I know i'm probably too late here and everything but i've got a quick question i'm hoping you guys can help me with.

I'm using dreamweaver to make myself a website and i've just gone an previewed the website.

It's all locally on my machine still at the moment but what i'm wondering is...

When i change the size of the screen the text along my menu bar at the top cascades... eg. It doesn't stay in place but tries to fit all the headings underneath themselves when i make the window smaller?

An example would be if you were to make the TA website smaller, all the USER CP, FAQ, MEMBER LIST, CALENDAR etc.. would go underneath each other if i were to make the window smaller..

So, i'm wondering how do i keep the website a fixed size?

Thanks... :)

nelly

If you want it to scale automatically, so everything remains on the same line, but occupies the full width of the screen, you need to use "relative" sizing in your tables, e.g


<table>
<tr>
<td width="10%">blah</td>
<td width="90%">blah</td>
</tr>
</table>

Or in TA's case, the actual header is a fixed size, so they'd use "absolute" sizing (but note that you'll get a scroll bar if the window is made too small in the relevant dimension:


<table>
<tr>
<td width="50">blah</td>
<td width="150">blah</td>
</tr>
</table>
Note that in the above example, the sizes are in pixels

Now, I'm not sure how you swap between relative and absolute sizing/positioning in dreamweaver, but atleast you know the terms now to search through the help... or you could just see what happens when you add a percentage sign to the specified size

HTH

Mark

there's probably a better way, but you could try adding each item into a table, that shoudln't wrap when the window is resized.
otherwise, you can use "imageholders" which hold the images in specific locations.... (by assigning a vertical and horizontal pixel location)

Thanks a mill mullet and bob..

I'll give it a shot now and get back to you letting you know if i got it to work.

Cause of other work i'm now screwed for tomo. I've got to get a website in for 9, i've chosen to do it on my car which atleast is slightly more interesting. But i've only barely got the first page done, then got all this wrapping sh!te..

anyway thanks.

nelly

No one has a shity website they made ages back do they? lol

This is a pain in the ass, and i blame my two departments not talking to each other and finding out that i had assignments for both my german department and computer department for the same week.

nelly

ps. i'm just messing, but this is going to be one hell of a late night!

n3lly - do a search for "website templates".. you'll probably find dreamweaver specific, and regular graphical templates for use for free :)

Oh i have a template done.. and i have nearly the whole thing set up..

The annoying thing is that, small problems take you ages to figure out.

Obviously i should have given myself time to sort them out etc but yeh, i didn't really have that much time.

It's my own fault in the end but it's just annoying. I have the whole layout of the site already i'm just trying to tweak it so that it looks better. It doesn't look like i can give it a fixed size. Also i'm sure there is a place where you can do it it's just finding it.

I'll take a screen of what i've got so far...
two secs


FFS, took long enough to upload..

I'll link it as i didn't bother editing it.. there's my desktop for you :D

http://www.geocities.com/n3lly19/mysite.txt

edit: as you can see i've got the layout nearly sorted.. but when i make the window smaller the "home, The head unit, The speakers..." etc tab overlaps onto the next line instead of staying put. I can put a scroll bar in which sorts it out but i don't want that. I know i'm playing around in the right location but everytime it just stays the same.. Anyway

Looking very nice for a first site mate :) I see you've copy and pasted the web developer's bible too - always good :D

A few pointers (all suggestions, not "have to"'s)

1) order your links sections alphabetically so it's easier for users experienced with your site to find what they're looking for, rather than browsing the entire list each time
2) What is the pic of the beetle relevant to? I'd get rid of it... If necessary for visual appeal, use something relevant
3) The grey text above "Welcome" - is that links, or a pseudo-directory structure? If it's the former, change the style as it appears to be a directory structure. If it's the latter, you may want to rethink your hierarchy, as "What is ICE" shouldn't be underneath "About my Car"
4) Check consistency of uppercase/lowercase use in headers, titles, links etc...
5) Remove the word "The" before "Headunit", "Speakers" etc... it's repetative "non information". The site gains nothing by having it there, and it detracts from the impact of whatever word comes next.

Think that'll do for now ;)

The layout itself is great - very clear and thoughtful.

As for your header, try and make the grey bar a single pixel wide, multi-pixel tall image, that can be tiled horizontally across the page. If you put that as the background to a table that's 90% wide, you'll end up with a 90% of browser wide bar, no matter how wide the screen is. All you need then is to add the little bevels at the extremeties, which can be done with a few pixel wide cells at either end of the 90% wide table. Again, this will line up perfectly no matter the resolution.

