PPRuNe and word wrap on posts
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PPRuNe and word wrap on posts
I am going to open this by leaving myself wide open and say..
I may be an idiot (but I still need help).
At work (Network with IE5 as browser) PPRuNe posts wrap nicely and there is no requirement to scroll left and right to view posts.
At home (WIN95 and Netscape 4.76) posts runs as far right as the poster takes to have a carriage return. This problem did not exist in the old PPRuNe software.
I have looked at both PPRuNe and Netscape settings and cannot find a suitable setting to fix this.
Please do not suggest I just change to IE5 as I would like just one piece of non MS software on my machine.
I may be an idiot (but I still need help).
At work (Network with IE5 as browser) PPRuNe posts wrap nicely and there is no requirement to scroll left and right to view posts.
At home (WIN95 and Netscape 4.76) posts runs as far right as the poster takes to have a carriage return. This problem did not exist in the old PPRuNe software.
I have looked at both PPRuNe and Netscape settings and cannot find a suitable setting to fix this.
Please do not suggest I just change to IE5 as I would like just one piece of non MS software on my machine.
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This is a problem with Netscape. IE doesn't seem to have this problem. See this thread for further information
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The pages on this board are split in tables. The table for the text part is programmed to make use of 100% of the available width.
Internet Explorer obviously checks first the screen size of your machine and than resizes accordingly. Netscape on the other hand, as it appears, needs the good old fashioned screen size check in the program (the HTML source code for the page) first to start any calculation.
Due to this missing information Netscape simply keeps the page-wrap (what you experience as sideway-scrolling) down to the carriage-returns.
This is a server site issue as this is originating in the source code for the page, nothing you can do about.
Having said all this, also Internet Explorer obviously screws things a bit around, the left part of any page is also displayed very flexible if long user names are presented...just like What_does_this_button_do? resulting in rubber-band setup....
Infopop, the supplier of this board, obviously re-wrote the board completely not using former well working bits and pieces.
Internet Explorer obviously checks first the screen size of your machine and than resizes accordingly. Netscape on the other hand, as it appears, needs the good old fashioned screen size check in the program (the HTML source code for the page) first to start any calculation.
Due to this missing information Netscape simply keeps the page-wrap (what you experience as sideway-scrolling) down to the carriage-returns.
This is a server site issue as this is originating in the source code for the page, nothing you can do about.
Having said all this, also Internet Explorer obviously screws things a bit around, the left part of any page is also displayed very flexible if long user names are presented...just like What_does_this_button_do? resulting in rubber-band setup....
Infopop, the supplier of this board, obviously re-wrote the board completely not using former well working bits and pieces.
Last edited by FL310; 18th Apr 2002 at 10:47.
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This is a problem with Netscape.
It is a problem that manifests itself with Netscape. Until shown
otherwise I believe it to be a problem with the HTML markup, not
with Netscape. Netscape obviously is not free from problems but
I have never found it to be noncompliant with respect to the HTML
standard.
FL310, I don't agree with this part:
Internet Explorer obviously checks first the screen size of your machine
and than resizes accordingly. Netscape on the other hand, as it appears,
needs the good old fashioned screen size check in the program (the HTML
source code for the page).
The standards for programming languages always have specifications
for operator precedence. This ensures that different compliant compilers
will interpret the same source code in the same way. When I compile my
code with compilers from Gnu, Borland, Microsoft, and Metrowerks I get
the same results in all matters covered by the standard. Thus, 20-10/5
will always return 18 and not 2, 1.e. 20-(10/5) and not (20-10)/5. That
is because the standard stipulates that division takes precedence over
subtraction.
On the other hand, I can easily write programs that work perfectly well
when compiled with Borland but which crash badly when built with the Gnu
compiler. That happens when I write code whose behaviour is not specified
by the ANSI/ISO standard. In those cases it is up to the compiler writers
to determine what happens. Since the standard does not tell then how to
interpret the code those writers make their own choices and they are
not the same from compiler to compiler. When unexpected results happen
the programmer has only himself to blame for not following the standard.
The tags of HTML were designed by nerds for nerds. There weren't any
web designers in the beginning. Tables were for presenting data. I
suspect that nobody imagined that tables would be used as a design
element. The HTML specification consequently has many gaps. I looked at
the W3C HTML standard and did not find any specified order of precedence
that governs the behaviour of incompatible "nowrap" and "width" tags.
Microsoft asserts that "width" takes precedence over "nowrap". But
Microsoft does not get to write the standard. Netscape is perfectly
capable of determining width size. But it allows the coder's "nowrap"
to take precedence over "width". Unless I have overlooked something it
is not wrong for them to do so. If you place width = "100%" and nowrap
in a tag and the text exceeds 100% of the screen width then what is a
browser supposed to do: follow the width specification or follow the
nowrap specification? Unless the standard tells them how to handle this,
and I don't see where it does, either choice is permitted and defensible.
Leave out the "nowrap" tag in the code and Netscape will display the
page well. Since MSIE ignores that tag one wonders what its purpose is.
It is a problem that manifests itself with Netscape. Until shown
otherwise I believe it to be a problem with the HTML markup, not
with Netscape. Netscape obviously is not free from problems but
I have never found it to be noncompliant with respect to the HTML
standard.
