Website not displaying on iMac properly

CotswoldCS

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
384
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I have designed a website for my Church using FrontPage 2000 and didn't think there were any problems. I have tested it on several PCs without any problems. Yesterday I was horrified when I was using a new iMac (MacOS X) and the home page kept refreshing every 1-2 seconds. This made the site unusable. I tried it on an older Mac (2 yrs old) and had the same problem.

the website is www.hawling.com

Any ideas what could be wrong?

 

Transition

Banned
Sep 8, 2001
2,615
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Stop using FrontPage! I'm looking at your code right now and it's a freaking jungle!

Edit: Look at the Javascript for your rollovers.
 

Barnaby W. Füi

Elite Member
Aug 14, 2001
12,343
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YES! Frontpage is the most god awful thing anyone could ever do to create a WYSIWYG editor. PLEASE don't use it!
 

notfred

Lifer
Feb 12, 2001
38,241
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Originally posted by: CotswoldCS
Any ideas what could be wrong?

I know exactly what it is - You don't know how to design a web page. Seriously. you and the 90% of other "web designers" that never bother to test thier pages in anything but IE on windows.
 

LiekOMG

Golden Member
Jul 5, 2000
1,362
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Doesn't display properly in Mozilla/Phoenix (on windows) either - it keeps refreshing just like you said. There are some serious problems with that webpage!
 

stndn

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2001
1,886
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to get on the flow with everyone else .... don't use frontpage...
now that is over, let's get to business

first of all, like notfred said, you probably need to get on some learning before doing web design
i suggest w3school for some basics and tags and examples
or, just go to google and search for "html tutorial for beginner"

secondly, your page has way too many meta tags... one that keeps refreshing your page is
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="; url=http://fp.hawlingchapel.plus.com">
and i hope you had good reason to put that up or you'll get into troubles....

thirdly, you need to stop using frontpage.. if you go to "view source" from your browser, the page is just way too unreadable. at least frontpage is smart enough to put the meta tags and their junk meta tags on top.... although the CSS things embedded in the body of the tags is killing it

fourth, lay off the javascript. i just skimmed through it, but unfortunately i have to say you are not ready for that yet. sure, the things work, but you have way too many duplicate codes and embedded if statements (which good javascript webmaster will never do), making it hard to read (like above)

and fifth, sorry for our treatments which is kind of harsh... we're not blaming it on you entirely, but there are way too many people out there who design webpages without knowing the basics, and making their own "standards"... you also should test your pages on different browsers (not just different pc since it won't make any difference if they all use same version of msie).

for the last point, i recommend you test your pages on mozilla, simply because it follows the web programming standard... and also msie, simply because too many people are still using it and the "msie html standard" is not going to be dead anytime soon...

start with simple html ... then move on to css and javascript
sure, your pages may not look as cool, but they work better and will not scare people away from your site ....
 

majewski9

Platinum Member
Jun 26, 2001
2,060
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shoot using an imac right now and it cant display anandtech right at all. I think it is an IE problem though.
 

CotswoldCS

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
384
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Thanks for your comments guys.

I know that I shouldn't be using FrontPage. I can't afford Dreamweaver and haven't the time to learn HTML at the moment. Sure, FrontPage has its limitations but it's very easy to use.

The website is for our local Church and I really don't want to start all over. I would really appreciate some constructive comments, such as those from stndn (Golden Member) - thanks very much. If you could help get me out of this hole I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again. Keep the suggestions coming (except the "Don't use Frontpage" comments - which I get loud and clear!)


 

Superwormy

Golden Member
Feb 7, 2001
1,637
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This is the problem:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="; url=http://fp.hawlingchapel.plus.com">

 

CotswoldCS

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
384
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I have made a few changes at the HTML Level and have removed the suspect Meta Tag mentioned. Are there any more you think I should remove?

Thanks again
 

eraser

Senior member
Oct 15, 1999
357
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Maybe the code would not look so bad if you learned css. It will allow for cleaner code, and it will allow you to seperate the content(index.html) etc... And the structure & appearance (css file). CSS is very easy to learn and implement. And I am one of the few that feel that any version of frontpage 2000 and later is a very good wyswig editor. I've used all of the popular wyswig editor their are, and they all produce horrible, unwanted html code in my opinion.