Only problem then is your header bar will automatically expand to fill up the full space available, hence the links will be a little distance apart... however, if you look at that more as a feature than a little niggle you couldn't sort out, who's going to know any better?

There are several clever ways of sorting it out as you want, but tbh, they're a bit advanced for a one night wonder.

HTH

Mark

Thanks a mill mate for your help...

And to be honest.. i'm just about to start the whole ****ING thing again, as for some reason it decided to move everything over by about 400px to the right and i couldn't get it back even by changing the page properties or any other setting i could get my hand on.

The page itself is grand and everything and at this stage i'm just gonna write a load of ******** on it. I'm suppose to have around 10-15 pages and the way it's looking i'll have 1 page with about 12 linked pages to other websites...

Anyway just want to say thanks a million for your help. It has been useful (honestly).. I'll change the things you told me to this time round. (i had a nice rant there in MO just after the fúcker fúcked up on me)

It's exhausting, but more annoyingly it's a pity as i really like what i'm doing here. It's fun, which is the first time i've actually used that word in my course. Just a pity i can't get the thing to come together. I just need more time.

Anyway, i'll let you know (if i remember to) how it goes. Thanks again mate you're help is/was much appreciated.

nelly

ps.. I looked at some more templates and i think that one's actually quite a good one for the info i want to show on the site.

edit: oh yeh the picture on the top right is just a picture of my first car, it has an alt tag on it that says that... I'll have some mid 20 yr old guy looking at my site so they might like it.. but good point about the relevance.

If your stuff suddenly moved across the screen, chances are you've edited the table and there's a mismatched/incorrectly nested table data/row tag somewhere. Change the table border to 1 and see if you can spot the offending item, or run the code through a code validator (not sure how good the one in dreamweaver is, but I use the one in homesite very regularly and it comes in really helpful).

No worries for the advice - glad to be of help :)

You are a useful chap... the validation thing worked quite well.

The site is still funky and i'm better off starting off again but it's good to know :)

Thanks mate, i owe you one. Let me know if you're ever need anything from dublin :D

nelly

And well i'm nearly done now.. have a really nice page IMO of course.. and for a first time using dreamweaver i'm quite happy with what i've learnt :D

I'm very tired.. but i'm not going to bother going to bed. Will head into college come home and go to sleep then. Never done this, so should be fun. Have another test for german now tomo (thurs) Woohoo! And to think i'm getting a degree in IT Where there's no jobs! Yeeeehhaaaa! lol God i'm wired!

nelly

lol. Hope you got it sorted, and are awake for Uni still ;) Upload a screengrab when you're done so we can see how it turned out mate :)

lol. Hope you got it sorted, and are awake for Uni still ;) Upload a screengrab when you're done so we can see how it turned out mate :)


Yeh no i was just talking to one of the 'testers' (a 4th year student in other words) and they said it was grand.. a pity i didn't have more then one main page but pretty good none the less. And to think that i was one of the only people with relative links as well. :D

It's pretty cool, there's obviously still some *****, but it's a little annoying finding out now that i only have to have it in at 5pm.. Though i'm glad i've got most of it done.

Was thinking of putting a form at the bottom of it as well to let people leave their comments but dunno how hard that is.

nelly

it's easy...


<html>
<head>
<title>My Contact Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="mailto:me@myhost.com" method="POST">
<input type="text" name="Name:" size="50" maxlength="50"><br>
<input type="text" name="Email:" size="50" maxlength="200"><br>
<textarea name="Comments:" rows="10" cols="50">Please enter your comments here</textarea><br>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>


:)

[edt] Give it a try though - the email won't come out exactly as you'd expect, although it's still readable ;)

I had a similar problem when setting up Internet Mapping when I was working in the council. You can use NOWRAP but it doesn't always work as you'd hoped.

What i did in the end was to split the table into two rows. Then I made a blank gif that was 5x5 pixels in size. I decided that the menu at the top had to be at least 300px wide. So I just put the pic into the lower table and stretched it to 300px wide, this coupled with NOWRAP meant that if the window was resized the menu never fell over itself. This coupled with a cell in the middle set to 100% meant the menu would always stay on the right side of the page, and as the page size was reduced, the 100% cell would shrink, until there was no more toom and the menu would then go off the page instead of folding.

Also, in dreamweaver, open the page properties, and make the leftmargin, topmargin and right margin 0, this gives you more room on the page.