Stylesheets - Transparent gif screws up display.

Author

Transparent gif screws up display.

Jim

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

Now this is just weird. And yes, I validated the html and the stylesheet.

I created a transparent gif image in Paint Shop Pro 7. I made the mistake of making a
transparent png and went along merrily until I viewed the pages (it's a multi-page three and
two column site with an underlying stylesheet) in IE6. The transparent png worked fine in
Mozilla but broke IE6. Sooooo, I recreate the image as a gif and it seems to work just fine
in both Mozilla and IE6. That is until I refresh the screen in IE. Then for some reason the
entire center column just disappears.

That's weird but it get weirder.

If I switch pages the center column returns. That is until I refresh the screen. Then bye-
bye. This happens on each page.

The transparent gif is on the top of the left column and the column is set to overlap the
masthead. The center column has a light yellow background to offset it from the white
backgrounds of the left and right columns and is usually filled with black text. All this is
setup in the stylesheet.

God, I hate IE

Lachlan Hunt

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

Jim wrote:

> I created a transparent gif image in Paint Shop Pro 7. I made the mistake of making a
> transparent png and went along merrily until I viewed the pages (it's a multi-page three and
> two column site with an underlying stylesheet) in IE6. The transparent png worked fine in
> Mozilla but broke IE6. Sooooo, I recreate the image as a gif and it seems to work just fine
> in both Mozilla and IE6. That is until I refresh the screen in IE. Then for some reason the
> entire center column just disappears.

This may not necessarily have anything to do with the transparent image,
it just could be an innocent by stander in more serious and confusing IE
bug. For example, this bug I found recently causes content to disappear
completely when the window is resized.

http://www.lachy.id.au/dev/css/bugs/ie/disappear/

It's not exactly the same symptoms as your bug, but the result is
similar, and could possibly be related. Note that the current
desciption I have in that bug may not be fully correct, I've been told
there are some circumstances where it doesn't work as I described. I've
been intending to do up some more test cases, but haven't got around to
it yet.

BTW, it's not spacer gif is it? What's the point of a fully transparent
gif when stylesheets are used?

> God, I hate IE

Yeah, God Hates IE too. :-)

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://www.lachy.id.au/

Please direct all spam to abuse@127.0.0.1
Thank you.

Jim

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

In article <MPG.1b913c3dc88a27e0989698@news.comcast.giganews.com>,
stoicREMOVEjim@aequalis.com says...
> Now this is just weird. And yes, I validated the html and the stylesheet.
>
> I created a transparent gif image in Paint Shop Pro 7. I made the mistake of making a
> transparent png and went along merrily until I viewed the pages (it's a multi-page three and
> two column site with an underlying stylesheet) in IE6. The transparent png worked fine in
> Mozilla but broke IE6. Sooooo, I recreate the image as a gif and it seems to work just fine
> in both Mozilla and IE6. That is until I refresh the screen in IE. Then for some reason the
> entire center column just disappears.

Never mind.

I decided to skip transparent gifs and just took all the images and aligned them on the page
to look like one is "over" the other.

And I still got the disappearing center column. Then I tried viewing the page, and refreshing
it, on a couple of other computers.

Evidently, it only screws up on my production computer.

heavy sigh.

Well, at least I taught myself how to crop and line up images in CSS.

Jim

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

In article <5qLVc.2083$D7.19@news-server.bigpond.net.au>, lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au.invalid
says...
>
> BTW, it's not spacer gif is it? What's the point of a fully transparent
> gif when stylesheets are used?
>
>
> Yeah, God Hates IE too. :-)
>
>

No, I have a masthead at the top of the screen and normally, the left and right column (3-
column design) would line up just under the masthead (130px down). But I got clever and
"overlayed" a transparent gif (I took a photo of someone and took out the background) so that
the head partially covered the masthead.

To do this I set the left column, in the style-sheet, to just 20px down from the top of the
screen and it made a nice effect.

This is probably considered a kludge in strick design terms but I thought it rather clever.
Of course, (see my other post) the gif had nothing to do with the disappearing column.

It's all fixed now, and all the images line up to each other to bring the effect I wanted.

Brian

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

> Jim wrote:
>
>
> Yeah, God Hates IE too. :-)

As long as you're in communication with Him, perhaps you could ask him
to smite IE when he has a moment? :-)

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Andrew Thompson

2004-08-21, 7:25 pm

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 12:02:53 -0400, Jim wrote:

> Now this is just weird. And yes, I validated the html and the stylesheet. ..

URL?

> ..entire center column just disappears.

Sounds like it might be the 'peekaboo' bug..
or any one of a mutitude of other IE f**k-ups
which can be determined upon examination of
the ..URL.

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

Andrew Thompson

2004-08-23, 7:19 pm

Jim

2004-08-26, 12:28 pm

Brian

2004-08-26, 12:28 pm