Messages

Indeed, I just tried it locally and just putting the </div> right after the </a> does the trick...

(Damn ! I passed half and hour on the CSS before abandonning, and I forgot to think the "problem" could come from the HTML itself ! )

Anyway, I don't think one can complain about slowliness for such a cheap service as Freepgs... I'm from Belgium and also often suffer from slow loading times, yet it's still quite acceptable.

Be also certain to check all of your scripts are optimized, or that you don't use more MySQL requests than necessary : unoptimized scripts may sometimes multiply loading time quite a lot...

[semantic]

Actually it is not silly, it called keeping your code clean and flowing. It is my goal to make a site where table tags and other conventional  tags are replaced with css.

Beware : though a code with nothing but <div>'s, <span>'s and CSS classes will be W3C valid, it goes against its recommandations, which include using semantic tags.

Moreover, <span> or <div> aren't recognized as important tags by the search engines robots, which means your site won't be as well indexed as it would have been if semantically correct.
For instance, the following code :

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<div class="title">My Title</div>
<div class="paragraph">Some text, with maybe something <span class="important">important</span> in it</div>

will be completely XHTML valid. However, it'd have been far better to have written :

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<h1>My Title</h1>
<p>Some text, with maybe something <strong>important</strong> in it</p>

which is both valid and semantically accurate.

Thus, for data, never fear to use tables : they are valid, and they follow W3C recommandations... (And they are far easier to put in place)

The issue of <table> used as layout has been discussed earlier in this thread, without anyone being able to convince the others of their point of view

Well, if you want to put data into a table, nothing goes against using the <table> tags...
Using <div>'s and CSS layout doesn't forbid to use tables when they are needed

Else you could use the float attribute and get some good result, but it'd be much difficulty for something which could be solved much more easily...

Why don't you regroup the two functions in one, toggleDiv, which would first check whether the div is visible or not, and then either show or hide it ?

Something like :

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function toggleDiv() {
if(document.getElementById('comments').style.visibility == 'hidden') {
     document.getElementById('comments').style.visibility = 'visible';
}
else {
     document.getElementById('comments').style.visibility = 'hidden';
}
}


I have a feeling there's something of a confusion here...
I'm talking about the program Notepad++, not the simple notepad of microsoft. Notepad++ does have syntaxic coloration in multiple languages, find/replace facilities, and all the necessary stuff which makes hand-made coding easy...
I don't know about Crimson Editor though ; I'll have a look.

So to anybody who can afford dreamweaver and codes in notepad just because, I say to you, you're just being silly.

I could afford Dreamweaver, but I really don't think the advantages are worth the expense. I've been using Notepad++ since I began coding, and with a well-organized code you can change your layout quickly enough, I think.
A friend of mine does use Dreamweaver, and I saw him work on a website... And I wasn't really impressed. So I decided that paying for not being silly wasn't worth the price

There is a free PHP class through which PDF files can be generated on the fly through PHP :
www.fpdf.org
It isn't too hard to use, and the tutorials are quite clear.

Example of use : (from their first tutorial)

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<?php
require('fpdf.php');

$pdf=new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>


You did the same mistake with the POST variables :

$_POST['remail'] == $remail;
$_POST['ruser'] == $ruser;
$_POST['rpass'] == $rpass;

Should rather be :

$remail = $_POST['remail'];
$ruser = $_POST['ruser'];
$rpass = $_POST['rpass'];

"==" means "is equal to", and the expression "$a == $b" returns either TRUE or FALSE.
To assign value x to variable $a, you must use the "=" sign : "$a = b"

True, if you've got Dreamwaver you can change easily anything from a table layout.
But then, if you use Dreamwaver, you don't truly have to bother yourselve with such considerations. For my part, I prefer the good old Notepad++

As for the foreach loop, it was just an example of one of the multiple possibilities to inject texts loaded through PHP into an (X)HTML file... There are hundredth of possibilities, depending on how is your system designed.
In my website, I've got a sort of CMS system in the background wherein pages and texts can be added and/or modified, which means everything must be loaded from MySQL when the page is loaded. I load everything into tables, and I make my output with a foreach loop...

I think I did enough W3C propaganda for the time being

Anyway, I agree about learning Javascript, PHP and Perl (though I never use the latter ; knowledge is always good !).
Well, till recently I'd have been arguing about the use of Javascript, yet since I discovered the AJAX technology I'm looking over JS with another eye... It gives really incredible possibilities !

[all pages]

Also to the other guy, you're really nitpicking on tables, and you're REALLY reaching out there on the whole "more code = larger file" thing, the difference is virtually impossible to notice even on modems

That's why I said "this isn't really a big issue unless you've got many (many many) visitors" (I like quoting myself ). The weight isn't the reason why I don't use tables, as my websites don't usually get that much visitors...

If you're casually creating a website with a normal amount of tables it's much more convenient just to use tables because of the fact that they're not seperated. It's aslo easier to define the table's attributes right then and there as apposed to creating a bunch of ID's when you wanna change one little thing.

There I don't get your argument. If you've got but one page on your website, which I doubt, it'll indeed be easier to put everything through attributes. But if you've got many pages, it's far easier to use classes and id's... You just have to put them from the beginning, even if you don't use them immediately.
Then you'll be able to change all pages from your websites by just changing a few lines in the CSS file...

I did a major rework on my website's design a few months ago. I didn't even touch the XHTML or the PHP part ; I just changed the CSS, and it took me about an afternoon to finish it. When I was working with tables, these kind of rework took me at least three or four time that...

Tables are for ORGANIZING data, and quite frankly a table is a lot easier to handle when you're trying to display results etc. And especially generating a table filled with dynamic content is very easy in PHP using loops where as I can't imagine how you would use CSS for that. Tables are a perfectly valid part of design that have their place just as CSS does and I think you're a fool if you choose to abandon either of them.

