Ultimate Fade In IE error get(...).complete is null

[TCRTT]

Script Title: Ultimate Fade In SlideShow 2.4

Script URL (on DD): http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamici...nslideshow.htm

On the website www.TricountyRailsToTrails.org, the website didn't work on IE - it threw the "Div not found error" that has been reported by others. I commented out that section as other posts have suggested and that fixed that problem, but now when the page is loaded on IE it is just blank, with an "errors on page". When I open up the error report it says:

Webpage error details

Message: 'get(...).complete' is null or not an object
Line: 78
Char: 3
Code: 0
URI: http://www.tricountyrailstotrails.org/fadeslideshow.js

The original page on the DD website works fine on IE. I'm definitely still trying to learn this stuff and have tried everything I can think of.

Thanks!!

[jscheuer1]

That fix (commenting out the alert) isn't the right approach in this case.

Here (from the page's source code):

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function FP_swapImg() {//v1.0
 var doc=document,args=arguments,elm,n; doc.$imgSwaps=new Array(); for(n=2; n<args.length;
 n+=2) { elm=FP_getObjectByID(args[n]); if(elm) { doc.$imgSwaps[doc.$imgSwaps.length]=elm;
 elm.$src=elm.src; elm.src=args[n+1]; } }
}

function FP_preloadImgs() {//v1.0
 var d=document,a=arguments; if(!d.FP_imgs) d.FP_imgs=new Array();
 for(var i=0; i<a.length; i++) { d.FP_imgs[i]=new Image; d.FP_imgs[i].src=a[i]; }
}

function FP_getObjectByID(id,o) {//v1.0
 var c,el,els,f,m,n; if(!o)o=document; if(o.getElementById) el=o.getElementById(id);
 else if(o.layers) c=o.layers; else if(o.all) el=o.all[id]; if(el) return el;
 if(o.id==id || o.name==id) return o; if(o.childNodes) c=o.childNodes; if(c)
 for(n=0; n<c.length; n++) { el=FP_getObjectByID(id,c[n]); if(el) return el; }
 f=o.forms; if(f) for(n=0; n<f.length; n++) { els=f[n].elements;
 for(m=0; m<els.length; m++){ el=FP_getObjectByID(id,els[n]); if(el) return el; } }
 return null;
}
</script>

There is (highlighted and red) an unclosed HTML comment tag. These are unnecessary in today's browsers, so just get rid of it. There could also be other problems, but most likely just removing that will fix it.

The browser cache may need to be cleared and/or the page refreshed to see changes.

[TCRTT]

John, That did it!!! Thanks so much. I can't believe that it was missed by 2 HTML verifiers. I can believe I missed it, it was late and I was quite frustrated.

This is way off topic, but as you may have noticed I'm still using FrontPage. As a "hobby" I design a website or two a year for local non-profits for free and I've realized it's time to spend some money on something better. Could you suggest something that would be a good replacement? Not too fancy, but gets the job done.

Thanks again,

Dave

[jscheuer1]

I use a text only editor with syntax highlighting, which by the way graphically shows that type of error because a lot of the code that follows it appears in the editor's color which denotes a comment.

But that type of editor (I use EditPadPro which is commercial but cheap, NotePad++ is a roughly equivalent freeware program, and there are others) doesn't give you a WYSIWYG interface with 'out of the box' stock code that you can insert from menus like FP does. They do allow you to configure a default browser (which doesn't have to be your system's default browser) and then to be able to easily one click view the page in that browser. And clips can be added in EditPadPro, but these need to be setup to be of any real value. NotePad++ has add ons that allow for similar functionality.

I cannot recommend a more recent editor comparable to FP though because I don't trust any of them. Incidentally, FP probably has syntax highlighting in code view which would also have shown this error, and FP probably didn't cause the error, though it (and other WYSIWYG editors often do introduce other errors/problems, that's why I don't recommend any of them).

Lots of folks really like DreamWeaver, and MS has something out that is their replacement for their own FP. There are others around, some freeware, or relatively inexpensive. Amaya:

http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

is one.

I don't design pages. If I did I would probably use a WYSIWYG editor, and tweak/fix the output in EditPadPro. I've helped folks fix pages made in those sorts of editors. If used intelligently, they usually make decent code.

If it comes to that, sometimes it's the devil you know that's better than the one you don't.

Or I might use templates, and tweak those in EditPadPro. Or combine the two approaches.

[TCRTT]

John, Thanks for the suggestions. I usually do a combo of WYSIWYG and text editing in FP because it never turns out quite right. FP's syntax highlighter didn't catch that open comment and the rest of the page looked "normal". I was looking at Amaya and will give it a shot.

-Dave