Bare

I was having trouble sorting this out in IE because I had no developer tools for IE. I was being a little dense, I suppose being new to this level of troubleshooting CSS, and ignoring the obvious – there had to be developer tools for IE.
So a quick google search later netted me the IE developer tools and now I’m plugging away through the CSS directly in IE. It’s certainly not as precise as Firebug, but it’ll get the job done.

With that said, can I ask you a few specific questions..? In turning things off and on in IE I find that my content-wrapper class (this is the div I created to wrap my column and sidebar) if I turn off “overflow: hidden;” it shows my content that is being cut off. The problem is that the content appears, but my footer stays in place (on top of it) AND my page becomes like a mile long – well past the end of the content… I then turn off 2 settings in my #sidebar ID, the padding-bottom: 32767px and margin-bottom:-32767px. This reduces the page from a mile long and puts the footer where it should be, the only problem is that it cuts off my content-wrapper div which I was using to give a white background to both the sidebar and content. If you read the link I posted in the very beginning of this thread you’ll see that the padding and margin calls were added to rectify this same problem in Firefox…

I’m confused at what to do or how to fix this between the 2 browsers. I now feel confident in stating that this is a CSS interpretation difference between the browsers, but not a IE “bug” like the links I posted above. I imagine I need to add some IE specific conditions to resolve this, I’m just not totally sure what to add for IE or remove for Firefox… What would I even search for on Google or otherwise?.. I feel like this is a very specific problem related to columns, wordpress, CSS, etc so I’m not sure where to begin.

I’ll continue to search, but if anyone has any knowledge that might be able to guide me I’d be thankful! =)

I have to admit I’m also learning to like selectors as I get to know them better. I have had a lot of problems with them until the last couple of weeks when I’ve been reading and learning as much as I can about them. The link you provided above was actually the best I’ve seen for really breaking them down and explaining them. Part of my problem with finding information relating to my problems is that I still don’t even know all the proper terminology for things. I feel pretty “noobish”, lol…

Seriously though, I’m pretty OCD about organizing things, so the more I understand selectors and the proper implementation of them, the easier it becomes for me to navigate my CSS and the more organized my code becomes.

I hate to say it, but I think I’m going to need to learn almost as much as a real developer to sort out some of my problems. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way towards developers, I just know that it’s going to be a lot of time and effort.

Thanks again!

Thanks very much for the links. I was fortunate enough that I think I figured out some of my issues here through trial and error. I apologize because some of this was admittedly more rudimentary than I initially thought when I posted, but you provided me with some excellent links to learn from.

Thanks for taking the time.

I understand and agree with what you’re all saying, believe me – I know that it’s not the same subject matter, but I deal with motorcycles and I’m quite tired of answering “what is the best oil, tires, etc, for my bike”. Please understand that I really do “get it”.

I guess perhaps I’m being naive, but I didn’t think that my questions fell under the repetitive problem categories when I was unable to get answers through the codex, google or searching this site. Not to get off-topic, but I have 2 plug-in questions that remain unanswered. When I was unable to get answers in any other way I posted them, tagged them with the plug-in name and when they went unanswered for awhile I tried to contact the authors directly with zero results. I’m not sure who to ask anymore except end-users. I do also have questions about CSS, but I wouldn’t consider them normal or repetitive type questions and they aren’t “how do I color text”. I have a serious site format problem that only exists in IE (big surprise) which is caused by CSS. I have been unable to resolve it, and to my knowledge Firebug isn’t helping me with it since it’s a browser issue, not just a styling thing.

Back on point, let me thank you all for responding with mature and thoughtful replies which help provide insight on the issue. I’m certainly not disappointed, I honestly almost expected to get flamed as a “noob” for “challenging” the status quo. I guess my frustration stems from a combination of things. Partly because I’ve been “spoiled” by the kind of help I’ve received in the past on other forums and partly because I spend so much time providing help to others that I kinda hoped I could find someone like me to help me. I can understand and relate to the frustration of answering the same things over and over, but I also believe that if I help enough people then eventually some of them (admittedly the minority) will stick around and “pay it forward”. People thank me all the time for what I do on my websites, I always tell them that if they really want to thank me then they should share what they’ve learned with other people.

I always find it unfortunate when a community like this gets too large. I was a key member of a forum with just under 50,000 members. I was number 60-something to sign up and it was a really great environment. The problem is that when you have a good thing going there are greedy people who want to be a part of it, they want to take and take but never give and as time progresses these people’s poor attitudes run off the helpful members. Eventually you end up with nothing but rude and greedy people and the community begins to die because there is no one left to give.

I guess my biggest question here has been answered, I genuinely wanted to know if I was going about things in the wrong manner and therefore was not getting help. All of your fairly consistent replies tell me that I’m going about this in the right way, I’m just still not getting answers. Thank you all for your time and your honest replies, as well as listening to me as I blew off a little steam about my current frustrations. Of course, if any of you can help with any of my problems I sure wouldn’t turn down the help. =) I don’t even always need things handed to me, usually if you can just “lead me to water” I can drink on my own.

PS – if any of you are have motorcycle problems, I’d be happy to return the favor, lol… =)

OK, still no replies here but I’ve been doing my homework (or trying to)…

I tried suggestions from here:

http://positioniseverything.net/explorer/unscrollable.html

And here:

http://positioniseverything.net/explorer/guillotine.html

And neither of those solutions fixed my issue.

Does anyone have any clue on this? This is a really big problem and I just can’t seem to find a solution…

Please, please help if you know how. Thanks!

