errors on laytop which I can't replicate on pc

[Donna Kempster]

Hi all, I'm hoping someone will be able to give me some advice. We run a network with a pc and a laptop on it. Recently when ever we upload the little eskimo website the changes don't layout properly when viewed from the laptop. Also it often shows some of the code on the screen. I can't replicate it at all on the pc here or at home or the laptop we have at home either. I read a thread from Tracey where things were different on one machine to another and followed the advice to clear cche, cookies etc but it has made no difference.

I wondered if anyone had any advice on what might be causing it ? A long shot I know.

This is one of the pages that is not rendering properly
http://www.littleeskimo.co.uk/acatalog/Win_Green_Playhouses_and_Bean_Bags.html

The images should display to the right of the left hand column but are displaying below it on the laptop. Also the first product (butterfly playhouse) when clicked on dosn't display properly either?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated as I am totally lost?

Thanks

D

[leehack]

First question is whether they are both using the same version of browser?

[los_design]

Resolution Differences?

[Donna Kempster]

First question is whether they are both using the same version of browser?

No I don't think we are. The laptop is IE7 and the pc is IE6 but at home I use IE7 and I can't replicate it there either.

I've looked at resolution as that was my first port of call but that doesn't do it either?

Thanks

D

[leehack]

I think you need a bit of rethink to be honest Donna. You have a very narrow site so that you can cater for 800 wide screens i presume, yet your site content is set to 800 wide which means it will break on an 800 screen as you actually need to give an 800 screen 760-770 width. You also have masses of space, i love space but it looks empty, not easy to read IMO.

Such large numbers now have 1024 screens at least and it's about time 800 width was dropped for good IMO on ecommerce sites. Remember at all times your target audience for sure, but do we really expect people buying online and using broadband to not be using a screen size which probably 95% of ecommerce sites require nowadays?

Go for 1001 width for full 1024 screen or about 970 for bordered centered, you are just not using things as good as you could at the moment IMO. In other words why alienate 90% of your visitors to cater for 10% of them, you have to aim at the masses online and try and cater for the others, not the other way round.

[dave_finlayson]

Loks like there is a coding error in your simple search. Revert the layout and see if that helps.

You also have coding errors at the bottom round the terms and conditions text

This:-

<class="text_terms_conditions">
should be:-

<div class="text_terms_conditions">
and this:-

</class="text_terms_conditions">
should just be:-

</div>

I'm guessing some browser configurations are more forgiving of these errors, hence the discrepencies in the displays.

[los_design]

I think you need a bit of rethink to be honest Donna. You have a very narrow site so that you can cater for 800 wide screens i presume, yet your site content is set to 800 wide which means it will break on an 800 screen as you actually need to give an 800 screen 760-770 width. You also have masses of space, i love space but it looks empty, not easy to read IMO.

Such large numbers now have 1024 screens at least and it's about time 800 width was dropped for good IMO on ecommerce sites. Remember at all times your target audience for sure, but do we really expect people buying online and using broadband to not be using a screen size which probably 95% of ecommerce sites require nowadays?

Go for 1001 width for full 1024 screen or about 970 for bordered centered, you are just not using things as good as you could at the moment IMO. In other words why alienate 90% of your visitors to cater for 10% of them, you have to aim at the masses online and try and cater for the others, not the other way round.

Sound advice, 'curry this' with a visit to your site stats to see the actual piccie of what your visitors are using and you will see that (as usual) Leeski is on the money.

In light of the above post, I would endeavour to correct the errors first, then attack the display discrepancy if it still exists thereafter (sorry...been reading a contract...thereinafter known as a pile of s£"t :eek: )

[Donna Kempster]

Hi guys thanks so much.

I'll try and sort that coding error Dave. I am going to look at the site widths etc now I assume I change them in the actinic style sheet?

Darren I looked at the stats - never looked at that bit before (:eek: ) and our biggest by far c49% is 1024 x 798 (changed my screen to that and YUK!). Can't quite believe this si the preferred screen size but there you go who am I to say. THis si why you never let marketing people loose on a website!

So agreed need a re think on width and need to view the site in different resolutions also me thinks.

Will ask for more advise very soon am sure.

Thanks again, much appreciated. Donna

[los_design]

Best place to go when looking to redesign Donna...

stats give you a big hand in deciding where to go.

Have fun.

Regards
Daren

[Donna Kempster]

Hi Guys

thanks for all your help. I've re-done the LE site to accomodate 1024 - I've been working in that resolution all week - how that can be 50% of surfers I don't know - gives me a headache!

if you get a chance to take a quick look at the littleeskimo.co.uk site I'd appreciate it. There is rather a large gap between the first block of images and the little pink layout which I can't work out how to close up - any clues appreciated!

Thanks again Donna

[leehack]

You have 3 <br/> in your code above the table plus you also seem to have an empty table with nothing in it. Download Firefox + Firebug and click on 'inspect' and then hover your mouse in this area and you will see the code in question. It's within the first row of the table with the cellpadding of 10.

I reckon you could go 4 sections wide and maximise products on show without cluttering things up.

[acompton]

Has a nice, clean look. Lots of products on the front page. I like it. I'm feeling quite inspired (to clean up mine, not purchase - sorry).

You've abandoned the traditional credit-cards-and-delivery-info on the front page approach which I was lead to believe was a must-have. I wonder what the panel will make of that?

