does this drive the W3C people nuts?

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Richard Berendsen - 26 Jun 2003 13:40 GMT

http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html

This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
position:fixed.

I couldn't use position:fixed, cause IE doesn't support it.

This trick assummes that every graphical browser (The style
sheet can be connected via media="screen" so I only have to
reckon with graphical browsers I guess) uses scrollbars of
15 pixels wide, or else this page will look ridiculous.
However, so far all the browsers I tested did.

How do the technical people like this?
(I am a designer myself)

Kind regards,

Richard Berendsen

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Steve Pugh - 26 Jun 2003 14:03 GMT

>http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html
>
>This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
>position:fixed.

It doesn't use JavaScript which is a plus over most attempts to
imitate fixed positioing in IE.

>I couldn't use position:fixed, cause IE doesn't support it.

Not true. You can use it, but leave IE to have a fully scrolling page.
Nothing wrong with a bit a graceful degradation in less capable
browsers.

>This trick assummes that every graphical browser (The style
>sheet can be connected via media="screen" so I only have to
>reckon with graphical browsers I guess) uses scrollbars of
>15 pixels wide, or else this page will look ridiculous.
>However, so far all the browsers I tested did.

Which browsers were they?
Better GUIs (whether at browser or OS level) give the user the ability
to set the width of the scrollbar, for increased accessibility.

IE6 - http://steve.pugh.net/test/ie6.png
Top and bottom areas overlap scrollbar, thin sliver of content area
shows below bottom area.

Opera 7 - http://steve.pugh.net/test/op711.png
Scrollbar sits inside page, normal scrollbar area is blank.
Scrollbar track takes on content area background colour.

Netscape 4 - no scrollbars, content inaccessible.

Of the browsers I tested in only Mozilla 1.3 displays it exactly as I
assume you wanted it to.

Steve

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Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - 26 Jun 2003 14:36 GMT

> http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html
>
> This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
> position:fixed.
>
> I couldn't use position:fixed, cause IE doesn't support it.

As Steve Pugh said, you can use it if you have a good fallback
for IE. I use IE's conditional comments to give it an IE-specific
stylesheet. I used it in, e.g., my CV
<URL:http://www.daimi.au.dk/~lrn/cv.html>
(also using the position-fixed-hack for IE6 mentioned below, but with
fallbacks for IE 5)
(and it would be blatant self advertisement, if it wasn't in Danish :)

> This trick assummes that every graphical browser (The style
> sheet can be connected via media="screen" so I only have to
> reckon with graphical browsers I guess) uses scrollbars of
> 15 pixels wide, or else this page will look ridiculous.
> However, so far all the browsers I tested did.

My operating system's GUI (WinXP) claims that scrollbars are 16
pixels, but I can change it if I want to. Ups, I just did, now they
are 20.

Try looking at the page in Opera 7. The space for the real scrollbar
is still reserved, and the mousewheel doesn't work.

> How do the technical people like this?
> (I am a designer myself)

It reminds me of <URL:http://devnull.tagsoup.com/fixed/vertical.html>,
which only works in IE6. I don't know if your solution works in IE5
either (and I cannot check it. Pah! Someone should find a way to have more
than one IE on the same machine.)

/L

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Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@hotpop.com
Art D'HTML: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/randomArtSplit.html>
'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'

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Bertilo Wennergren - 26 Jun 2003 14:56 GMT

Lasse Reichstein Nielsen:

> Pah! Someone should find a way to have more
> than one IE on the same machine.)

I have three in my Windows machine. MSIE 4, MSIE 5 and MSIE 6.

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Bertil Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

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Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 26 Jun 2003 18:34 GMT

> Lasse Reichstein Nielsen:
>
>>Pah! Someone should find a way to have more
>>than one IE on the same machine.)
>
> I have three in my Windows machine. MSIE 4, MSIE 5 and MSIE 6.

That's nice. Care to share how?

In case it's any different than using vmware or something thereof and
someone could really "benefit" from your reply.

