2007 Web pages load on right then shift left

[llamaface]

Hi there,

I've been using Publisher for websites for near on 10 years now. I've always
preferred 2000, but since losing the disks, I'm now using 2007 which is
better than 2003 at least.

Anyway, I've always managed to keep loading times down by PrintScreening
graphics in Publisher into PaintShop and creating optimised .jpg's & gif's
before calling them up in publisher using the HTML code fragments. But in
2007, a new Publisher peculiarity has surfaced...

When the pages are on the webserver, the entire page loads as if it’s been
shunted 2 or 3 inches to the right - Only when fully loaded does it all shunt
back to the left. It's only a minor annoyance with fast broadband because
pages load in about a second, but its far worse with slower broadband. Either
way it looks really odd. Any ideas why it happens or how it can be sorted?

See for yourself at HAI ERMO BILES dot com (delete the spaces & add the .com)

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[DavidF]

MSFT changed the coding engine in a big way starting in Pub 2002 (not a good
change in my opinion) and among other things uses VML. In general pages load
differently than with Pub 2000 and scripts that work in Pub 2000 don't
always work in 2007. I notice from looking at your code that your left
"border" images are called using javascript. I suspect that the "absolute
positioning" built-in to Publisher doesn't "kick-in" until your images fully
load and that is what you are seeing shift to the left. Your text box loads
quickly and does not shift. As you said, with broadband this would hardly be
noticeable, but with dial-up the image loads over the text box initially and
shifts to the left after fully loaded.

You might try importing the "border" images without the javascript. Put the
border images in a subfolder called "images" and then try inserting a html
code fragment box that is sized appropriately:

<IMG SRC="http://www.HaierMobiles.com/images/Left3.gif" ALT="optional alt
text" border="0" width="120" height="60">

Change the width and height to match your "Left3.gif" image dimensions.
Alt tag is optional. Border also optional...0 equals none. And of course you
don't have to use the subfolder "images"...I just like to keep things tidy.

And by the way, importing your images into your pages do result in better
quality images than if you just insert them into the Pub page, so I do
encourage you to continue to import them, whether it is as I suggested or
using a different javascript snippet. If you insert the images into the Pub
page, Publisher 2007 usually makes copies of the images in various formats
and of different resolution and quality, with the goal of serving up the
best image depending on what browser is used, but in my experience the
images are always inferior to the ones that you can import directly,
bypassing the coding engine, as you are doing.

I think a more important issue is that when you load your pages in FireFox
the 'border" images do not load at all, nor does your header image
"HeaderCheck.jpg". This makes me wonder if you are using a Master Page for
your header, border images and/or background. Master Pages were not
available in Pub 2000, and should not be used in Pub 2007...save them for
print documents. If you are using a Master Page, and that is where the
javascript is inserted, then moving it to the main page might also fix the
issue of the images loading to the right and shifting to the left.

You could import the "HeaderCheck.jpg" the same way as I suggested importing
the "border" images, but that kills the links:
http://www.haiermobiles.com/HeaderCheck.jpg
which means you will need to find a different way. Probably just inserting
the header image(s) and text boxes directly into your document.

Publisher 2000 wrote code that worked well in FF, but you have to tweak
things to get the Pub 2007 code to work correctly. I would suggest that you
download and install FF if you haven't already, and test your code before
uploading. Just Publish to the Web and direct your output to a folder on
your hard drive, and open the *.*htm files in FF. More and more people are
using non IE browsers, and I figure that if I can get my pages to load well
in IE and FF, that I have most browsers and users covered. However there are
others that also test the pages in other browsers as well...

Good looking site by the way...you can tell that you have been building
websites for a while. Nice and clean and simple, yet attractive and
effective.

DavidF


<IMG SRC="http://www.davidfoster.biz/Images/reals120x60.gif" ALT="REALS - A
Comprehensive Real Estate Directory" border="0" width="120" height="60">

 

[llamaface]

Fantastic! You hit the nail on the head there. I was already using the
img_src html fragment for images - the javascript serves randomly select
images for the left hand side. Regardless, I was using the master page for
the elements of the site that remained the same on every page. All I needed
to do was copy the code fragments away from the master and onto every page
itself and voila. No shunting. It really makes a difference.

And the best part of all; it got rid of the hiccup on the flash playback
where it would reload once everything shunted back to the left. Firefox
downloaded & installed, works fine on that too.

Thanks again! You have no idea how much trouble that pesky shunt gave us!
Genius.

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back. There were several whacks taken with the
hammer...glad one worked.

DavidF