Gossamer Forum
Home : Products : Links 2.0 : Customization :

netscape and review

Quote Reply
netscape and review
Hi All,

I have installed review.cgi by Widgetz (a while back) and everything is great........in IE.

I only found out recently that whenever someone using Netscape tries accessing the review page of the link, the browser crashes. I MEAN CRASHES - NOT MEANING LACK OF CONTENT (due to uncompleted tables). You can see the Netscape - not responding message upon Ctrl+alt+del

Anyway, I just dont get what has gone wrong. Everything else works fine in Netscape, and everything fine in IE.

Suggestions please.

Thanks in advance

ps - no puns about nickname please

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi,

Ok, I have found what the problem was. It was my patience. If I wait around for about 2 minutes, then the page will load up. This brings up another point - maybe not relevant here, but how do I speed the page to load up. 2 minutes is far too long, and it is not realistically possible to get all my users to surf my site with IE.

I was wondering has it got something to do with the many table tags in the review_form??

Thanks in advance

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
You could test for the browser and then give the user an option to load the review, open it in a new window, or alternatively display a notice saying that the page may take a while to load. This could be done with Javascript or XSSI's (eXtended Server-Side Includes).

Martin Webster
--
Cebidae's UK Internet Resource
http://www.cebidae.co.uk/
Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi,

I have put a notice up already saying
"Netscape users may experience a delay in loading this page".

This is in normal html before the huge section of tables is read by the browser. This comes up immediately, and then basically freezes before all the rest of the page loads up, which is about 2-3 mins.

If anyone else uses review.cgi by Widgetz, could they check if the page takes ages to load up in Netscape.

Thanks

ps. I take it your suggestions would give the users the option continuing to load the page, rather than speed it up,

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
My suggestion was to have a customised view that is dependent on the browser used.

Also, have you tried this with any other browser? For example, Opera, Netscape 6 beta, or even Lynx.

Martin Webster
--
Cebidae's UK Internet Resource
http://www.cebidae.co.uk/
Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Thanks cebidae for your help,

No I have not tried other browsers - because I dont have those browsers installed - only IE and Netscape. If you do, then I can post the url on the board or send it to you.

Regards

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Yep, I have them all.

Martin Webster
--
Cebidae's UK Internet Resource
http://www.cebidae.co.uk/
Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi Martin,

Ok, the base url is
http://www.izhere.com/links

Only once you get onto the review.cgi?id=##
does the problem start.

Thanks for your help

Regards

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
ganjamanja,

Nice work. Looks good in IE5 and Opera 4. Lynx also displays results correctly. I used this URL: http://www.izhere.com/...ry/review.cgi?ID=554; no delays and no problems. I'll try Netscape 6 tommorow because I have to boot into Linux for that.

Martin Webster
--
Cebidae's UK Internet Resource
http://www.cebidae.co.uk/
Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Thanks a lot for your help. I am beginning to think (**hopefully**) that the problem is to do with Netscape rather than in my hands.

Regards

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi,

1) also my Netscape 4.7 crashed
2) Don't think this has to do with Netscape, since I have no problems with my review.cgi on my page. Also with NS. But I experienced that NS sometimes crashes if important tags are not closed or too many tables are put in each other and if you made mistakes in there. In short: did you ever REALLY check your HTML on the review pages (saw your code - could bet there's an unclosed tablecell inside, THAT's a number of tables you're using, boa..)?
3) BTW: just noted that IE is asking on every of your pages to place a cookie - NS doesn't (no, cookies are turned on and yes, NS is asking normaly). Can't have anything to do with incorrect cookie-placement or something?

Wink

Denis

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi,

I did check the html for table tags, and as far as I can see all of them have respective closing tag. As far as the review pages go, I have not added any extra html (apart at the beginning) from the default set by widgetz. As you can see, I like using tables for presentation, and maybe the too many tables nested within each other is the problem??

I have not specifically asked for cookie to be placed either - and am not sure how and why this is happening.

I think I will try making a very basic review page and see how that goes.

Denis - Did your netscape crash or were you like me and not wait for the 3-4 mins before it does eventually load up?

Thanks

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
I've just had another look at your site and the page referred to earlier in this thread. I think that there are some end tags missing e.g. </TABLE>, </A>. Likewise, your nesting order may be wrong. This document is not HTML 4 compliant yet you declare it to be strict HTML 4.0.

I suggest you run it through a validator or good editor. Also, I note that you are using in line styles. Wouldn't it be better to use something like <LINK rel="stylesheet" href="/style/default.css" type="text/css">?


Martin Webster
--
Cebidae's UK Internet Resource
http://www.cebidae.co.uk/
Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi,

I have now put up a basic version of the review template, and the loading time is vastly improved. It still takes about 10 secs and netscape does freeze, but this is more acceptable and bearable.

The main difference is that I have taken out by style sheets and also the huge table of the page. I have not altered the html in any way.

I did try and run the html in editors (both Frontpage 2000 and netscape composer - and they do show up correctly). However I will check the code in a HTML validator.

BTW Martin - I did not declare it strict correct code - I just could not see anything wrong with it. I often go through that kind of phase until some 10 year old kid tells me that I forgot a ">" after one of my commands!! Thanks for all the help.

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
Hi there,

to your questions:
- Yes, my NS crashed. I wasn't even able to shut it down, had to restart...
- Why I wrote my hint about the tables above: *If* I remeber right, I had some problems with the original HTML-code as well. Also with NS. But it's a long time I installed the mod. What I definitely did is build my very own HTML and it's doing pretty well, also for NS.
BTW: FP2000 (and maybe also NS composer, don't know) correct wrong code if you copy & paste. So better don't rely on those prgs. to check code...! If you ever succed to view a page in NS try it with viewing the source code. Some mistakes (not all) are shown by blinking text...

Also, I would suggest you to put your CSS in an external file, like what Martin said. Gives better overview and reduces time to load a page...

Ciao
Denis

Quote Reply
Re: netscape and review In reply to
WAHEY!!

I have managed to do it. Firstly I would like to thank you guys for putting up with me winging about something so basic.

This is how I did it. I tried cutting down the tables in the review_form.html template which Widgetz provided to something more basic. This sped up the loading time, but what really bogged down my page was the huge graphic and banner rotator at the top of the page - which were in tables (nested with many others). If I take them off, then the page loads as fast as IE.

I guess netscape was loading those images completely before proceeding to the next tables - and hence the delay. What I thought was a script error turned out to be a html problem - *dunce*. Maybe I should go back to school.

I will now work on the external CSS file - thanks for the suggestion

Regards and thanks