Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with html

How to get images to display in IE8?

cardamom — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:43:49 -0800

Help a non-web designer solve an image display problem in IE8. As part of my job I need to post announcements to a proprietary, password-protected site. There is no HTML control in the announcement panel nor is there a button that allows you to insert an image. I've worked around these limitations by making my own basic HTML pages with tables with images using the "img" tag. I open the HTML page in Firefox, then copy the web page into the announcement panel. I'm on a mac, so it's been working great in Firefox and I have IE6 in Parallels, and there is no problem there.

However, it's come to my attention (a little late, I suppose!) that none of the images show up in IE8. I think it is because the images are not relative, but link to an offsite webpage, but I really do not know. I don't see how I can use relative links, as I don't have control over uploading images on this site. I noticed that changing the tag to "object" makes them display in IE8, but no show in IE6. I've tried nesting both "img" and "embed" tags into my tag and that doesn't work either on IE6.

Ideally, I want my images to show up in as many browsers as possible.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance, and Happy Holidays!

.htaccess or some other solution for altering a url across a domain?

You Should See the Other Guy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:30:09 -0800

I use a CMS which needs domain.com/index.php/template/filename in order to work. I used to have an htaccess file which would make domain.com/template/filename work fine (ie, it would load the correct page even without the index.php there). Dreamhost recently upgraded its software and the htaccess file no longer works. Is there a solution for this problem? Note that I know nothing about htaccess. I got this file years ago off of a web forum, but it worked so I never question it. Here's what the htaccess file had in it (I changed the greater and lesser thans to square brackets because AskMe wasn't displaying them properly):



[IfModule mod_rewrite.c]

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/stats/(.*)$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/failed_auth.html$

RewriteRule ^.*$ - [L]

[/IfModule] 



[Files index.php]

SetHandler application/x-httpd-php

[/Files]



RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]



AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php

Thank you.

Looking for a Simple HTML Dingus

interrobang — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:59:11 -0800

Is there a very simple, free, standalone OSX application like the HTML Post Opera widget? A dashboard widget would be fine, too; I mostly just want it to run on its own on a PPC computer.

How to merge data fields into a plain text file?

geekgirl397 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:04:23 -0800

Is there some way to do a "mail merge" type operation on plain text, xml or html files without using a word processor? I've been working on our company wiki and I want to bulk create a bunch of pages by merging certain field data from spreadsheets, csv files or other datasources into the template text files that I've created. The output should be XML or plain text.

I have a separate task where I have a simple html template that I'd like to populate with data pulled from a csv. The output needs to be standard, simple HTML (no funny MS Word markup)

I have access to MS Office, Open Office and Abiword but everything I've tried so far seems to "pollute" my files with word processor type formatting. (I am running KDE on Ubuntu 9.10, but I also have Win XP running as a virtual machine under Virtualbox - I have access to any version of the MS Office software, and obviously anything open source).

I'm sure there's some open source tool designed to merge text files. I'm not opposed to using a command line interface although I probably would prefer a GUI. My Google-fu is failing me on this one.

Any tips on how I should achieve this, or pointers to the tools I should be looking at?

thanks!

Does an RSS feed reader exist that can save the linked HTML pages locally?

chrisamiller — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:04:19 -0800

Is there an RSS reader that can follow a feed's links and download html pages for offline reading? I'm primarily a Google Reader user, but its offline mode only downloads the content of the RSS feeds themselves. Many of my feeds hide some of their content "after the jump", so getting just the feed doesn't help me.

I'm looking for a script or program that will follow the links, then pull down the html page (including associated images) and save them locally so that I can peruse them on my laptop at 30,000 feet.

I could slap something together with an XML parser and wget, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel. I feel like someone has probably solved this problem already.

I'll be using this on linux, but I'm willing to consider windows software as well, if it's something that might work reasonably under Wine.

I'll take a look at anything from full-blown desktop readers to cli scripts in perl/ruby/python etc.

Help me reverse-engineer Google Wave

ook — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:13:55 -0800

Google Wave question: does anyone know the technical details of how blip editing works? It's not a textarea, obviously; if you watch in firebug while editing a blip it just looks like they're building up div and p tags on the fly. Plus, you know, there's all that non-text stuff.

So have they reinvented all the functionality of browser text input by individually capturing all the key and mouse events, or what?

(I ask because I have a project going where some of this functionality would be extremely useful -- I'm wondering if this is a well-known technique that somehow passed me by, or if it's black magic that I haven't a hope of reproducing.)

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want?

drjimmy11 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:31:52 -0800

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want? So I've been doing AS3 development for the last few years, using Flex Builder, but am now moving back into HTML/CSS/JS. I've gotten used to having a fairly intelligent IDE and I'd like to not go back to the bad old days of having to type every single param and property from scratch every time. (I'm looking for code help, not just highlighting.)

