Problems With Webpage Positioning In Internet Explorer

Originally this topic was asking for testing of my page in Internet explorer but someone on another forum got there first, but I still need help! I've made a page using absolute positioning and php, using percentages for positions so that it should suit all screen resolutions. However on internet explorer some of the text on the right can't be seen and is off the page, whereas in every other browser it's perfect. What can I do to make it show up properly in internet Explorer as well as all the other ones?

Here's the link so you can see what I mean by the text on the right not showing properly - http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Edited February 21, 2006 by Loocee (see edit history)

Link seems to have vanished off the Topic? Please post a link.

I had a quick look and the following two things will need attention.First, there is no DTD (Document Type Declaration) It should be right up at the top of the page and tells the browser what parsing system to use. !Important, especially when you are having difficulties on a page.Second, there is an extra Head and Body tag mid-way down the page. Just above the misplaced text section.Insert a DTD (I would reccomend an HTML 4 Transitional DTD, because there are things in there which will not xhtml standards, such as the br tags not being closed.) and remove the head and body tags, then post back here when that is done.These may not (probably won't) fix the problems, but it will make it easier to help you out.Also, I'll move this topic to the HTML Forum.

I've made a page using absolute positioning and php, using percentages for positions so that it should suit all screen resolutions.

Using absolute positioning for laying out large blocks of content (ie columns etc.) rarely makes for a design that stands up in all browsers, screen resolutions and text sizes.

Right, I'll add the DTD later when I'm home for more than half an hour, thanks for that! Also the html and head tags half way down the page are because I'm using PHP includes to include 3 separate documents into the page (as an alternative to horrible frames) so when you view the source it shows the html from all the three documents.If you can suggest an alternative to absolute positioning which will do roughly the same thing, I'd be happy to give it a go. I tried a few other methods but they jumbled up my PHP includes to generally made the page look a mess and absolute positioning was the only thing that would make the page do what I want.For the time being I've put that layout up because I've sorted the problem and it hopefully looks ok in Internet Explorer now!

Right. Can the php scripts be modded so that the 'included' files don't write the extra tags? Or, the file which is 'included' does not have to be an 'html' file. They can be 'text', so if you remove the unwanted tags from the 'included' 'html' file and save them as 'text' (txt) files, the php script won't write the head and body tags into the php-generated html page which gets sent to the Browser. Then mod the source code to include 'thispage.txt' instead of 'thispage.html'

See also: http://forums.xisto.com/topic/33636-how-to-make-a-simple-php-site-making-one-file-show-up-on-all-pages-using-php/

Ok, I did that, most of my files were .txt anyway but hadn't realised that I didn't need all the head and html tags. I tried putting in a transitional document type declaration but it makes all my text larger and underlined (like it's all a link-for example when i hover over the links such as the google ads, the lines disappear) so where is this problem? Is it to do with my style sheet or have I just not closed a link tag properly somewhere? (I've taken it off temporarily but might make another test page and play around with it.) The site is looking exactly how I want it but I understand that this DTD is important.

I'm beginning to feel really crap about the whole thing now, my coding is obviously rubbish! I'm really sorry for all the trouble!

Edited to add: I made a test page with the DTD on it to show you what it looks like when that's on. Other than the text size, it's fine until you move the cursor onto the page and all the text (or php stuff?) gets underlined. This time, this only happens in Firefox and is not a problem in Internet Explorer or Safari.
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Edited February 21, 2006 by Loocee (see edit history)

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
A bunch of Div tags might need closing in your content.

Remove all the inline styling and add it to an external stylesheet. You don't need to use any absolute positioning for your layout. 1. Put your header first.2. Create a <div> for your left column, give it a width and float it left. 3. For your main column give it a left-margin wider than the width of your left column.That's all you have to do.

Yeap header and declaration would be solution in your case. But in your case you are forcing Internet explorer to work in Quirck Mode. Try to learn about this at http://alistapart.com/

Loocee, in that testing page i believe you must have the same trouble with the php includes that in the first place (on the normal or not-test page, which by the way is still having two head tags), i see some meta tags inside the body tags, and some link tags to the styles, both should be in the head section... And there are some styles that you import from blogger.com, I dont know why are you importing them right from it... I have not gone through all of your CSS but I believe that the trouble you say about your "underlined text" issue might be fixed by changing the place (to the head section, and leaving only one head element per page) of those meta tags and link tags, and removing the styles from blogger...

Ok thanks everyone! At the moment I'm very busy with other work, but when I find the time I'll have another mess around and have ago at changing all those little bits I've done wrong.