Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

browser problem

Mar 5, 2004 6:02PM PST

On my site http://www.1st-at-bags.com I cannot see the live links eg "ebags-Outlet Store" under OUR PRODUCTS whereas others I know can. I have tried refreshing the browser and the links still do not show up for me. I am not sure what to do. Can anyone help me please?
thanks
Heath

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re:browser problem
Mar 5, 2004 7:49PM PST

What browser are you using?

What do you mean with 'live link'? If it's not standard html, you might need some add-on like java, vbscript, ActiveX, Flash. It's not a good idea, generally, to put links in anything else as plain html, for exactly that reason.

Therefore, without even looking at the site, I'm inclined to say this isn't a browser problem, but a website design error. But, of course, I might be wrong.

If it's a commercial site, and you pay for making it, you're the one to set the requirements. In my opinion those should include that your site fully works in IE 5.0 and higher, and current and previous versions of Netscape, Mozilla and Opera as they come out of the box. To be demonstrated by the maker before you accept the product.

To download product details, use of pdf might be acceptable. Use of Java might be acceptable also, but be sure all browsers understand the constructions used. But no ActiveX, no xml, no vbscript, no Flash.


Kees

- Collapse -
Addition.
Mar 6, 2004 12:53AM PST

I've looked closer, and - happily - most of what I wrote didn't apply. It's rather plain html and I can see it both in IE5.5 SP2 and in Mozilla Firebird 0.6, although there are two differences on the page which you might like to talk about with qksrv.net. Those differences are:
- At the bottom in IE there's a box with a red x with the text 'Statcounter - Free Web tracker and counter' (I've Sun Java enabled with not too strong security, if that matters), while in Firebird I see a bold 00000333. Both of which I don't like particularly. I didn't have statcounter blocked in my hosts file (but will do it now), or I would have seen none of these, of course.
- The text 'Main Menu' is blinking in Firebird and not blinking in IE. Apparently the 'span style="text-decoration: blink;' isn't supported by IE5.5. Which by the way I happen to prefer in this case, it's just needless and irritating blinking, don't you think?

Do you see the 'toppick' graphic right before where the first link should be? Do you see the links under 'Main Menu'? Do you see the text under the missing links in 'Our products'?

As I said, the links you don't see are fairly standard. But (unlike the other links) they have an onmouseover and onmouseout subtag (quite unnecessary, the url's for the other links appear in the status bar also!), a target=_blank subtag (very standard); moreover they are followed by a rather mysterious picture of 1 by 1 pixel and a most unnecessary end of list (/li) tag (because there is no start of list (li) tag to be found. But those last two point shouldn't be the cause of your not seeing the links, because they come later, after the end link (/a) tag, and the html-processor isn't supposed to look forward.

So the only real differences I see are onmouseover and onmouseout. First try another browser (Mozilla if you use IE, or the other way around). Or download IE6.0 if you've got a real old version of IE (older than IE5.0, which some of your potential customers still have).
And maybe try it on another of your computers.

Then better talk about your experiences with qksrv.net. They certainly should be able to write their html for a link so that even you (not personally meant, of course) can see it. As long as they don't find the cause chances are that 10 or 20% of your customers won't see it.

Kees

- Collapse -
Re:Addition.
Mar 6, 2004 7:53AM PST

Hi Kees

Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem. In answer to your questions:

Do you see the 'toppick' graphic right before where the first link should be?
YES
Do you see the links under 'Main Menu'?
YES
Do you see the text under the missing links in 'Our products'?
YES
I also see the link and text under Related Articles. But I still can't see the merchant links. This is my site and the interesting thing is that I can see the links in the normal and preview mode in MS FrontPage which I am using to create my webpages.

I have removed my cookies, temporary interntet files and refreshed my browser etc. Do you have any other suggestions?

thanks
Heath

- Collapse -
Re:Re:Addition.
Mar 6, 2004 8:07PM PST

If you're the editor of the page, it shouldn't be too difficult. Make a copy of the html-file with Notepad, and edit the html-code until you do see the links. The basic form is (I use { and } for smaller_than and greater_than or I couldn't publish it here).

{a href="url"}text you see on the screen{/a}

There are examples enough on the page that work, so you should be able to get these working also, without too much problems. It must be something either in the link, or immediately preceeding it.
Please tell about the problem if solved it.

If html is totally new for you, you might like to search on google for an introduction to the language or buy some 'html in 10 lessons' booklet.

Good luck,


Kees