you can improve it.

Jerry Chase
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1068
From: Margate, FL, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 03-16-2001 07:19 AM

Aren't there websites that purport to show you what your page will look like under different browsers? I seem to remember hearing of something like that a while back.

MS is notorious for attempting to grab market share in whatever way possible. "Fixing" code and adding features peculiar to IE doesn't surprise me in the least.

On a seperate subject, what say we all chip in and buy Joe a version of paint that has the straight line function enabled?

Andrew McCrea
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 645
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 03-16-2001 03:55 PM

If I saved all the pages as an (.htm) will it work....? Is that what you're saying or does this have nothing to do with what you were saying??

------------------
Andrew McCrea

"I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Drawn That Way!" - Jessica Rabbit

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-16-2001 04:28 PM

Ha ha Jerry. I drew that in Fractal Painter in about 10 seconds with my mouse. I was much too lazy to use the straight line tool. It really wasn't that big of a deal anyway for the point I was trying to prove.

Scott.. do both of those browsers support Javascript, DHTML, and other crap like that? Or are they just strict in the HTML sense of the word? I will give them a shot soon.

Andrew, you can try that, but I don't think that's the problem. Delete ALL of your meta tags and give it another go. Meta tags are not needed at all. They are helpful in search engines, though.

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-16-2001 05:05 PM

Joe: I know that Lynx doesn't support Javascript, etc. and I'm fairly certain that Amaya doesn't, either. Part of the point of testing with these browsers is to make sure that the site at least works on a minimal level without Java and/or Javascript, etc. enabled. This is important, as many users disable Javascript/Java intentionally to get rid of annoying pop-up ads and others are using clients like Lynx that don't support it.

Andrew: It "might" help, but you need to check the server configuration and make sure that there aren't any ASP "tags" (or whatever ASP uses to generate HTML on the fly) in the code. One ofthe things that a web server does before it sends the code to the client software (browser) is tell the browser what type of data it is sending, so the browser can identify whether it should expect HTML code, a JPEG image, etc. With Apache and most other web servers, the server determines the data type based on the extension (.html, .jpeg, etc.); this is configurable in a file called mime.types and also in httpd.conf. You can't edit these files unless you're the server admin, but it is in these files where the valid extensions are listed. Normally, servers recognise files ending in .html as HTML files. Some servers also recognize .htm (to cope with DOS-broken-ness) or .shtml (for HTML files which need to be parsed by the server). Try renaming the file and deleting any ASP tags and see if it works.

If this doesn't work, ask the server admin what you are supposed to name your HTML files.

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-16-2001 05:51 PM

ASP tags look like this:

Note: The above is a picture because the UBB won't let me display HTML tags or ASP tags.

The HTML/script is inside these tags. I like ASP because you can use JavaScript and VBScript on the server side and send only HTML to the browser. That way you can have the pop ups to annoy Scott and others even when they try to defeat you by turning off Javascript! Yes, there will always be a way to annoy!

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