A reader writes:
>Great. Now if you could only fix the width of the text so that we don't have to
> scroll horizontally back and forth to read the text. I have to maximimize the
>window (1280x1024) and even then I still have to scroll right to view the
>entire right column (the left column has to be totally hidden). I'm using IE 5.5 >(corp. std)
I want to drive my blog, not be its auto mechanic. It's actually ridiculous, when you think about it, that someone like me who just wants to publish entries has to get into very granular technical details in order to make a pleasant reading experience. Obviously, it's really somebody else's responsibility to make sure things like this don't happen. Pardon my frustration. I understand blogging tools aren't mature as a genre.
I think I heard that this particular problem has something to do with the fact that some Moveable Type templates use CSS features which are not supported in some versions of Internet Explorer. (For the purposes here, if this so, we have to accept it as a fact and work around it. In another context, the idea that there are well-defined standards that the market leader with 95% share doesn't support is an appropriate subject for head-scratching, lamentation, and revolt.)
If there are any kind Moveable Type experts who could advise me as to a stylesheet template which is clear and simple, has black type, and doesn't have the horizontal scrolling problem, I'd be much obliged. Hopefully, it will not require an advanced degree in HTML technologies for me to figure out what to do.
P.S. I've already made one pass about looking at other blog publishing software, but the other products had issues that were at least as serious, if not more so, than MT. e.g. comments being undeletable.
Posted by mitch@osafoundation.org at September 12, 2003 02:47 PMHave you tried Movable Type's new TypePad service? I have been using it for a month and decided to go with it--everything is beautiful, easy and fun.
Posted by: John K. Davis at September 12, 2003 03:39 PM
Boy, do I understand your frustration and it's a freaking sad statement when the Redmond monster just sits and ignores these types of complaints. Having created a CMS that needs to support these abuses, I know from which I speak.
As for solutions... hmmm.... to the reader... could I suggest one of the dozens of free RSS news aggregators for Mitch's feed? Who in the hell uses a browser anymore for reading the likes of Mitch, Ray Ozzie or the hundreds of other industry "digerati" that populate the blogosphere?
As for the CSS issues... there isn't enough room in this comment system to fix the issues with Microsoft IE.
Welcome to the world of micro-content and self distribution.
Posted by: Jerry Schuman at September 12, 2003 04:16 PM
Mitch,
The reader's complaint is a good one though: you're scrolling horizontally in 95% of the world's browsers and that's not a good thing. It's a shame, and it *shouldn't* have to happen that way, but at least it's fixable.
If you'd like to email me your Main MovableType template, and your main style sheet - I'd be happy to take a look at it and modify it just enough so that your content doesn't get too wide. I'm sure the fix is a simple one.
If you're game, send both files here:
noreply@bigredblob.com
Good luck.
Posted by: Matt at September 12, 2003 07:08 PM
I fixed this for a friend. Here is what I sent him:
ok, in your style sheet,
You have :
#content {
position:absolute;
background:#FFF;
margin-right:20px;
margin-left:225px;
margin-bottom:20px;
border:1px solid #FFF;
}
Try changing it to:
#content {
position:absolute;
width:60%;
background:#FFF;
margin-right:20px;
margin-left:225px;
margin-bottom:20px;
border:1px solid #FFF;
}
I tested it myself with good results. Let me know if that doesn't work for you. And if it does work, Happy blogging!
Posted by: sama at September 12, 2003 08:07 PM
You're absolutely correct Mitch, you should worry about driving the car not what's under the hood. There is a simple fix that requires very little on your part. Inform your readers that they need to use a standards compliant browser. I realize this is an unpopular viewpoint that borders on alienation but using a hobbled browser that, by Microsoft's own admission is a dead end product, is detrimental to their experience. They will no long release any stand alone web browser, it will be integrated into their next generation operating systems. So don't expect css support to come along any time soon. Which is shameful considering how far and rapidly css is being used. Mozilla, Firebird, Opera are all compliant and free. There are so many reasons why people should be using them anyway but this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Posted by: Adam at September 12, 2003 08:57 PM
It's absolutely true that we should have worked around IE's broken box model on this, and it went unfixed for too long. However, all current versions of Movable Type ship with this bug fixed in their stylesheets, and all the stylesheets on our site have been updated to work correctly with IE on Windows. You can copy & paste any style sheet here, and they should work correctly for you:
http://www.movabletype.org/default_styles.shtml
This display bug is, as noted above, due to an error in Internet Explorer's CSS implementation, but we do strive to get these things taken care of, and our fix for the IE issue was atypically slow in being distributed. This display bug doesn't happen for any new installs of Movable Type, and we're doing better testing on all browsers (plus a better implementation of CSS and standards in general) so it hopefully won't happen again.
Posted by: Anil at September 12, 2003 10:06 PM
Although you can change your style sheet, I just wanted to mention that I use 1024x768 and IE 6.0 and have no difficulties with your site. I just scroll right and reading the blog text on its own merit; leaving the right-handed links out-of-sight. I thought that this layout was rather intuitive and the font style was rather ledgeable.
I might be wrong so please just take this under advisement. As an individual who acciently found your site during a google search, I wanted to give my two cents.
Posted by: anonymous at September 12, 2003 10:41 PM
Hey Mitch. I looked into this problem a while ago. Apparently it's a "bug" with Internet Explorer's box model, which lays out web pages.
http://www.ryanlowe.ca/blog/archives/000237.php
To summarize, the problem is that the MT stylesheet uses 'margin-left' instead of the correct 'left' CSS field to specify the distance from the left side of the page when 'position:absolute' is used. IE's interpretation of the stylesheet is perfectly valid, it's just ugly.
So if you change 'margin-left' to 'left', you're golden. Cheers.
Posted by: Ryan Lowe at September 13, 2003 12:55 PM
As the author of the original comment I feel should tell you that what ever you did it works properly now. Thanks.
...Fraser
Posted by: Fraser at September 19, 2003 08:53 AM
I followed Ryan Lowe's simple suggestion (two comments above) to change "margin-left" to "left" and it seemed to do the trick (not that I understand why really, but that's another story).
Posted by: Mitch Kapor at September 19, 2003 09:00 AM
Thanks for posting this. Yours was the only hint I could find online. Saved me from pulling out my hair in trying to figure out this css stuff.
Posted by: Mark at October 27, 2003 01:36 PM