I've just spent time getting my front page down in size after complaints the it didn't fit (it was less than 1024 but more than 800).

[leehack]

Personally Alan, i believe that this information should be available on every page of a site. I don't like trying to second guess on which page a user might be when they need this as there is no logic IME. Put it in an easy to find place and in that place across all pages and i think that is best.

With regards to widths, i think it is important to be focussed on what you are trying to achieve. If you do a size something like 850, it's madness IMO as you are too wide for 800 screens and too narrow for 1024 screens.

770 wide for 800 screens
970-980 wide for bordered centered on 1024 screen
1001 wide for full 1024 screen

You then have fluid layouts, but for me i am not a fan as a ecommerce site that moves in a range from 600 up to 1900 never looks good IMO. Mine are always fixed widths unless i am asked to do it differently.

[pinbrook]

I was probably the last of the designers to accept that 800 was dead, even i've now dropped all suppport for this res.

according to my stats 1024 - 768 is the most common res, closely followed now by 1280 x 800 (ie widescreen) get your site looking good in bith these res and you will have cracked 85+% of visitors.

[pnagames]

i am interested to find this out as well but cant see this on my stats

can anyone tell me where it is on the awstats pages?

[Donna Kempster]

You've abandoned the traditional credit-cards-and-delivery-info on the front page approach which I was lead to believe was a must-have. I wonder what the panel will make of that?



Hi

I thought we had done this but obviously not well enough! We have a delivery info section on the top nav bar which is then shown on all pages (i've even put it on the extended info pages). Should we be even more obvious than this then? I've thought about putting the cc logo's on the home page but haven't got round to it - would you all say that this is really important and where on the page dow they go!

Lee - thanks I'll download firefox and see what I can work out from it. I've never actually looked at our sites on firefox tbh which is prob a mistake but I've never really understood who uses it :o

Finally, I found the screen res stats on google analytics - very enlightening!

Any views greatly appreciated. Thanks again D

[leehack]

Finally, I found the screen res stats on google analytics - very enlightening!
Come on then agree with me or shut me up, i honestly have not looked at any stats in this area for at least a year. It'd be nice to know if i am talking crap as after all it is only my opinion, i have been saying it for quite sometime now though.

[Donna Kempster]

Come on then agree with me or shut me up, i honestly have not looked at any stats in this area for at least a year. It'd be nice to know if i am talking crap as after all it is only my opinion, i have been saying it for quite sometime now though.

I'm agreeing! 50% of our 'customers' have 1024 x 768. 800x600 is less than 5% for us! Thanks for the advice - when I viewed our site 1024 all the pic's distorted!

D

[leehack]

Thanks.
5% wow! it really is dead in the water, i'd have estimated just under 10%. You will probably find that 50% of that 5% never buy online also, so target audience figures are actually increased with that in mind.

I wonder if this 5% of people is the people that surf and then ring up to order, wonder if there is a correlation on that stat.

[acompton]

I've really learnt something about width here. I'm heading for another width re-jig and 3 items-per-row on the section pages. I quite agree that you never know where a customer is going to look for information. Everyone has their own browsing habits.

One question though: are all these 1024-width users actually running their browers full-screen? (A good argument for fluid width).

[leehack]

I guess you can never say for sure, but i am happy to assume that if someone opens a browser window, it will be maximised almost all of the time. A browser is just like Word, Excel, Email etc. i think the natural tendency is to maximise it and see the most possible.

There will always be a minority who don't do this, but i take the stance that i am always catering to give the masses the best experience.

600 - 1900 screen widths is too diverse to offer fluid widths IMO, but it will come in time. Nobody with a 1280 screen ever left a 1024 wide site because it didnt fit their screen, so there is over 90% of people catered for instantly with fixing at 1024. 1024 wide sites on 1280 screens with a dark background looks great IMO anyway.

[TraceyHand]

1024 wide sites on 1280 screens with a dark background looks great IMO anyway.

that's been my project over the last couple of days.
I'll tell ya, it proves to me how little I know LOL
blimmin borders doing things they shouldn't and no doing things they should :rolleyes:

(well ok..it's probably me :p )

[leehack]

Not sure quite what you are faffing with for 2 days, just wrap your whole site template in a div i.e.

<div id="pageWrapper">
Blah de blah gumf here
</div>

And then put this in your stylesheet:

#pageWrapper {
width: 1001px;
margin: 0px auto;
padding: 0px;
vertical-align: top;
border: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}

and then style your background color in the theme config within actinic UNLESS you are using Actinic Shared SSL, but i am not going into that as i am calm today.

From memory your site is a table layout, so you can actually apply that ID to the far outer table instead if you wish.

[TraceyHand]

Not sure quite what you are faffing with for 2 days,

well, it didn't take me 2 days to do it LOL
but it did have some unexpected side effects cause by ending up with the outer background in the inner layout where the product lists finished lower than the end of the page (because I didn't have any background specified for the sections etc)

oh, I know what I mean.

oh...and I did end up with extended info pages that had hidden text because the text was the same colour as the background (again, no background specified for the page content previously)

I am still fighting a battle with the border though...so I might try your method to sort that

Thanks :p

*mumbles...I don't faff....*

[Donna Kempster]

Hurrah ... just managed to get the cart to fit on the same page width as everything else .... and before I move onto our other site and do the whole width thing again with that one .... does anyone have any views on the delivery info and cc card issues raised by alan earlier? Cheers D