Re: New problem with Firefox

I am still using IE6, but I will download IE7 tonight and see if I find the
same problem John G. says he noticed. Gulp. I think having two versions,
one at 96 and the other at 120 makes sense. But some of my computer guys say
I should never ask a client to "do something else" -- it makes it appear we
didn't know what we were doing in the first place. (Of course we didn't).
But that certainly is an option. The "centering code" option would be
difficult, since we have a 28 page site that is updated fairly often. Did I
understand you to say that each iteration would involve redoing all pages,
not just the ones being updated?

I do understand what the different screen resolutions -- 1024 x 768 to
800x600 -- might do to an attempt to fake "centering" by simply moving the
left margin of the page over and building the page over a background color,
texture, picture or design (even a custom design). But I have done a couple
of sample pages this way and have viewed them at 800x600, and although the
page does move to the right, at that screen size it still looks much better
than it would jammed to the left with all that space, no matter what the
color or background. (Hmmm. How about creating a custom background of a
photo montage that pertains to the site -- court rooms, conference rooms,
maybe even some kind of logo watermarking used as a background)?

But even that would not eliminate the forms problem between the two
resolutions of 96 and 120! Is there any way you can think of to overcome
this really fundamental problem? The pages may look okay in both browsers,
except for the forms, which are, after all, the most important elements in
the web site. MS really needs to tackle this, because no web site created
with Publisher can guarantee that forms will ever work in both resolutions,
when viewed on FireFox. I have just been lucky because our client base is so
small, and most are apparently aol or yahoo subscribers.

"DavidF" wrote:

Only you can decide what dpi setting to use as a default...you know your
customers. And yes the forms page looks ok with IE6, but according to John
G. not in IE7. There simply is no simply answer I am afraid. Publish at 96
dpi and some people at 120 dpi are going to have problems...and the other
way around. My suggestion to build your site with two Pub files is not a
great workaround, but I can't think of another at this point that would
guarantee your customers a page that will look ok in whatever browser at
either 96 or 120 dpi. And like I said, if you want to discuss that more, let
me know...there are a couple ways to go.

I do think you are misunderstanding something though in terms of laying your
page out so it fills the space on YOUR monitor. You may be viewing your site
with your monitor set at 1280 X 768 and your browser window at full screen.
But I have my monitor set at 1152X864 so any page you design to "fill" a
browser window at 1280 pixels wide is going to require me to scroll
horizontally. And what if I have it set at 800 pixels wide? In reality I
rarely view a page at full screen, and if I do, I almost always have the
favorites or the history sidebar, which means I have significantly less than
1152 pixels width to view the page. I also tend to use multiple browser
windows set at less than 800 pixels wide without the sidebars...a leftover
practice from using IE6 without tabs. What I am saying is that just because
it looks like it is filling your browser on your computer, doesn't mean it
won't overflow mine or still come up short for that young person's eyes that
has their monitor set to 1920 pixels wide.

I do hear what you are saying about the excess padding not looking
good...and depending on the background used, I would agree. But the
advantage of using the centering code is that you can make a 760 pixel width
page dynamically center in whatever width browser window it is viewed in. If
it is viewed in a 800 pixel wide browser window, there will be a tiny amount
of padding on both sides of the page. If it is viewed on a 1920 pixel wide
window, there will be 580 pixels of padding on both sides, but it is likely
to look better than if it was left justified. Anyway, I just wanted to
clarify that...and in case you want to read David Bartosik's article again,
here it is: Understanding background padding in a Publisher web (aka white
space) : http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/07/80563.aspx

Enough for now...

DavidF

"CWWJ" <CWWJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3E70437D-7EE2-4BA4-A103-7EDB140725DE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It is helpful to know that a centering option is now available. However,
that is not going to solve the problem of a FireFox user at 120dpi
visiting
my 96dpi site. They will find chaos.

