Field Shifts and Other FP2003 Bugs

[Ross Chappell]

I've noticed two rather annoying bugs with FP2003 and I'm curious whether
anyone else has run into them.

Problem #1: Field Shifts

The first problem has to do with form fields shifting over by a position or
two after a change to a page is made and saved. I find this happens very
frequently. I will create a form, containing a table of descriptive text
values and data entry fields, save it and everything is fine. Then I reopen
the Active Server Page (ASP file), make some minor change and resave and...
voila... anywhere from a few to most of the fields have a hard space
character ahead of them, making them shift over just enough to be annoying.

Here's an example of the code that get's generated:

&nbsp;<!--webbot bot="Validation" s-display-name="Name on Credit Card"
s-data-type="String" b-value-required="TRUE" --><input type="text"
name="CCNameOnCard" size="25"></td>

The space is the "&nbps;" value that has been prepended. This doesn't happen
every time, but quite often (maybe every two or three times that I edit a
web page) and each time I have to go in, manually remove these spaces so
that things line up again. If anyone knows a way to prevent this, please
tell me. It's driving me nuts.

Problem #2: I've forgottten were I am.

The second problem happens sometimes after I publish web site changes (local
to host). Everything publishs fine, but if I then attempt to open a local
file again I start getting messages about files missing from temporary
folders. In my case, I run a local copy if IIS on my Windows XP machine, so
I'm really publishing from a local web server to a remote server, but I
don't think this is the problem.

FWIW, this problem seems to come and go. I can have days when I can work on
a site most of the day and never see this problem, and other days when I
have to quit FP and restart it again just about every time I publish. Again,
I'm not sure how common this is but it also drives me crazy.

Well, enough complaining... <g>

Ross Chappell
EPI Internet Direct
http://www.epidirect.com

 

[Jim Buyens]

FrontPage *will* add &nbsp; characters to table cells that
might otherwise be empty. I see this more often with
completely empty tags like:
<td></td>
and with ASP-only tags like
<td><%=whatever%></td>

FrontPage adds the &nbsp; to make sure the table cell has
at least *some* content. This is because completely empty
cells like <td></td> don't display border lines and other
features properly in some browsers.

You can generally work around this behavior by moving the
&nbsp; character to the end. For example, change
<td>&nbsp;<%=whatever%></td>
to
<td><%=whatever%>&nbsp;</td>

I haven't experienced the exact Publishing problem you
describe, but the cause might be some a faulty local cache
of data from one or both Web servers. You might try the
fixes at:

FrontPage Publish Command Fails
http://www.interlacken.com/winnt/tips/tipshow.aspx?tip=24

Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*----------------------------------------------------
|\---------------------------------------------------
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
||---------------------------------------------------
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/---------------------------------------------------
*----------------------------------------------------

 

[Ross Chappell]

Jim...

Yes, I know that FP places the &nbsp; in table cells that are empty, but why
does it do it in cells that contain values (in this case a form field, such
as an input or select tag)? The common denominator seems to be that the
cells contain FP generated webbot validation code. Cells that have data
entry fields without validation code do not seem to be affected.

Thanks for the tips for the publication issue. I'll give them a try.

Regards,
Ross Chappell
EPI Internet Direct
http://www.epidirect.com