Use frontpage to define the way you would like for the page to appear. Then learn html & css and reconstruct the code that forntpage puts out as well as implementing your css code.Dreamweaver is the best according to many, but it has a very high price tag as well, as steep learning curve. Just as I stated earlier, dreamweaver produces horrible unwanted code. Another thing would be to start indenting in your html. It not only produces a cleaner look, but it provides one with a better understanding of where you are on the page, and what is happening when you look at the code.

Take what everybody says, myself included, with a grain of salt here. Learn html, dhtml & css and you will come out better in the long run.

Eraser
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,983
1,179
126
I've been using Dreamweaver for years, the MX version generates expecially nice code. The price seems high, but you get Homesite with it, so you can do hardcode hand coding there. Whatever I do in DW I still clean the code up some, but it's not that bad. You should expect that in a WYSIWYG editor.

stay away from Frontpage! Dreamweaver kicks, Go Live 6 seems good (from the small use I've had of it)
Homesite is awesome, I haven't used the MX version yet, but I'm sure it's good.



Originally posted by: eraser
Maybe the code would not look so bad if you learned css. It will allow for cleaner code, and it will allow you to seperate the content(index.html) etc... And the structure & appearance (css file). CSS is very easy to learn and implement. And I am one of the few that feel that any version of frontpage 2000 and later is a very good wyswig editor. I've used all of the popular wyswig editor their are, and they all produce horrible, unwanted html code in my opinion.

Use frontpage to define the way you would like for the page to appear. Then learn html & css and reconstruct the code that forntpage puts out as well as implementing your css code.Dreamweaver is the best according to many, but it has a very high price tag as well, as steep learning curve. Just as I stated earlier, dreamweaver produces horrible unwanted code. Another thing would be to start indenting in your html. It not only produces a cleaner look, but it provides one with a better understanding of where you are on the page, and what is happening when you look at the code.


Eraser

 

eraser

Senior member
Oct 15, 1999
357
0
0
If you are intersted check out Top Style Lite. It is a lite version of the more popular Top Style Pro CSS Editor. Very easy, and useful program in my opinion.

Eraser
 

stndn

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2001
1,886
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hmmmm....
went to visit your website again, and it seems like the dreaded meta-refresh tag is still there
either my cache is failing me, or you haven't updated your file on the server ....

anyways ...
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="; url=http://fp.hawlingchapel.plus.com">
this tells the browser to keep refreshing the page... the CONTENT section is to tell how long to wait until refresh (which you didn't specify, so it defaults to zero second), as well as the destination page (which is the same URL as your website)

by removing that line, it will stop asking the browser to refresh.... so you shouldn't have that "page keeps reloading" problem

there may be other things that needs to be removed, but the above should be sufficient for now ...
 

CotswoldCS

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
384
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I have removed the META TAG reference you mentioned and a few others which I thought were unnecessary. I have checked the source code from MS Internet Explorer and it has gone. I don't know why it is still there when you visited earlier today - the update was done last night.

Thanks for your help though - I really have valued your comments and your time in checking the website a second time. If you could possibly take a look one more time I would be grateful.

 

stndn

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2001
1,886
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yeah, it works now ... i have no idea why it didn't work 12 hours ago ....
i also see that you have moved the page to a different url ...

now, in this case, the META/REFRESH tag will be useful, so you can direct the visitors from http://fp.hawlingchapel.plus.com to http://www.hawling.com without having them clicking on the link (which is not too big deal, but in case)

in this case, you can add the following line to the old page:
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="3; url=http://www.hawling.com/">
which will wait for 3 seconds, then redirect your page to http://www.hawling.com/

also, i don't know if frontpage added this or you added it, but the lines below can be killed if you don't want "made with frontpage" to appear at the bottom of your page ;)
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/"><font face="Tahoma"><img src="images/frontpag.gif" border="0" width="88" height="44"></font></a></p>

anyways, have fun and happy weekend :)
 

Bleep

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,972
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Lots of smart people on here, and more than willing to share there knowledge free,

Bleep