I have tried a few but none seems to have everything I want:

1. Dreamweaver:
Pluses: When you link to a stylesheet, you can CTRL+space and get a list of styles to choose from.
Minuses: Weak support for JS. (no auto-complete at all)

2. Aptana:
Pluses: Seems to have excellent JS support, including major AJAX libraries.
Minuses: Unless I am missing something, I can't choose Css styles off a list, and that is a major major timesaver for the work I'll be doing.

3. HTMLPad 2010:
Plusses and minuses seem about the same as Aptana, plus it costs money. (DW CS3 is already installed on my work machine so no cost there.)

So, am i doing something wrong with Aptana? Is there another piece of software I'm not aware of? Or should I settle for DW for html/css and Aptana for JS? (The work will probably be 80% or more on the html/css side.)

thanks!

Help clear my float!

mthomps00 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:53:29 -0800

CSS question: How can I get my floated sidebar to stop overlapping my footer? I'm using clear:both! Take a look at this page.

The structure of the HTML is pretty simple:

There are three main divs - #mainheader, #maincolumn, and #footer. #Maincolumn contains another centered div - #container - which includes a div called #content, and a left-floated div called #sidebar.

After I close #maincolumn, I include a ".clear" div to clear all the floated content, and then there's the #footer.

So here's the structure:

- #mainheader
- #maincolumn
  - #container
    - #content
    - #sidebar
- .clear
- #footer

My problem is that when the text in #sidebar is longer than the stuff in #content, it overlaps the footer.

Isn't clearing all floats supposed to clear all floats? What's happening here? Thanks in advance for your help!

Can I easily control the order in which things load on a page of mine?

fake — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:35:56 -0800

I need some help fixing a web page. Images load in the wrong order, and users are finding it confusing. I have a free album up here, and it's gotten about a zillion views, which I'm very happy about. But many users report that the images of the book pages don't show up.

As it turns out, in Firefox (by far the most popular browser that visits the site) they do show up, but they are displaced below the Flash player that plays the album until the entire page loads. Is it possible to force the pages to load right next to the player?

This must have to do with the way Firefox renders things, but the few hacks that I've tried on the code have not changed the order that things appear. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I can no longer add html to gmail signature?

ragtimepiano — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:32:31 -0800

As of a few days ago, I can't tweak gmail signature anymore? I had been using Blank Canvass, which apparently has been disabled? Any information would be helpful! Is anyone still able to add photos and html to gmail sigs?

How can I force Excel 2007 to save as a single html file?

thisisnotbruce — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:49:34 -0800

How can I force Excel 2007 to save as a single html file? At work we use an application (Tririga) which can take uploaded excel spreadsheets in html format in order to perform calculations.

Previous versions of excel would output a single html document, which worked beautifully. Excel 2007 now outputs a folder structure with the base html file using frame references for the actual content.

/Report.htm
/Report_files/sheet001.htm
/Report_files/tabstrip.htm
/Report_files/filelist.xml

These spreadsheets are maintained by end users, so an optimal solution would be finding some hidden setting in Excel rather than a multistep process.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Can javascript "listeners" working across frames?

jpolchlopek — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:59:57 -0800

Guerilla-coder Javascript filter: Rather than wait 12-18 months to get my project idea into my company's queue, I'm trying to find a workaround. It's going to be ugly. It's going to be messy. And I have no idea how to do it. Bottom line: My company's web portal has a top frame that I can control, and a bottom frame controlled by Web IT. Can I add an event listener to the top frame that will watch the bottom frame and excecute when it's done loading? So, I work for a major healthcare insurance company. The project queue is 12-18 months for major stuff and 9-12 months for piddly stuff. Naturally, we make exceptions for breakfixes (and for execs who have a pet project and scream alot, of course), but even simple stuff takes forever.

As an example, I put in a request a year ago to have a simple piece of javascript loaded into the web portal; it's just getting put in, this weekend.

Believe it or not, I really do like my job. It's almost become something of a game to see how much I can do with the few parts of the webpage I can control. Anyway ...

The top frame of the web portal is fully under my control, but never refreshes. As a result, I can't use addLoadEvent() or any of my usual tricks. Is there some sort of listener that can sit in the top frame and watch the bottom frame?

I can give lots more details if needed (no, this is not me going rogue; yes, I have approval to dick around in our test environments to see if this is going to work; yes I'm really trying to do something that will benefit our users). Please keep in mind my skill level is only intermediate, so I may have to do lots of research ... but I'm more than willing to do that. I just need a direction to go.

