Table Dangers in Netscape

How to spruce up your web design

 

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By Jack Chen

1. Black Borders

Some web designers like to create thin rows and columns around their table and fill them up with black to create borders around the table. But beware of Netscape, it has a different interpretion than Internet Explorer!

The problem with Netscape is that it doesn't show empty rows or columns in a table. So if you create a row or a column, change its background to black and don't put anything inside, Netscape will not show it.

Here's the solution:

First, create a 1x1 pixel transparent gif file and name it "trans.gif". Then edit the source of your HTML document, and insert "trans.gif" inside every border.

Example

=======

Old Code:

<TR>

<TD WIDTH=2 BGCOLOR="#000000">

</TD>

</TR>

New Code:

<TR>

<TD WIDTH=2 BGCOLOR="#000000">

<IMG SRC="images/trans.gif">

</TD>

</TR>

=======

Now that the "border" has something in it, Netscape will obediently show your beautiful black borders!

[ Note: You can download a transparent 1x1 image from the following URL: http://www.addme.com/images/trans.gif ]

2. More About Borders

Tables come with their own borders. If you don't specify the thickness of the borders, Internet Explorer will go with the default: 0 . Netscape will go with the default too, but it will not appear the way it does in Internet Explorer

If you don't specify the borders, your table will be surrounded by a transparent border.

Here's the solution:

Example:

========

Old Code:

<TABLE>

<TR>

<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"></TD>

<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"></TD>

</TR>

</TABLE>

New Code:

<TABLE BORDER=0>

<TR>

<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"></TD>

<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"></TD>

</TR>

</TABLE>

========

The old code will make the black columns look spaced out in Netscape, as Netscape creates a transparent border around your table. But if you forcefully tell Netscape that you want the border to be "0", Netscape will have no choice but to remove that transparent border.

That's it! Hope this helps with your tables and thank you for reading!

Jack Chen - GoodBookmarks.com

http://www.goodbookmarks.com/

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This article is presented by Candice Pardue, Internet success writing and owner of Online Success for Internet Business. Go here to learn web design from start to finish. This one's for beginners...

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