It is good that you took the time to read through the other posts and learn
as much as you have. The way to troubleshoot and fix the link problems has
also been covered before but I will go over it again.
The first step is to download and install FireFox. It is a free and
relatively small download and you need it to test for the other
compatibility issues such as the links not working. If you are going to
build your own site then you must do this testing in my opinion.
Go to FireFox:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ to download. Once you
download the browser install it and opt out of making it the default browser
and you should have no problems. Once you have it installed you can Publish
your web files to your computer and then go to the index.htm file or the
other .htm files, right click and open with FireFox. Thus you can test your
site before uploading it. Once you get your site to work in both IE and FF
then it will work in all the major browsers.
The text box with the links on your home page have been converted to an
image when viewed with FireFox. That kills the links.
http://www.cbitr.org/index_files/image6487.gif You need to figure out what
you are doing with your layout that causes that.
Sometimes it is because you have grouped some design elements. If you have
done this then those elements will also not render in IE8. So the first
thing I would do is to go to each page > Edit > Select All > Arrange >
Ungroup. Test to see if that fixes the links.
Some of the other design and layout techniques that can result in a text box
being converted to an image for FireFox can be the use of "fancy" borders.
If you remove them and use simple one line borders or no borders at all then
the text box is not converted to an image. Sometimes it is because of the
use of a fill color in a text box. Sometimes it is a combination of those.
You are using a "fancy" border and a "fancy fill", but that is not always
resulting in your text boxes being converted to an image. Note that
http://www.cbitr.org/index_files/image4619.gif has been converted to an
image in FF, and yet directly below that the text box that contains the
text: "Want to give your inputWant to give your inputWant to give your
inputWant to give your input..." has not been converted to an image. Note
also that the link in that textbox is functional. You can test to see if
text has been converted to an image by left click and dragging to try to
select the text on the page. If you can't do it, it has been converted to an
image. Also after you Publish your web files to your local computer you can
go to your index_files folder, open it and view the files in thumbnail view.
That will allow you to quickly spot text boxes that have been converted to
images.
It is important to note that not only has the text box with "Want to give
you input..." not been converted to an image, that all the other text boxes
in that area of your page have not been converted yet you are using the same
fill and border design. This should provide the clue you need to know how to
redesign the page so the other text boxes are not converted. It appears that
you have created a text box with the fancy border and fill and then created
other text boxes such as the one with "Want to give you input..." which has
no fill and a simple one line border and layered that text box on top of the
"fancy" one. If so then that also suggests that
http://www.cbitr.org/index_files/image4619.gif could be fixed by either
removing the borders, changing the borders to a simple one line, removing
the fill color, or using a different fill color, or..... put all the text in
a new, no fill color text box and layer it on top of the fancy one as you
did below. The result will look the same but the text will not be converted
to an image. The fix is the same for the navbar text boxes with the links.
You just need to experiment with fill, borders and/or layering text boxes to
get everything on your page to work and still look as you want it to. Once
you figure out what design techniques you need to change on your home page
then you can troubleshoot and change the rest of your site.
DavidF
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