FL310, I don't agree with this part:
Internet Explorer obviously checks first the screen size of your machine
and than resizes accordingly. Netscape on the other hand, as it appears,
needs the good old fashioned screen size check in the program (the HTML
source code for the page).
The standards for programming languages always have specifications
for operator precedence. This ensures that different compliant compilers
will interpret the same source code in the same way. When I compile my
code with compilers from Gnu, Borland, Microsoft, and Metrowerks I get
the same results in all matters covered by the standard. Thus, 20-10/5
will always return 18 and not 2, 1.e. 20-(10/5) and not (20-10)/5. That
is because the standard stipulates that division takes precedence over
subtraction.
On the other hand, I can easily write programs that work perfectly well
when compiled with Borland but which crash badly when built with the Gnu
compiler. That happens when I write code whose behaviour is not specified
by the ANSI/ISO standard. In those cases it is up to the compiler writers
to determine what happens. Since the standard does not tell then how to
interpret the code those writers make their own choices and they are
not the same from compiler to compiler. When unexpected results happen
the programmer has only himself to blame for not following the standard.
The tags of HTML were designed by nerds for nerds. There weren't any
web designers in the beginning. Tables were for presenting data. I
suspect that nobody imagined that tables would be used as a design
element. The HTML specification consequently has many gaps. I looked at
the W3C HTML standard and did not find any specified order of precedence
that governs the behaviour of incompatible "nowrap" and "width" tags.
Microsoft asserts that "width" takes precedence over "nowrap". But
Microsoft does not get to write the standard. Netscape is perfectly
capable of determining width size. But it allows the coder's "nowrap"
to take precedence over "width". Unless I have overlooked something it
is not wrong for them to do so. If you place width = "100%" and nowrap
in a tag and the text exceeds 100% of the screen width then what is a
browser supposed to do: follow the width specification or follow the
nowrap specification? Unless the standard tells them how to handle this,
and I don't see where it does, either choice is permitted and defensible.
Leave out the "nowrap" tag in the code and Netscape will display the
page well. Since MSIE ignores that tag one wonders what its purpose is.
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bblank, your reply (the black part) is very correct but is missing one most important point. Both browsers mentioned here are interpreting the 100% width order differently, actually, I estimate that Netscape is doing it perfectly ok.
The width tag with any percentage specification needs a basis to calculate from. If, as it is on this site, there is no basis explicitly determined, than the browser should use the width required, in the case here the space needed until reaching a carriage return.
Internet Explorer, as it is very obvious, checks first for definition of the 100% order, Netscape does not, according to W3C the screen size needs to be checked to avoid exactly this problem.
For reference the original words in HTML 4.01 which is the given standard today:
A percentage specification (e.g., width="20%") is based on the percentage of the horizontal space available to the table (between the current left and right margins, including floats). Note that this space does not depend on the table itself, and thus percentage specifications enable incremental rendering.
About the nowrap attribute you will find at the very same place the following:
nowrap [CI]
Deprecated. When present, this boolean attribute tells visual user agents to disable automatic text wrapping for this cell. Style sheets should be used instead of this attribute to achieve wrapping effects. Note. if used carelessly, this attribute may result in excessively wide cells.
Just a couple of lines in the Template would avoid the whole problem....
The width tag with any percentage specification needs a basis to calculate from. If, as it is on this site, there is no basis explicitly determined, than the browser should use the width required, in the case here the space needed until reaching a carriage return.
Internet Explorer, as it is very obvious, checks first for definition of the 100% order, Netscape does not, according to W3C the screen size needs to be checked to avoid exactly this problem.
For reference the original words in HTML 4.01 which is the given standard today:
A percentage specification (e.g., width="20%") is based on the percentage of the horizontal space available to the table (between the current left and right margins, including floats). Note that this space does not depend on the table itself, and thus percentage specifications enable incremental rendering.
About the nowrap attribute you will find at the very same place the following:
nowrap [CI]
Deprecated. When present, this boolean attribute tells visual user agents to disable automatic text wrapping for this cell. Style sheets should be used instead of this attribute to achieve wrapping effects. Note. if used carelessly, this attribute may result in excessively wide cells.
Just a couple of lines in the Template would avoid the whole problem....
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Over in Jet Blast one Mr. Aviation Forum posted a heads-up about another aviation forum, one whose URL is www.aviationforum.org. I don't have time for more than one aviation forum but Mr. Aviation Forum said that his aviation forum was also powered by vBulletin so I thought I'd check it out.
The other site uses vBulletin Version 2.2.5 whereas PPRuNe uses vBulletin Version 2.2.4. There are no "nowrap"s in the table data cells that contain the member posts over at the other site. The forums there display in Netscape with no horizontal scrolling. It seems that we Netscape users have been heard.
I wish all well in their honest endeavours but as of now I'd rather scroll in PPRuNe.
The other site uses vBulletin Version 2.2.5 whereas PPRuNe uses vBulletin Version 2.2.4. There are no "nowrap"s in the table data cells that contain the member posts over at the other site. The forums there display in Netscape with no horizontal scrolling. It seems that we Netscape users have been heard.
I wish all well in their honest endeavours but as of now I'd rather scroll in PPRuNe.
