Automatic date update

[CWhit]

My web site that many of you helped me with is getting rave reviews from both
colleagues and clients. A couple of small puzzlements: (1) I have an auto
update date on the home page and another page. It updates in pub but won't
on the web. I am currently just loading the site again every morning. (2)
David F. looked at this problem earlier. I get good results using FireFox
except for one page, where the navbar simply doesn't work. I have made sure
the navbar is not overlapping another element on the page; have clicked
"bring to front" on all hyperlinks; have deleted the navbar and installed a
new one, and nothing works. This navbar is identical to those on all other
pages, and they all work fine. It's a minor problem on a minor page in the
site, but puzzling.
The URL is http://www.burdin-adr.com/index_files/Page798.htm

 

[DavidF]

Good morning CWhit,

I'm glad you are getting good feedback about your site.

In an effort to help you trouble shoot your navbar issue, I loaded
http://www.burdin-adr.com/index_files/Page798.htm in FireFox. I then loaded
http://www.burdin-adr.com/index_files/Page2197.htm which also has a navbar
on the top of the page. Then I also looked at
http://www.burdin-adr.com/index_files/Page2168.htm , your home page.

After you load the three pages, toggle back and forth between them. You will
notice that the width of each page varies. Perhaps your approach of allowing
some of your text boxes, navbars and other design elements to overlap into
the scratch area is coming back to bite you. Perhaps if you discover and fix
why Page798.htm and Page2197.htm are different widths, you will discover why
the navbar on Page798.htm doesn't work. Perhaps it is time to build that new
custom width page Publisher doc we discussed, that will accommodate the
width of your navbars.

As per the auto update date feature...perhaps go back to where you got the
code and confirm that you are doing it correctly. Perhaps Google for
alternative code, as not all code works in Pub 2003. Perhaps do away with
the feature altogether. After all, I can look on my computer for the time,
day and date...do you really need it? My attitude has been KISS when it
comes to my website. I don't add any feature to my site that isn't needed or
that doesn't enhance the browsing experience for those who view my site, and
I try to avoid anything that increases the loading time.

Just a few thoughts...but congrats on all the work you have done, and the
results.

DavidF

 

[CWhit]

Thanks, David. The auto date update is a feature of Publisher 2003. It is
supposed to update automatically each time you visit the site. It updates in
Pub, but won't on the web. As to the navbar problem being associated with
differing page widths, my logic (which is often flawed) tells me the more the
navbar hangs out into the scratch area the more likely it is to create a
problem. But page 798 hangs out quite a bit less than some of the others. I
think I will try doing the custom width idea and see what happens.

 

[CWhit]

Looks like 785px fills the screen with a little room on the right, and a
little bit of nudging of the page to the right leaving a little air on the
left looks good.

 

[DavidF]

I have never used this feature, but I don't think the Publisher autoupdate
insertion is for web documents. From Help: "Publisher updates the date and
time when you open or print the publication." Not the web page.

If you want this feature then there is script that will work. Google for
'javascript auto time date' or some such, and you can find a lot of free
script that you can insert via the insert html code fragment tool. Don or
someone else out there might have a specific suggestion.

I guess I feel that though you have managed to get your site to work well
with various design elements extending into scratch area, it not a good
idea. The html coding engine usually chokes on this...and your
malfunctioning navbar, might be the result.

I just felt that varying widths of the navbars on the different pages might
lead you to an answer as to why one worked, and the other didn't.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

So does this mean that widening the page worked? Before you rebuild the
whole site, perhaps copy and paste the problem page onto the new wider page
and do a web page preview to see if it fixes the problem. Or publish that
one page to your computer and open the index.htm file with FireFox to see if
it works?

Try making the navbar that doesn't work the same width as the one that does.
Copy the working navbar, paste it right below the nonworking one, and resize
the text box of the nonworking navbar so that it snaps to the same length as
the working navbar., And then move it to the side of nonworking navbar, and
resize the depth. Then delete the working navbar and your are left with your
nonworking one, that might now be working and is at least the same size as
the working. This would at least eliminate the possibility that the size of
the navbar is the reason it doesn't work.

DavidF

 

[CWhit]

David: Wanna hear something strange? I resized the page to 785px and
nothing was hanging over. Navbar still didn't work in Firefox. As you
suggested, I pasted a working navbar to the page. It worked. I had tried
this before and it hadn't. But I remembered I had changed the fill color to
black, the color of the non-working navbar. This time I left it dark green,
and it worked. Then I changed it to black again just to see what would
happen, and. . .it didn't work. Firefox doesn't like navbars with black
backgrounds.

 

[DavidF]

Who would have thunk?

DavidF

David: Wanna hear something strange? I resized the page to 785px and
nothing was hanging over. Navbar still didn't work in Firefox. As you
suggested, I pasted a working navbar to the page. It worked. I had tried
this before and it hadn't. But I remembered I had changed the fill color to
black, the color of the non-working navbar. This time I left it dark green,
and it worked. Then I changed it to black again just to see what would
happen, and. . .it didn't work. Firefox doesn't like navbars with black
backgrounds.