Coding for website

[Urobo[l]us]

Hello again, thanks again for the help!

My newest question is this. You'll probably want to look at the source file too on my website, http://www.urobolus.com. You can see in the source file, I have the code to change the scroll bars color, but it isn't working. What gives? I've tried a few things.

Last question, what you see when you first go to it, I want to leave, but I'm going to make it so that if you click the circular things on the left, it makes that center square where all the lines meet change to what ever the button means (News, Bio, etc.). I was thinking I probably need to use iFrames and have it with a very opaque background to dim the lines and the snake even more. Is there a better way to do this besides iFrames? A post to a script would be nice! Also, I want to change the scroll bar colors with in the center frame, where should I post that, with in the individual documents (bio, news, etc)?

Thanks again!

[jscheuer1]

This:

<STYLE type="text/css">
    BODY {scrollbar-3dlight-color:000000;
           scrollbar-arrow-color:000000;
           scrollbar-base-color:000000;
           scrollbar-track-color:FFFFFF;
           scrollbar-darkshadow-color:000000;
           scrollbar-face-color:FFFFFF;
           scrollbar-highlight-color:;
           scrollbar-shadow-color:}
  </STYLE>

belongs in the head and should be all lower case and must include the hash (#) prefix for hex colors, if no color value is given, best not to include the property at all:

<style type="text/css">
body {
scrollbar-3dlight-color:#000000;
scrollbar-arrow-color:#000000;
scrollbar-base-color:#000000;
scrollbar-track-color:#ffffff;
scrollbar-darkshadow-color:#000000;
scrollbar-face-color:#ffffff;
}
</style>

Sometimes, html should replace body as the selector.

Generally this kind of thing only works in IE anyway.

As for your other idea, there are many ways to go about it. An iframe might just be the most accessible unless you would be willing simply to have separate pages. If you use an iframe, the background could be on the iframe's content pages. Simply switching to another similar looking page is best and most in keeping with the subject of HTML which you have posted your message under.

[Twey]

Even with the correct syntax, this is gibberish. The scrollbar-* properties neither exist in the standard nor conform to the standard's regulations for proprietary extensions. It will simply be ignored by standards-compliant browsers, with the exception of Konqueror.

[mwinter]

Even with the correct syntax, this is gibberish.

No it isn't. The scrollbar-* properties might be a tragic affair as far as usability is concerned, but not gibberish.

The scrollbar-* properties neither exist in the standard

Not surprising for proprietary features, but these are hardly the only example among browser implementations.

nor conform to the standard's regulations for proprietary extensions.

There are no such regulations in the standard.

More recent versions of the CSS 2.1 Working Draft add a leading hyphen to property names and guarantee that no version of CSS will ever use a leading hyphen or underscore. It also recommends that vendor-specific extensions use these leading characters, and prefix the property name with a vendor identifier. However, these guidelines are only meant to help prevent collisions between extensions and with future properties; they aren't rules. Moreover, it's hardly fair to have expected Microsoft to follow these guidelines three years before they were introduced.

It will simply be ignored by standards-compliant browsers,

They will be ignored by browsers that don't support those properties.

If you want to label any implementation that features vendor-specific properties non-compliant, you've just about eliminated every mainstream browser available.

with the exception of Konqueror.

And Opera (and probably others, too).

Mike

[Twey]

Not surprising for proprietary features, but these are hardly the only example among browser implementations.

That was an either-or sneer.

And Opera (and probably others, too).

I thought so, but I tested it out and it didn't render them. Perhaps that's a theme-specific thing.

Moreover, it's hardly fair to have expected Microsoft to follow these guidelines three years before they were introduced.

No, but it's quite reasonable to expect them to implement a -ms-scrollbar-* version, and slowly phase out the old versions after the guidelines were published.

[mwinter]

[Changing scrollbar colours in Opera] ... I tested it out and it didn't render them. Perhaps that's a theme-specific thing.

It's a mode-specific thing; Opera will only change scrollbar colours if the document triggers "Quirks" mode. Thankfully, the user can still disable them in Preferences (Advanced > Content > Style options...).

No, but it's quite reasonable to expect them to implement a -ms-scrollbar-* version, and slowly phase out the old versions after the guidelines were published.

As far as I'm aware, Microsoft don't do phasing out: they're too concerned with backwards compatibility. Besides, even IE6 SP1 was released before those guidelines were introduced, and SP2 (released after) was about privacy and security rather than features.

Mike

[jscheuer1]

As far as I'm aware, Microsoft don't do phasing out: they're too concerned with backwards compatibility.

I'd have to agree with you there and, have you noticed that recent FF now supports custom cursor. Was that already part of the standard, just not implemented in FF yet, or did they get that from MS? As noted, custom scrollbars are being adopted by some browsers. However, even MS has not extended this feature to XP style scrollbars, yet - and I see no evidence that they will.

It is kind of funny to me, coming as I do from the state of affairs in presentational markup languages that obtained during the later years of the BBS era, that there can be such an emphasis on standards. However, we were lucky back then in that it was a given that one required a specific type of 'terminal' to get the most out of a particular type of markup and that there were always ASCII and (for the most part) ANSI as fall-backs. We could have, with RIP for example, three pages - .asc .ans and .rip the most advanced (graphically speaking) would be served on the basis of the browser's (terminal's) capability.

[mwinter]

... have you noticed that recent FF now supports custom cursor.

Can't say that I had. According to the main report for supporting URIs in the cursor property, this was finished June 2005 though there's no definitive list of supported formats in that report. An evangelism report lists several formats, but that was filed during discussion of the previous issue.

It seems that support didn't come about until Firefox 1.5, according to the article on MDC regarding using URL values for the cursor property.

Was that already part of the standard, ...

Yes.

It is kind of funny to me, coming as I do from the state of affairs in presentational markup languages that obtained during the later years of the BBS era, that there can be such an emphasis on standards.

I don't see why. Though the standards need not have been set by a group like the W3C, someone would need to set out a core set of features that everyone should support, thereby guaranteeing interoperability. Frankly, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving to a single browser manufacturer or small alliance responsible for this: the Web, and the technologies that are used with it, cover more than just the desktop browser market.

Unfortunately, no standards organisation can prevent two companies from spoiling things by playing tug-of-war with the HTML element set as Microsoft and Netscape did. The surprising thing, though, is that Microsoft was the one championing the W3C. What a shame it was that they seemed to drop their support once they won the battle.

Mike