--Nikolaos

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Bertilo Wennergren - 26 Jun 2003 18:54 GMT

Nikolaos Giannopoulos:

>> Lasse Reichstein Nielsen:

>>>Pah! Someone should find a way to have more
>>>than one IE on the same machine.)

>> I have three in my Windows machine. MSIE 4, MSIE 5 and MSIE 6.

> That's nice. Care to share how?

Easy. I installed two instances of Windows 98, on two different partitions.
One has MSIE 5 with the original MSIE 4 kept (in compatibility mode, or
whatever it's called). The other Windows has MSIE6.

I use some neat little program that came with Partition Magic to switch
between the two Windowses.

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Bertil Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

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Andrew Tang - 26 Jun 2003 16:21 GMT

> It reminds me of <URL:http://devnull.tagsoup.com/fixed/vertical.html>,
> which only works in IE6. I don't know if your solution works in IE5
> either (and I cannot check it. Pah! Someone should find a way to have more
> than one IE on the same machine.)

VMWare is actually quite good if just want IE for testing.
http://www.vmware.com/

I have each OS installed with their own orginial operating system so I have
IE 3 upwards to test.

Andy

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Mark Tranchant - 26 Jun 2003 14:52 GMT

> http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html
>
> This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
> position:fixed.
>
> I couldn't use position:fixed, cause IE doesn't support it.

s/couldn't/chose not to/

> This trick assummes that every graphical browser (The style
> sheet can be connected via media="screen" so I only have to
> reckon with graphical browsers I guess) uses scrollbars of
> 15 pixels wide, or else this page will look ridiculous.
> However, so far all the browsers I tested did.

I see you are using Windows. Right-click desktop, Properties,
Appearance, set Item to Scrollbar and you can change this. Applies to
all applications using the standard Windows widgets.

> How do the technical people like this?
> (I am a designer myself)

It stops my scrollwheel working.

I use position:fixed where I need it and ensure that:

a) IE degrades gracefully
b) IE users are made to know the deficiency and suitable upgrade paths

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Mark.
http://www.tranchant.freeserve.co.uk/

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kchayka - 27 Jun 2003 16:34 GMT

>> http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html
>>
>> This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
>> position:fixed.
>
> It stops my scrollwheel working.

Scrolling divs are also, at best, difficult to navigate via the
keyboard. At worst, they make their contents inaccessible.

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Richard Berendsen - 28 Jun 2003 21:36 GMT

>>It stops my scrollwheel working.
>
> Scrolling divs are also, at best, difficult to navigate via the
> keyboard. At worst, they make their contents inaccessible.

Thanks for these replies.
They sure are helpful.

I didn't yet think of it, but yes, I can imagine the scrollwheel doesn't
work and indeed, accesibility of a site via the keyboard is an important
issue.

The more I learn, the more it becomes apparent that simple fluent
designs are just more powerful. Certainly when it comes to accessibility.

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Shawn K. Quinn - 26 Jun 2003 22:02 GMT

> http://users.alwaysaccess.nl/~bemep/css/test.html
>
> This is a funny trick to imitate the behaviour of
> position:fixed.
>
> I couldn't use position:fixed, cause IE doesn't support it.

It should degrade gracefully if you use it and there is no support in a
particular Web browser. (Of course, this being IE, more accurately
described as an excuse for a Web browser, maybe not.)

> This trick assummes that every graphical browser (The style
> sheet can be connected via media="screen" so I only have to
> reckon with graphical browsers I guess) uses scrollbars of
> 15 pixels wide, or else this page will look ridiculous.
> However, so far all the browsers I tested did.

A scrollbar width of exactly 15 pixels is not something you can depend
on. Scrollbars can be smaller or larger.

Oh, and Konqueror 3.1.2 makes another 15 pixel gap in addition to the
scrollbar.

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Shawn K. Quinn

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Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / CSS / June 2003

does this drive the W3C people nuts?