Annedorko, thanks so much for all the help and advice. I found the pull down on the CSS page, I must have been blind because I sure looked for it the first time and I didn’t find it…

My questions/concerns about my table-related CSS are basically because I want to set this up one time and have it work for me throughout. I prefer to have a good foundation to work from.

/* begin styling for table with vertical stripes */
.vert_table {
	border-collapse:collapse;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;}
.vert_table td, .vert_table th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 2px 5px;}
.vert_table th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	color:#ffffff;}
.vert_table tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;}
.vert_table tr td.alt {
	background-color:#dddddd;}
/* end styling for table with vertical stripes */

This is my CSS for a table with vertical stripes. Something like this:
http://tech.bareasschoppers.com/engine/alternate-oil-filters-vtx/
I got the building blocks for this from this page on W3schools:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/tryit.asp?filename=trycss_table_fancy
Based on the problem I had that started this thread and our discussion, would it be smarter for me to change these classes to have the td, th, tr, etc at the beginning?

I have the same question regarding my horizontal striped table:

/* begin styling for table with horizontal stripes */
.horiz_table {
	border-collapse:collapse;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;}
.horiz_table td, .horiz_table th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 2px 5px;}
.horiz_table th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	color:#ffffff;}
.horiz_table tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;}
.horiz_table tr.alt td {
	background-color:#dddddd;}
/* end styling for table with horizontal stripes */

Something like this:
http://tech.bareasschoppers.com/power-commander-pc3-maps/

I’m basically wondering most of this because of the issue I had with my header CSS:

.table_header { /* style for overall table header */
	background: #e6e6e6;
	font-size: 1.4em;
	color: #900b0c;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:center;}
tr td.table_header {
	padding: 15px 0;}

Which you were kind enough to help me resolve.

Lastly, I made this special table class because I needed the font to be smaller:

.pc3 {
	font-size:0.8em;
	border-collapse:collapse;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;}
.pc3 td, .pc3 th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 3px 2px;}
.pc3 th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	color:#ffffff;}
.pc3 tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;}
.pc3 tr.alt td {
	background-color:#dddddd;}

For this .pc3 class can’t I just use my existing horizontal table class (which is pretty much the same) and only use this .pc3 class to tweak my text?

I know that I can test all this stuff out, so I’m not trying to seem like a freeloader – but my trial and error ends up with code like we discussed above… Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and sometimes it doesn’t conform to CSS standards.

Thanks again to those who have helped, I’ve really learned a LOT from this discussion so far.

OK, I think I understand everything you both said… =)
I wish I understood this stuff the way you guys do, I run a help website/forum for people with motorcycles so I’m good with that stuff but this confuses me, lol.

I’m trying hard to learn how to better implement CSS in my site. I feel that running through the W3schools, HTML Dog and similar sites help, but more than anything “real world” experience and trial and error have been my best educators (while having great people like you as a safety net).

I want to use CSS to style my tables, I grabbed some sample code from the W3schools site and expanded upon that, but is this the smartest way to do what I want?

/* begin style for overall table header */
.table_header {
	background: #e6e6e6;
	font-size: 1.4em;
	color: #900b0c;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:center;
}

tr td.table_header {
	padding: 15px 0;
}
/* end style for overall table header */

/* begin styling for table with vertical stripes */
.vert_table {
	border-collapse:collapse;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;
}

.vert_table td, .vert_table th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 2px 5px;
}

.vert_table th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	color:#ffffff;
}

.vert_table tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;
}

.vert_table tr td.alt {
	background-color:#dddddd;
}
/* end styling for table with vertical stripes */

/* begin styling for table with horizontal stripes */
.horiz_table {
	border-collapse:collapse;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;
}

.horiz_table td, .horiz_table th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 2px 5px;
}

.horiz_table th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	color:#ffffff;
}

.horiz_table tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;
}

.horiz_table tr.alt td {
	background-color:#dddddd;
}
/* end styling for table with horizontal stripes */

/* begin styling for PC3 maps table */
.pc3 {
	font-size:0.8em;
	border-collapse:collapse;
	text-align:center;
	vertical-align:middle;
	margin-left:auto;
	margin-right:auto;
}

.pc3 td, .pc3 th {
	border:1px solid #5b5b5b;
	padding: 3px 2px;
}

.pc3 th {
	background: #900b0c url('images/tabletread.jpg');
	font-weight:bold;
	color:#ffffff;
}

.pc3 tr td {
	background-color:#eeeeee;
}

.pc3 tr.alt td {
	background-color:#dddddd;
}
/* end styling for PC3 maps table */

To break this down, the first header is this “overall header” that we discussed in this post. The next table is supposed to be a vertically striped table, the one after that is a horizontal striped table (striped for ease of reading). The last table (pc3) is a specific one I setup to shrink the text because it was so big it wouldn’t fit otherwise.

Am I going about this in the wrong manner? Is there a better way to establish the same effect? I realize that there must be a better way to do this, but I also know that I need to finish this thing at some point…

Thanks very much to both of you for taking the time. As someone who has run “help” type websites for almost 10 years I can really understand and appreciate your time spent helping me.

That sure did fix my problem.

Can you tell me why I have some CSS setup exactly as I mention above (I got the code from the W3schools website) and it works perfectly, but in this case I had to change it to what you have to get it to function properly?

I really appreciate your help, I’m just hoping to better understand the solution in the hopes of helping both myself and others in the future. =)