Let me say something about our clients. Most (nearly all) are repeat
clients from a relatively small community -- lawyers and in some cases,
judges. They book mediations with us most often by phone and mail.
However,
they have booked a considerable number online -- probably a couple of
hundred
in the last two years -- and we have received (my coordinator tells me
now)
only one complaint, vs. dozens of thank you's for making this feature
available. That's what leads me to believe that we have a preponderance
of
aol and yahoo users (IE works with both 96 and 120 dpi), and whatever
FireFox
users are out there are set at 120dpi. In other words, our clients know
in
advance they are either going to use us or someone else -- a
non-functioning
forms page won't lead them elsewhere.

I like your idea of the link to a 96dpi version of the web site for
FireFox
users. But although I think Publisher is a good, easy-to-use web
authoring
tool for simple sites like mine, I am baffled by the "padding" issue. I
can't imagine developing software that will publish files at a default
96dpi
knowing that you are going to have 25% of the right-hand side of the page
blank. I know some sites do this -- link to Love Field or DFW Airport
from
our web site -- but unless you know in advance this is the way it is going
to
look and design your pages accordingly, your site is going to look weird.

I had thought I might just set my left page margin at about 20% of the
page
to give the illusion of centering. That would give me 55% of the viewable
screen for my content, and then instead of using big blocks of color and
text
boxes inside frames laid out like a newsletter or brochure, I would let
text,
photos and graphics "float" over a background color or texture.

Meantime, I have republished the pages at 120dpi as before, and I'm
relieved
that everything works on both IE and FireFox. Whew. Thanks again -- now
I'm
going to visit your info on centering.

CWWJ

"DavidF" wrote:

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I am going to assume that you do run the
compress graphics function and the Design Checker, and that the issue is
primarily the 96/120 dpi issue. Unfortunately there isn't a good answer,
but
here is the explantion I promised.

About 4 to 5 years ago I got a new laptop that produced Publisher pages
that
looked different than when I produced those pages from my desktop. I sent
the files to David Bartosik the MVP who was active at the time, who
agreed
that the code was different, but we couldn't figure out why. About a year
later or so, with the help of others in the group, I narrowed it down to
the
laptop screen being set at 120 dpi and the desktop monitor set at 96 dpi.
With most computer monitors coming preset at 96 dpi, and Publisher's
default
output at 96, the best solution was to reset the laptop, and produce the
pages at 96. However, that meant that when the pages were viewed at 120
dpi,
they looked jumbled. I also compensated on the laptop by right clicking
the
screen, properties, Appearance and increasing the font size to large.
This
might make it easier for you to read...

So, you are correct that the problem is with the way the Publisher html
coding engine works, and you are probably becoming more correct that more
of
your customers are using monitors set at 120 dpi....especially new
laptops.
You might not be correct that no one had problems before, however. It may
be
that those customers that did have problems didn't bother calling or
emailing and complaining...they just left in frustration. There is no way
of
knowing.

At this point I don't know of a good way to workaround this problem, and
expect it to become an increasing problem in the future. Hopefully MSFT
will
address this in the future. Right now I would guess that the majority of
people have their monitors and screens set at 96 dpi vs. 120, but I can't
prove it. Never the less, I think the safest choice of two bad choices is
to
publish your pages at 96 dpi, but I do have one idea for a workaround.

There have been several Publisher users post here that are producing
their
sites in multi-languages using multiple Publisher files (an example:
http://www.somoscapazes.org/). To do this, they produce two different
version of their site and provide a link at the top of the home page
linking
to the other home page in the other language. They upload their primary
language site to the main directory, and their secondary language site to
a
subfolder on their host. Since your site appears to be fairly static, you
could do the same thing but produce one site at 96 and the other at 120.
Then on the forms pages...maybe even the home page, add a notice at the
top
advising the viewer that if the page appears jumbled, to click on the
link...which would take them to the same page in the other format. Like I
said, there is no *good* workaround but at least this way you would give
the
viewer a choice. If you want to pursue this, I can explain in more
detail.
It isn't that hard...I have a site that is built with more than 50
Publisher
files and subfolders...

