trouble with my template

[VZey]

hey,

My site is over at http://www.yourmusicview.com/forums

I can't put my template code here because it's too long, but here is a link to it

http://www.yourmusicview.com/templatecode.txt

As you can see my right table with the charts in it fails to expand to 100% and there are other errors in it too. It's using the same code as the rest of my site so I assme when yabb builds it does something funny to the structure of the tables.  Can anyone help me fix it?

[A.M.A.]

most of your tables are in pixel width not percentage. I guess replacing width="740" with width="100%" will do the trick.

[VZey]

i mean height, not width. It's meant to be that width. See the charts? The table doesn't expand downwards.. it works fine on the rest of the site.

Like on the main page, over at www.yourmusicview.com

[Metho]

Looks to me like it might be all those empty rows and columns between your last image entry and the bottom right gif. I'd try removing those ones at the bottom, see what happens. Didn't take a full look at it though, so this might not be the problem.

Methonis

[A.M.A.]

as Metho said, there seems to be some problem with your columns .. I know it is fine in IE but try checking it with Opera even the main site.

[VZey]

I got rid of those empty cells, no help.

I don't have Opera. I'll get hold of it.

I've used Dreamweaver to create all of these tables. It is possible I've done something wrong in there but I don't know what.  So no one can see any obvious errors?

[Metho]

Icky. Dreamweaver, or any software that generates code for you tends to screw up/make things bad. Taking another quick glance, I noticed it starts one table, and then has another table command almost right after it. (This is right before your right columns start) The first table has a height="100%", but the second one doesn't. Perhaps that's the problem. But overall, there's so much extra stuff in there, it's really hard to see where things are starting and ending. But try that, see what happens. *shrug*

Methonis

[VZey]

there must be something yabb does to the code, cause the template works perfectly in preview mode before the forum actually 'goes in' to it. I've even simplified it down to try and find what was wrong, and still I keep getting trouble. To view the simpler template online before yabb goes into it, look here

http://www.yourmusicview.com/forums/forumtemplate2.php

To view the code of this template, simply view source at that page.

As you can see I put a test color in there so you can see that it indeed does expand to 100%. I think that the table is there before YaBB is processed, hence it thinking it's at 100%. Then YaBB loads and it doesn't expand to accomodate.

Any ideas?

[mephisto_kur]

It has nothing to do with YaBB.  That template is a friggin mess.  You have tables that never close, you have tables that never open, you have <td> that should be <table>  you have so many nested tables I'm surprised ANY browser can display the thing.

[VZey]

I understand it's a bit messy, but I don't see how else I could have made the site.

The site works fine when YaBB isn't in it, as you can clearly see by my previous post. Perhaps it is YaBB that isn't closing a table tag.

Those TD's are meant to be TD's, not Tables. If you look carefully you will see that that's how the site is built.

I've just concluded in testing that is indeed YaBB's doing. As you can see by this template

http://www.yourmusicview.com/thistemplate.txt

The blue should extend to 100% height but it clearly doesn't when made a template, as I have currently set at

http://www.yourmusicview.com/forums

Yet when I preview the template before using it in YaBB (just the template file) it does indeed expand to 100% height, without any problems.

Is there a way around this?

[Metho]

Sorry, it really isn't YaBBSE that's doing this. Yes, if you view your main page with IE it will display correctly and if you view the forum page with IE it will display incorrectly. The reason the first instance displays correctly is that IE will pretty much accept any kind of garbage you throw at it. But, if you use a bit more standards adhering browser (like Opera), both you main page and the forum page have that space between your table and you bottom right gif image. I'm sorry, but it really is the way your template is, not YaBBSE. It's just the fact that YaBBSE's tables are finally telling IE that something is messy that's causing it to display a space there and not on your main page. It is more than possible to create that page by hand...dreamweaver is using the same html you'd be using (although, it adds a lot of useless/bad crap as well) It's just a matter of taking the time to do it. I really, really suggest looking at how dreamweaver sorted those tables, and re-writing that template so it's clean, effective, and more importantly, working.

I'm really sorry, but wading through that code, especially without having a visual reference to cue changes off of (as in having your fileset, so if I change something in the code, I can see how it affected the tables in a live model), it's just too much to figure out what dreamweaver did wrong. There are a lot of html errors in the template right now. Go through there and try to fix them and see if that helps.

Hope you figure it out,

Methonis

[VZey]

Thanks for replying.

I can't find these code errors, the reason I use DW is because I really don't understand HTML fully. Yep it's a subject I'm doing at uni this year, and I understand the basics, but not enough to diagnose the problem.

Anyway, reguardless of what errors my own site has, did you check out my post before this one? I've got a really simple table in there without anything fancy. It's just a table with 2 columns. The left column has the yabb template (pretty much default bar one little change) and the right column has 1 table in it set to 100%. This works fine just previewing from DW.

However, once inserted as the template it no longer expands to 100% height (the table in the right column) now why would it do this? that's my question.

I've got no idea how to fix my site, i might just start again.

[mephisto_kur]

You don't have a simple two table system.  You have about 50 tables in that thing, all of them with their own width and height statements.

Here is what is happening:
Without YaBBSE, your page is a pretty static length.  You don't see the gap because the big left column is just as short as the little right column.
With YaBBSE, the forum software extends the big left column to be about an inch longer than the small right column.

I just sat here for over an hour looking at your template and messing with it.  There's just no way I am going to put so much time into fixing your problem for you when the problem is that you don't want to acknowledge that your template is really messy.  Sure, when you have content that does not expose its flaws, its a neat looking site.  If you really want to start working on this, head over and validate your site first.  When I run your "clean" template through the validator there are too many errors to count.

[A.M.A.]

too many tables .. that is the problem not YaBBSE.. I've managed to get the same look as your site with only one table. I've tweaked the graphics a little bit to fit the table. You can have a look at it here!

[VZey]

I'm not trying to be rude or nasty here, I hope that's not how I'm coming across.

I did acknowledge that my original template was a bit icky 'I understand it's a bit messy'. (ok, so it sucks) The point I was trying to make was that the cleaner template (with my site removed and just the almodst original yabb template whacked in there) still wouldn't work either I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain here.

Thanks very much A.M.A for doing that. I'm a little tired to do anything with it now (since I've worked 8.5 hours today and it's 12.45am here in Australia) but I will check it out tomorrow morning.

thanks again