Part of webpage displaying incorrectly...

exprog

Hello,

I've been accessing a webpage where the central part and the right hand column all display correctly. The righhand column is occasionally updated with news items.

In the lefthand column should be a list of menu items each of which can be clicked on to go to other pages of the site. What I actually get is an 'overprint' whereby the items all try to display on the same line. When I click on that line the menu items resolve themselves into several lines all contaning an item. That would be good enough but there should be more lines/items than are actually displayed.

I am running WinXP and I.E. I have tried to access the site from a pc running I.E. and another version of windows and the page displays correctly.

Any ideas?

Lokolo

Could be your screen resolution. Compare the 2 PCs and see. Try changing it on the PC that doesn't work and see if it makes a difference.

beer_tins

It may be optimised for a particular browser and version. Have you checked it on the same browser on both machines?

exprog

Thanks for the replies.

Both machines use IE as the browser, one is a public library.

I tried changing screen resolution but it didn't help. This just seems to be one of life's mysteries!

Wombat

It could be that the menu is displayed using Javascript or Flash. Have you got Java and Flash installed and updated to the latest versions?

A link to the website might help.

exprog

Thanks Wombat,

Wombat wrote: »

It could be that the menu is displayed using Javascript or Flash. Have you got Java and Flash installed and updated to the latest versions?

Shamefully, I'm afraid I don't know. How could I check?

Wombat wrote: »

A link to the website might help.

It's this little one:

http://www.peelcroftsurgery.co.uk/

Not one I go to very often but potentially the problem could arise on other sites.

Wombat

OK - I've had a look at the coding for that page and that menu relies quite heavily on Javascript for displaying correctly. Therefore I'd look at that first.

You can see if Java is working correctly on your PC by going here:

http://www.javatester.org/version.html

If it isn't, download it

http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_ie.jsp?locale=en&host=www.java.com:80

and try accessing the website with the problem again and see if the menu displays correctly.

exprog

Thanks Wombat. I suspect you have solved the puzzle.

I went to the Java test site, which confirmed that I do not have Java loaded. Then I remembered that I have had invitations to download it in the past, which I declined as I thought it was only required for animations. As I currently use dial-up I didn't think animations were worth bothering with.

Nonetheless I did go to the Java download site and tried to download. It warns that it might take a few minutes. Unfortunately with my dial-up I waited over 30 minutes and it seemed to have barely doownloaded one-eighth so I cancelled it.

I'll have to make do without until I get BB.

Thanks for you help.

Wombat

Yes, I think that's your problem and, like you say, you're going to have similar problems on other websites that use Javascript until you instal it.

Could you not leave your PC downloading the program at night after you've finished using it? Then instal it next morning.

bingo_bango

I would actually get onto the site in question and point this out to them.

I DO have Java installed and updated, and have the same problem in IE7.

The designer has made this site optimal for Netscape (it displays fine using FF), but the problem with how they've done it is that it means menus all bunch up in IE. The html isn't quite clean enough. Considering how many people still use IE, I'm amazed they haven't spotted this.

Having viewed the source, they just downloaded a script from a website, which was written in 2001! Any wonder it doesn't display properly. The site needs a complete revamp to ensure compliance across browsers.

Darksun

Don't get Java and Javascript confused, they're two entirely different things. Javascript is provided by default by most modern web browsers. Java is used for running 'applets', small programs embedded in websites. It's use isn't very common nowadays, as Flash has superseded most of its uses.

So if you're having Javascript problems, installing Java won't help, and it's probably not worth the time downloading and installing it