How can I get clean html from MS-word, to paste into thunderbird?

ManInSuit — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:53:31 -0800

How can I get clean html from MS-word, to paste into Thunderbird? Sometimes, when I'm sending long emails, I like to compose in my word processor - MS-word (2003 on one machine, 2007 on another), and paste into my email client - Thunderbird.

But when I do, there are all sorts of little (and not so little) formatting hiccups. I gather the problem is mostly that Word uses all sorts of crazy non-standard stuff in its html output.

Is there a way to fix this problem? I way to make word produce cleaner HTML? A tool that will turn Word html into something friendlier? A word-paste-cleanup plugin for Thunderbird?

(And : I know I could compose with Open Office or Google Docs. But mostly I like Word, and would like to keep using it if I can...)

Need money now thankyou.

drjimmy11 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:50:15 -0800

What are some good tech-centric temp agencies in L.A.? Hi! Yet another in my long series of job-trauma questions.

I'm currently between jobs- I'm a web/software developer, specializing in flex/AS3 but with years and years of doing html/js/ajax/php type stuff too. I have a pretty strong resume, I like to think, going back about 10 years.

I'm currently getting contacted by a lot of recruiters and going on a lot of interviews, but it's a very drawn-out process. Basically I need a gig to bring in some money now- cutting up PSDs or whatever is fine, I'm not proud at this point. I'm curious if anyone knows any decently reputable agencies who could get me something like this soon. Specific names of agencies are appreciated, referrals to specific people are even more appreciated. (meMail me if you like).

(I'd also be interested in where I can advertise myself as a flex freelancer, but I'm more inclined towards W2 right now for a few reasons.)

Thanks!

How can I make a div expand vertically to fit it's float'ed content?

arcolz — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:07:10 -0800

I'm racking my brains trying to figure out what seems to be an easy problem I'm having with CSS. It has to do with a div not resizing to contain two floated div's inside it. I've uploaded example HTML file to help clarify what I am saying.

What I am trying to do is put "previous" and "next" links at the bottom of each post of my wordpress theme. I want them to be inside a box with a border. The "previous" link should be flush against the left margin of the box and the "next" link should be flush against the right margin of the box. The problem I am having is that when I set the "previous" link to float left and the "next" link to float right, their parent box with the border does not expand vertically to contain them.

As I understand, the CSS 2.1 spec explicitly states that this is what should be occurring in the case, as boxes do not expand to fit floated children unless the box itself is floated. So, I'm trying to find a way to prevent this behavior. I could set the parent box to float as well, but that seems to raise more problems then it solves, especially in regards to its width and how the boxes after it flow.

So I'm stuck, any way around this?

How does HuffPo append URLs to copied text?

eyeballkid — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:05:39 -0800

I noticed today that text copied from articles on The Huffington Post appends the article URL when pasted and I'm wondering how it's done. Here's an example of copying and pasting text from the current front page story of the G20 meeting:

The three leaders, in their dramatic joint statement that overshadowed the G-20 economic summit here, hoped the disclosure would increase pressure on the global community to impose new sanctions on Iran if it refuses to stop its nuclear program.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/obama-iran-has-secret-nuc_n_299556.html

The "Read more at:..." portion never appeared on the page.

Repro steps:

1) Copy any random paragraph from a HuffPo story.
2) Paste elsewhere.

I'm using FireFox 3.5.3 on Windows 7. I don't see this behavior when copying from other sites.

Web coding questions

Badmichelle — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:47:37 -0800

Two webcoding questions: 1) What is the web coding name for hiding/revealing text without reloading a page? For instance, on this page you can see "Continue Reading" and "Hide this News Article" as toggles. They appear to be doing it with javascript. What is this called and are there simple free coding samples available for me to use? 2) Are there any free plugins that I can use on a blog to play audio samples? Something similar to what's used in MuFi or Wordpress's audio streamer, but without needing Wordpress. Thanks!

Code Blue

nax — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:01:39 -0800

Why, when I cut and paste original Word docs into my blog, does all this hidden html code (or something) show up? At first I thought it was just stuff I copied off the web, but it's doing it with original writing created entirely, by me, in Word, as well. Here's one sample (screen shot, because when I tried to post it here, it stripped all the code out. On Blogspot, it just tells me it can't post because of the code).

This started happening a couple of months ago. I have to strip out all the code before publishing. I did not put ANY of that code in there. I wouldn't know how if I wanted to. What is going on, and why is this happening.

(Note-- I know NOTHING about computer code, so super-simple response please.)

