Slight shimmy has appeared

[justinhill]

I've been messing about with everything so much over the past few days and I've just noticed that I have somehow introduced a little wobble going from page to page - not every time, but most of the time.

To see what I mean, look at my site and click repeatedly between options on the section list. The outer edges of the page move slightly.

I have no idea what I've done or where to start looking for it (outer layout I suppose) or what combination of things causes it not happen on certain specific changes. What a twit. Perhaps a full site refresh?

Justin

[Paul Bulpit]

I can't see anything - tried Firefox & IE6 at 1280x1024 & IE7 at 1024x768 & 800x600.

Should've gone to Specsavers?

[justinhill]

Fascinating. Thanks for looking, but are you just not as much of a pedant as I am?

My daily driver is Safari/Mac and that's where I noticed the change. After seeing your post I bothered to look at it in IE9 and found different behaviour again.

To be specific, before this fault appeared moving from one page to another would seem to be changing only the middle bit - the masthead, menu and section list appearing not to be re-drawn at all. That's how I would expect it to work.

On Safari all that stuff moves 5-10 pixels to the right and then back to the left as the page loads - most of the time. Over in IE9, what happens is that the whole page re-draws; it doesn't move right/left, it disappears and reappears - most of the time.

By 'most of the time' I mean that on both platforms if I keep going between various sections I will see pages loading correctly occasionally; for instance as I write this I'm looking at the site on IE9 and moving repeatedly between the bottom section and the one above it; it works right again and again and then suddenly doesn't.

It's starting to irritate me now.

Justin

[Paul Bulpit]

are you just not as much of a pedant as I am?

Probably, yes. I put a ruler up against the monitor and flicked between sections, sorry I couldn't see any fault with the page width.

What I didn't try today, (though I have in the past) is to open the different offending pages in separate tabs, then switch from tab to tab.

This helped me fix an errant <br/> in V7 (which used different templates for different pages) that made the header section jump up & down.

[leehack]

Your coding and more to the point your sizing is most likely off. Double check your sizings carefully, almost certain to be an inconsistency.

[justinhill]

Probably, yes. I put a ruler up against the monitor and flicked between sections

Fair enough - you probably qualify! Mind you, please understand I'm not saying that different pages are actually displaying in different places; I'm saying they load a few pixels to the right (in Safari) and instantly jump back to where the previous page was.

Justin

[justinhill]

Your coding and more to the point your sizing is most likely off. Double check your sizings carefully, almost certain to be an inconsistency.

I'll try. The trouble is I don't know enough to necessarily be aware I've changed any 'sizings'.

Sorry I'm probably being stupid here but if I've been working in the outer layout surely this is common to every page (or at least every section page) so whatever I did would be consistent across sections?

Bearing in mind pfb5's comments, am I imagining this or can anyone else see what I'm getting at?

[leehack]

If not consistent across all pages then it is something on that page, be that titles or images sizes etc. 2 pages using the same template displaying different has to be linked to the content on the page. That could however also be contributed to wrong sizings as i mentioned, where one thing triggers another situation. Best thing to study the live codee is the firebug addon for firefox, fantastic for looking at items of this sort and breaking down the live code.

You could even temporarily delete certain items and then reintroduce to see which one causes the problem.

[leehack]

Are you sure you are not talking about the delay in building the page, perhaps take a screenshot of before and after to show us?

[peblaco]

You only have alt/src/border definitions so try applying the section width and height to the image code for section link layout and see if it has any bearing.

[NormanRouxel]

Could it be something as simple as some pages not needing scrollbars and some with scrollbars. I.e a very short page versus a very long one. Scrollbars take up room and cause the inner content to be resized.

[justinhill]

Are you sure you are not talking about the delay in building the page, perhaps take a screenshot of before and after to show us?

Lee, the artifact is transitory. There's no difference before and after. However, you did give me an idea, and it's this:

http://www.cka-net.com/movie/shimmy.mov

You'll need the ability to view quicktime movies.

It's not perfect because the resolution of the capture program wasn't good enough to catch every shimmy and it has slowed the action down a bit. However, as I click between the bottom two sections you will notice the left margin twitch briefly to the right and you should see that it doesn't happen every time. DOn't watch the mouse; watch the left margin.

This happens regardless of which pages I'm switching between.

Justin

[justinhill]

Best thing to study the live codee is the firebug addon for firefox, fantastic for looking at items of this sort and breaking down the live code.

Never seen it, but I use the Develop menu options in Safari:



for all the good it does me.

Justin

[justinhill]

try applying the section width and height to the image code for section link layout and see if it has any bearing[/CODE]

Thanks, I'll look at this tomorrow.

Justin

[Paul Bulpit]

Could it be something as simple as some pages not needing scrollbars and some with scrollbars. I.e a very short page versus a very long one. Scrollbars take up room and cause the inner content to be resized.

I looked for that initially as I've had that issue. But no, I didn't see that.

What's 'Safari'? Thought it was a '60s TV show with stripey painted Land Rovers!