table content turns to black in explorer

VadimK

Hello guys

i have a kind of unique problem
i created this little framework and everything is great on all the browsers besides explorer
in which for some reason the entire content of the table turns black and you can not see a thing

here is the code: http://pastebin.com/KVqSM36M
here is the example page: http://apps.sce.ac.il/misrot/admincp/jobs.php

i am sure that it is just some kind of mistake i made somewhere but i can't seem to locate it
thank you

Bonesnap

Avoid using attributes such as "bgcolor" (which is deprecated). Instead use CSS to style your content. I don't know if that will fix your problem, but it was the first thing I noticed when I saw your code. Also, which version of Internet Explorer are you testing your site with?

NogDog

It would be a good idea to validate your HTML and then your CSS and fix all mark-up errors before blaming anything on a browser. (It could still be a browser issue, as there are some legitimate discrepancies, but the browser can not be held responsible for figuring out what you wanted to happen if your mark-up is invalid.)

Weedpacket

I note that Opera has the same problem.

VadimK

thank you guys

the reason i didn't use css yet is because it is still under development
i am always building the framework while using some basic colors
just to set things apart, and only towards the end create the css

Weedpacket

There is no reason why you can't use CSS during development. In fact, I don't see any sense in using one older mechanism to develop something, if when you're done you're going to rip everything out and develop it all over again using a completely different mechanism.

If nothing else, developing your layout and styling with tables and attributes limits you to layouts and styling that can be done with tables and attributes.

Bonesnap

I played with it in IE9's developer tools and figured out the problem. The attribute "bgColor" doesn't support short-hand colour codes. That is, using #666 instead of #666666 will not render correctly on some browsers (obviously some browsers are able to recognize the intended colour and produce it). Change it to #666666 and you get grey.

EDIT: I still recommend using CSS, though (where you can use short-hand colour codes).

johanafm

Weedpacket;10989918 wrote:
There is no reason why you can't use CSS during development. In fact, I don't see any sense in using one older mechanism

I competely agree. There is no reason at all to use something during development that you will not use in the end, and every reason to use whatever you will use in the end during development.

For example, CSS let's you specify how every table will look, and it's overrideable in several ways. It doesn't even mean that you have to give them more than "basic background color" or whatever you called it. At least then you have your style selector rule in place and will immediately notice if the next table you create doesn't match this rule or if a specific table should be styled differently.

However, I would recommend that you also set everything else while developping, such as margins, padding, border-collapse etc.

Weedpacket

Bonesnap wrote:
The attribute "bgColor" doesn't support short-hand colour codes.

I've got mixed feelings about this result. Sure, why put the effort into maintaining a deprecated attribute? If you're modern enough to be using shorthand colours, you're modern enough to be using CSS.

But you do realise it means that it means there are at least two colour-specification parsers built into IE's code, right? One old, unmaintained one to handle the old rendering model and one written for CSS-based rendering? How much of IE is duplicated code that only exists because Microsoft don't want old sites breaking on new browsers?

johanafm

Weedpacket;10990134 wrote:
How much of IE is duplicated code that only exists because Microsoft don't want old sites breaking on new browsers?

As I've come to understand it, it's not just duplicated code. They actually have several browser engines (versions) in each browser, so that for example IE8 can use IE7's engine by setting the "X-UA-Compatible" header / http-equiv meta tag with content="IE7"...

Bonesnap

Weedpacket;10990134 wrote:
I've got mixed feelings about this result. Sure, why put the effort into maintaining a deprecated attribute? If you're modern enough to be using shorthand colours, you're modern enough to be using CSS.

But you do realise it means that it means there are at least two colour-specification parsers built into IE's code, right? One old, unmaintained one to handle the old rendering model and one written for CSS-based rendering? How much of IE is duplicated code that only exists because Microsoft don't want old sites breaking on new browsers?

I don't understand what/why you're asking me.

VadimK

Bonesnap;10990094 wrote:
I played with it in IE9's developer tools and figured out the problem. The attribute "bgColor" doesn't support short-hand colour codes. That is, using #666 instead of #666666 will not render correctly on some browsers (obviously some browsers are able to recognize the intended colour and produce it). Change it to #666666 and you get grey.

EDIT: I still recommend using CSS, though (where you can use short-hand colour codes).

Thanks to everybody
specially Bonesnap