As per your dislike of how the pages look left justified, and trying to
fill
the space, I have better news. The group has been working on a way to
center
Publisher web pages, and have finally found a fairly efficient way (an
example of a centered page, and a second example of two languages:
http://www.bollnascamping.se/index-filer/Page1600.htm click on the
flags).
Rather than explain how to do this here, scroll down to my post on May
31st:
Centering Pub 2003 and 2007 pages... where I gave some detailed
instructions
and others have chimed with their comments and improvements. Once you get
Replace in Files set up correctly, it takes only two clicks to change the
code in your pages so that they will dynamically center in whatever size
browser window they are viewed in. Using this you could go back to making
your pages the default 760 pixels width (or no larger than 984 pixels
wide
as the new widest default in Pub 2007). You are correct that horizontal
scrolling should be avoided in my opinion.

Sorry I can't provide better help. MSFT really does need to address this
96/120 dpi issue. At least now you know what is happening...

DavidF

"CWWJ" <CWWJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:D4A5E43D-E3B7-4AC2-A190-4B7C23817D2B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks, David. When I said two or three days ago, I was referring to
the
installation of new computers and monitors at my office, plus install
of
FireFox 2.0. The new displays were set at 96dpi instead of 120, as had
been
the case with the previous monitors. My coordinator informed me that
in
FireFox the forms pages were jumbled and some text was out of place on
one
other page. The reason this puzzled me was that this site was designed
at
a
120dpi setting and has been running for two years. It has worked
perfectly
on both IE6 and FireFox 2.0. The forms pages are used regularly by our
clients to book mediations and do evaluations. We have received zero
complaints from anyone. This leads me to believe that most of our
clients
have their displays set at 120dpi, as I always do -- it's just easier
to
read. I have since redone the pages at 96dpi and am just having to
live
with
the weird look the padding produces when viewed in 96dpi. But now the
added
problem is that while the 120dpi version worked perfectly on both IE
and
FireFox, now when I try to view the site at 120dpi on FireFox it is an
absolute mess, while it works fine in IE. This is a serious design
problem
with Publisher -- sizing. I can increase the page size to fill the
screen
from left to right at 96dpi, but when it is viewed at 120 of course it
requires scrolling. I don't think there is an answer to this -- it's
simply
a Publisher problem. I could re-design my pages to have them float
against a
background and more or less "center" them by moving everything to the
right
-- David Bartosik sort of suggested this in a piece he wrote a while
back.
If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

"DavidF" wrote:

Darn. I wish that your problems were because of another issue, as I
don't
have a good solution for you if it is solely because of the 96 dpi vs.
120
dpi screen setting.

If you don't mind I would like to step back and ask for some
clarification.
Earlier in this thread you said that this was a "recent -- two or
three
days
ago -- problem". Would you explain what you meant? Did you publish new
html
pages? Was it tied in with installing the new monitors? What exactly
happened when this problem occurred...or did it just become apparent
that
you had a problem then?

And to help me more, if you could also address these questions:

It sounds like things are further complicated by whether you are using
IE6
or IE7 as per John's post. Which version are you running?

You are running Pub 2003 correct? Did you run the compress graphics
tool
before you publish your pages? Reference: Compress graphics file sizes
to
create smaller Publisher Web pages (2003):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

And finally, and probably least important, have you run the Design
Checker
under Tools?

I am asking these questions with the hope that something else is
causing
or
at least contributing to the problem other than the 96/120 issue. I
will
elaborate on that issue later...thanks.

DavidF


"CWWJ" <CWWJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:35D991DF-1BA2-464D-A2ED-FE74D709E881@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for all the input. I think the problem is that most of our
clients
(and friends who are FF users as well) have their displays set at
120
for
easy reading, so they have not noticed any problem. The site was
created
more than two years ago with the display set at 120dpi and we have
literally
.

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