Browser compatiblity and site validation problems
 

Hi there

I am getting a lot of comments from visitors to my site saying they are having problems viewing my site properly using Safari & Opera. Today I had a comment from someone using Firefox who attached an image showing the site all squished and unreadable (haven't been successful uploading image to this thread) which is strange because I use Firefox, and it displays fine.

Also when I try and validate site using http://validator.w3.org/, the report comes up with heaps and heaps of errors for attention.

Over the past month I have spent a lot of time doing Google searches looking for a solution to fix these errors, and I just cannot find any easy to follow instructions showing how to rectify this. I have also looked at posts in this forum, but can't see anything that will help me.

What can I do to resolve these problems, as it concerns me that if people can't view your site properly in the browser they are using, they will not visit your site, and will move on somewhere else.

My site url is: http://anitaskinner.com.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)
Kind regards
Neat

P.S. I am more than happy to make a donation for help in sorting this problem out, as I am at 'wits end' with this, and just haven't been able to find any help! :p

Thank so much
Neat

Here is what I would do.

• Set to fixed width of around 1000px
• Use just one sidebar per side or one on one side and two on the other
• Maybe use a popup for the subscribe area
• Try another plugin for the slider (wasn't working for me)

Bottom line there is just too much content for my browser window. It didn't matter what browser. I tried Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE and Chrome. Many items overlapped and/or were squished at time unless I set the window to about 1600px which is way to wide for many users.

Just my two cents Neat.

I'm with Larry. And either you've got the featured content slider configured wrong, or there's a conflict with another plugin (maybe the peeling page thing in the upper right) or it's just not working. I see the black progress bar but no images. And it's too wide for the column it's in, so it's overlapping the sidebar to the right. Overall, just too much of a muchness, visually.

And this is just personal preference, but the font is huge. You could refine the look if you went smaller, as well as getting more content in "above the fold". I've looked at it in Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

I just checked the site... World of difference. Now I would just make the left sidebar a bit wider to fit the entire subscription form and perhaps add CSS similar to the following to reduce the space below the form and fit it into the sidebar better. Way to go.

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

Have made the adjustments you have suggested.

Paulae, I'm not sure which text you are saying the font is too big ~ is it text in sidebars, body of posts or post headline?

I think it's a shame this theme has the capability of allowing up to four columns (and I was trying to use them all too lol), but that you can't use them without causing browser issues.

I still don't know what to do about the validation errors I get when validating the site.

Thanks so much for your help.

Regards
Neat

I do use 4 sidebars. I use a Right Inner, and it's narrower than the main right and left. Like you, I'm trying to get a lot of information on the front page, but the smaller fonts overall make everything fit better, at least in my opinion. It's still denser than I would like, and I'm toying with a redesign to give more white space.

http://www.larchmontgazette.com/

Another quibble, and this is about general good Web citizenship, not Atahualpa: I don't know anybody who likes the nag stuff when you try to leave a site. It feels like being hijacked. I would never, ever return to such a site.

You only have three sidebars on your front page and only two on many others Paula. I agree that a smaller font size would help but I'm on the fence with regard to the "nag". What I got was an offer to sign up when I entered the site but nothing when trying to leave. I too hate those sites that give you a popup when you try to close the tab but this site just had the popup once when entering. It didn't bother me too much and eliminates the need for the form on the front page.

You're right about the number of sidebars, but I think in terms of "columns".

I got a "do you really want to leave" nag when I left, the kind where it's tricky to choose which button to click to really get out. Hate that. Maybe that was when I was on an inner page.

And as to the validation errors: we've been discussing that in other threads. It seems that most sites will do poorly based on that validator, which doesn't mean the sites don't work well.

Hi Paulae

I appreciate your 'nag' comment. I added the popup due to lmilesw's suggestion when he kindly replied to my post. I have found that the majority of successful internet marketing 'gurus', insist on having some sort of offer on your site to build a mailing list which is my intention, and I have started building one which I'm pleased about.

While I agree that the ones where you have to click two or three times to get out of the site are annoying, I felt that having a fade in popup where all you have to do is click the cross to get back to the site shouldn't be too annoying to the user.

I guess it's just personal preference, however, I am always open to constructive suggestions and/or criticisms. So thanks for taking the time to reply to my post.

Kind regards
Neat