My whole website is completely generated through PHP. All the texts and menus are displayed through loops. And it is as easy to do with <div>s as with tables.
With tables, you'd have done something like :

foreach($texts as $text) {
     echo '<tr>';
     echo '<td>' . $text . '</td>';
     echo '</tr>';
}

or something close. With <div>, you just have to make :

foreach($texts as $text){
     echo '<div class="text">' . $text . '</div>';
}

with the same result...

Also, when you take the XHTML/CSS logic, it's far easier to completely separate all your website's components : Structure, Content, Layout.
Structure is the XHTML.
Content is generated through PHP/MySQL and loaded into the XHTML Structure.
Layout is handled through the CSS whatever the changes made in the content.

But why does using tables mean you can't use semantic tags? I don't get the debate we're having.

You can use semantic tags into the tables, but the tables themselves aren't semantic when used for layout issues.
Tables are for storing data. For instance (I know, I shouldn't always take my website as an example, but it's the first to come in my mind ) in my website, I use tables to display lists of prices and disponibilities for the location of an appartment.
Tables, thus, have a semantic meaning, which has nothing to do with layout.
If you want to make separations to make the layout easier, you have to use unsemantic (asemantic ?) tags. And "parts of pages" being blocks rather than inline separations, the tag to use is the <div>...

I find... XHTML is, one day, purhaps far or near away, going to take place of html.
Right now HTML is supported more widely than XHTML, XHTML uses more strict codes.

Uh... All browsers supporting HTML do support XHTML, which is in fact quite the same, except for the fact it allows less "imagination" from the coder's part. What older browers don't support is CSS, yet this is becoming less and less of a problem.
CSS 1.0 is supported in IE 5, FF, Opera and I think even Netscape. CSS 2.0 is mostly supported in IE 6 (except for a few useful things, yet there are ways around), and totally supported in Firefox. I think Opera does support it mostly ; about Netscape I don't know. (I must admit I haven't used Netscape for years, and when I did I knew nothing about HTML, CSS, the W3C and website designing, hence I didn't care whether it did or didn't support anything...)


Anyway, I know there are many coders sticking to tables and old HTML 4, and it'll still be used by most webmasters for years on... However, I don't see the point in voluntarily keeping old standards when it's so easily possible to do otherwise...

Ouch. I must say I stand strongly against using Table layouts, and in favour of the CSS, and this for these main reasons :

1) Weight : this isn't really a big issue unless you've got many (many many) visitors, yet a table-based design means more code, and thus a heavier file, and thus a slower website...

2) Semantic : tables are for showing data. If you want to "divide" your page into different parts, you should use <div>s, which is what it has been made for.

3) Accessibility : CSS (at least 1.0) are now supported by all navigators more or as recent as IE 5... While HTML attributes used on tables may not be supported in the future in the most recent versions of the navigator. Thus, if you don't want to redesign the whole thing in the future, it's best to use CSS from now on...
Besides, you must think about all those who haven't got a "normal" browser, meaning by that the blind people, those with a textual browser, and so on... For those ones, it will all appear far better if you use semantic tags (<div> for separation, <strong> for important content, <h1> for headers...) than if you use tables...

4) A Clearer Code : using XHTML and CSS, you can separate the content and the layout, which means that it's easier to read it and, if you work in a team, it's easier to separate the work : one fills up the content, one makes the design, then you regroup the files and there you are ! Also, you can have one single CSS file linked to hundreds of pages. Want to change your whole design, on all your pages ? Just change a few lines in the CSS and you're done... Which can't be done with simple table layout.

If you doubt how much can be done with the CSS (and accessible to all browsers), I'd advise you to go and visit http://www.csszengarden.com
This website it just amazing and shows how much a design can be transformed, using the same XHTML basis, into completely different layouts...

As a conclusion, I'd say that, in my opinion, the best thing to do is to follow the most recent recommandations of the World Wide Web Consortium, which are usually announcing what browser will support in the future...

This is the sort of code I use for this kind of design (see www.loc-alpes.com if you want to look at the result) :

XHTML part (body) :

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<div id="header"></div>

<div id="menu">
     <h2>Menu Title</h2>
     <ul>
          <li><a href="link.html">Link</a></li>
          <li><a href="link.html">Link</a></li>
          <li><a href="link.html">Link</a></li>
          <li><a href="link.html">Link</a></li>
     </ul>
</div>

<div id="main">
     <h1>Page Title</h1>
     <p>Page Content</p>
</div>


And the CSS :

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body {
  margin : auto;
  width : 100%;
  /* Add your fonts, font-size, colours, background image, whatever... */
}

#header {
  width : /*Width of your logo */;
  height : /*Height of your logo */;
  background-image : url(path/to/your/logo.jpg);
  background-repeat : no-repeat;
}

#menu {
  width : 200px;
  margin-top : 10px;
  margin-left : 10px;
  float : left;
}

#main {
  margin-left : 220px;
  ...
}


If you need more explanation, just ask, or look at my source codes if it helps...

I use this kind of system without any problems...
Maybe you could put more of your code so we could see whether something is wrong.

Normally, with an URL of the form : index.php?pg=mypage :

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if(isset($_GET['pg'])){
     $page = $_GET['pg'];}
else{
     $page = 'default_page';}

switch($page){
     case 'default_page':
     case 'mypage':
          $path = 'include/' . $page . '.php';
          break;
     default :
          $path = 'include/default_page.php';
          break;
}

include($path);


Something like that should work.
However, there are loads of possibilities... (For my site, I load all the texts from a database, and with a $lang variable added, so the code is a bit different)