Sat, 2007-10-27 00:08
Good evening all,
I am at the end of my rope on this one and thought a fresh set of eyes could help. This page looks fine in Opera, Navigator, Explorer but in FireFox it doesn't display properly. I think it is the left rail in the three column layout( with the borders on you can see that the layer is not surrounding its content, the left navigation menu starting with "Quick Links"). I tried overflow, etc. but still nothing.
If you run validator it spits back that the comment tags are messing with it and the tag isn't closing but if you look at the source the tags are closed properly. The comments have been "closed" so I don't see how that would break it.
I wish I could describe it better but I am frustrated. Any help appreciated.
Sat, 2007-10-27 00:24
#1
You have a fair few of these
You have a fair few of these
as the validator states they are invalid, you also have in the page valid examples of sgml comment tags
If you want to use dashes then like this <!-- ----stuff---- -->
Sat, 2007-10-27 00:42
#2
Thanks Hugo for the fast
Thanks Hugo for the fast response.
So these comments could be breaking the layout?
I am not familiar with sgml...could you please explain?
Sat, 2007-10-27 00:50
#3
That's technically their
That's technically their name as html is based on sgml it's two dashes and then a space to ensure that the comment is preserved and not confused as something else, try adjusting them and see if things improve.
Sat, 2007-10-27 01:00
#4
I went through my comments
I went through my comments on http://www.golindenthal.com/dev/astretchout/ and made sure there were nt any spaces in the hyphens, all closed, etc. but I guess I'm missing it. I don't understand how I'm placing the comments wrong.
Sat, 2007-10-27 05:46
#5
The comment tag is actually
The comment tag is actually the double hyphen, --. The <! sz what follows is a command.
In your example, <!-----blah blah----->, break it down by hyphen pairs.
<! -- (comment on) -- (comment off) -blah blah --(comment on) -- (comment off) ->
So, what the validator and the browsers sees is -blah blah-, which is not valid anything.
In Hugo's example, there are three pairs on each side making for on-off-on blah blah off-on-off. The validator doesn't see it because comment was on.
Best practice is to use two hyphens to open the comment and two to close—no more, no less.
It is also recommended to never use doubled hyphens[1] for anything else. In text, use a single hyphen for compound words as in one-half, use an en dash to indicate a range as in 6–12, or a relationship as in father–son campout and an em dash is used for a break in thought or parenthetical as I used it above.
In order below are the minus sign, hyphen, en dash and em dash.
− - – —
cheers,
gary
[1] Email protocols call for the double hyphen (--) to delimit the signature from the body of the email.
Sat, 2007-10-27 09:25
#6
And I should emphasize - as
And I should emphasize - as it was my example - that it was a poor one! as it can lead to trouble, use no further dashes within the comments. If I have a need to strengthen the comment visually I tend to use '='
Sat, 2007-10-27 14:54
#7
Thanks again Hugo and Gary
Thanks again Hugo and Gary for the fast response, I came back this morning with a fresh look, corrected the comments and after it validated it ran fine on the browsers! This was interesting in that I have never encountered this problem before, we were just taught anything between was a comment, no books I've read have taught that the number of hyphens is an issue. I hope this discussion will benefit other frustrated designers. Have a great weekend!