Add Me To Your Favourites

eb98jdb — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:31:27 -0800

I need to send a link in an email which on the other end will create a favourite in in the recipients IE. I've googled around this and found lots of resources on adding a favourite from a website but they all seem to assume the recipient is on the right page already. I'm using Outlook 2007 if it's relevant. (Bit dull as a question I know but I've been wrestling with this all morning)

Flash movie won't play completely inside frameset on IE8

wexford_arts — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:38:16 -0800

Flash gurus, HTML developers and XP know-it-alls: I need your help! Flash, framesets and IE8 are not getting along at all. A framed site using Flash works on my desktop, where I still have IE6 running on XP SP3, but not on my XP SP3 laptop with IE8. Whether or not I can make it work in IE8, I still need to demo this site on something that works. If I can't make this work by noon Tuesday, I'm going to have to use my restore disks to return my laptop to its original XP Pro condition so I can at least use IE6 on it. Help me figure out a way to avoid a complete restore in the short run and make this work on IE8 in the long run! A colleague (who is out of town and can't be reached) has built a Flash movie that is embedded within an HTML page. It works perfectly in IE6, which is the browser a client has used for years, but they are thinking of migrating to IE8 as long as their old content will still work there without too much tinkering.

While a lot of old Flash files we've created work well in IE8, even in framesets, my colleague's Flash file displays properly in IE8 only when its HTML shell is loaded directly in the browser. If the page is put inside a frameset (as will be required for the final form of this project) only the first few frames of the Flash play. When I right click and choose Play, those first few frames play again, but that's it.

My successful Flash files and the colleague's balky Flash file use the same Publish settings (AS2, Flash 8 player). His file uses scenes to divide content, with a stop() command and a named anchor at the beginning of each scene. This first anchor is the precise point where the movie stops politely when loaded within its shell, but where it disappears in a flash of white when viewed within a frameset.

Is the anchor the likely problem? Is this fixable, or would I have to restructure the file to avoid anchors completely? Or is there something else going on?

It's late and I'm exhausted and probably missing something important. I will welcome support, good questions, questioning of my premises, and being called a dumbass, as long as I can somehow get this working.

Help me with a tricky (for me) Python problem

Mjolnir — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:00:06 -0800

I am trying to make a python script that takes a CSV file and turns it into an HTML table. I need it to combine a column containing a website name and another column containing a URL into an HTML link. I'm working on a python script that takes a CSV file and turns it into an HTML table.

The CSV has, among numerous other columns, a column containing a website name and another column containing a URL. I would like to combine the two into an HTML link.

Here is what I have so far that converts the rows & columns into tables:

for row in reader:
html.write('<tr>');
for column in row:
html.write('<td>' + column + '</td>');
html.write('</tr>')

I know the part that makes the HTML link would need to say:
html.write('<a href="'+ URLcolumn + '">' + sitecolumn + '</a></td>')

But I am stumped on how to finish implementing this. In particular, I can't figure out how to "refer" to the URLcolumn and sitecolumn.

Learning HTML though examples

azpenguin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:33:36 -0800

What are some good webpages for a HTML beginner to look at for code examples? I'm working on learning HTML, and I'm finding plenty of resources for learning how to write code. However, I'm one of those people that always learns better by actually seeing things in action, looking under the hood, and seeing how everything goes together. The problem I run into right now is that while I've been trying to look at the source code on the websites I visit, most of them have such a massive amount of code that it's a little overwhelming to make sense of what does what. (MeFi's code isn't that bad, however.) What would be some good, simple pages to look at and learn how things are being done these days? (For example, pages with good clean divisions, or pages that use tables that don't look like they're from 1997, if anyone actually still uses tables any more.) Any other clues you could give a n00b would also be appreciated. Thanks!

Have you noticed the link outline?

jakubsnm — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:56:29 -0800

Have you noticed the link outline? When you click on links, before the page loads a dotted border appears arond the link called the link outline. Would you prefer professional looking sites to not display this outline? Wish i could show an exampe of a site.

* I'm pretty sure Internet Explorer does not support the disabling of the outline. I know Firefox does

I need my html, and i need it NOW!

saxamo — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:01:46 -0800

Are there any free hosting services that will just host a .html page? I'm looking for imageshack/tinypic but for html pages.

I need to upload an html page and have it be displayed on something like http://saxamosdreamhost.com/abcdefg.html Rapidshare/megupload will not work because they ask you to download the server

This is for a game server MOTD (the screen you see upon logging into a counter strike 1.6 server). It's only one page, one background image externally linked to tinypic. It will get a fair bit of traffic daily but it can not have advertisements. I would also like the option to go back and re-edit the html OR upload a completely new file with my changes.

Help me with sending html using squirellmail

citybuddha — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:31:09 -0800

I want to send HTML emails using Squirellmail. I am having a time finding instructions. Any help here?