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<center> Tag: Inconsistent On Page Display


Team Snorkasaurus

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When using the <center> tag on Cache or Travel-Bug pages, the display is no longer consistent. Text and images displayed using the <center> tag are thrown off (left of) center if they are adjacent to the attributes or inventory boxes on the right. Text and images below these boxes are correctly displayed on center. Multiple images or text fields using the <center> tag no longer align vertically unless they are all far enough down the screen so as to avoid the very noticeable left-shift. Is this a temporary hiccup as the web-site is being reworked or should I redesign my cache pages?

 

:)

 

I am not complaining and I am grateful for all the effort and hard work being put into the web-sites update, just pointing out a new (to me anyway) display issue and wondering if it is temporary...

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When using the <center> tag on Cache or Travel-Bug pages, the display is no longer consistent. Text and images displayed using the <center> tag are thrown off (left of) center if they are adjacent to the attributes or inventory boxes on the right. Text and images below these boxes are correctly displayed on center. Multiple images or text fields using the <center> tag no longer align vertically unless they are all far enough down the screen so as to avoid the very noticeable left-shift. Is this a temporary hiccup as the web-site is being reworked or should I redesign my cache pages?

 

:)

 

I am not complaining and I am grateful for all the effort and hard work being put into the web-sites update, just pointing out a new (to me anyway) display issue and wondering if it is temporary...

Wrap it in a <DIV> or a table, and it should cure that.

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Ummm, a lot of us were proud of ourselves when we mastered the "center" command. I couldn't wrap it in a <DIV> or create a table if my life depended on it!

 

This affects a number of my caches where a statement of permission graphic is included in the Short Description. Underneath the logo is a clicky linky to the land manager's geocaching policy, and now it's not centered under the off-center graphic. Not a huge issue, but it wasn't prettiful like it was before.

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Thanks for the suggestions, Prime Suspect; unfortunately, that doesn't solve the underlying issue. For instance: on the Travel-Bug pages there are two distinct fields, "Current GOAL:" and "About this item:". The "Current GOAL:" field is first and is affected by the "Travel Bug Options" box on the right, whereas the "About this item:" field is lower and unaffected. Even using tables in both fields, the text/images within each field can be center aligned, but the top field is still left shifted when compared to the bottom field. You cannot contain both fields within the same table...

 

The "Travel Bug Options" box is longer and therefore affects more vertical display when you are viewing your own Travel-Bugs and is less of an issue when viewing other folks TBs. But still, the <center> display should ideally be consistent. I believe this may also vary when viewing your own cache pages vs. someone elses.

 

The main purpose of my question is to learn if this is a permanent change, or a temporary effect of the web-sites ongoing upgrades.

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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...The same thing is true for the "Short Description" and "Long Description" fields on a cache-page. The "Short Description" field is affected by the inventory box and therefore may be left-shifted when compared to the "Long Description" field. Using tables does not solve this. This is primarily an aesthetic issue and certainly not the kind of thing that will negatively affect most cache pages; however, it would be nice to have some insight as to whether it is just a temporary display problem or a permanent change. If this is the new norm for cache-page display it will require some reworking of my page layouts...

 

:ph34r:

 

Is there anyone with some "inside knowledge" that might be able to shed some light?

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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...however, it would be nice to have some insight as to whether it is just a temporary display problem or a permanent change. If this is the new norm for cache-page display it will require some reworking of my page layouts...

 

:ph34r:

 

Is there anyone with some "inside knowledge" that might be able to shed some light?

 

It's affecting my pages too. Is there a fix in the works for this?

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On caches it's a non-issue. Put everything in the "long description" and wrap it all in a <div> tag.

 

Edit to add I don't see what centering everything does to improve the above linked cache page. I think it would look better with only the 4 short lines in the middle, and the table, centered.

Edited by Lil Devil
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On caches it's a non-issue. Put everything in the "long description" and wrap it all in a <div> tag.

 

Actually, for a small percentage of caches it certainly can be an issue. There are some good reasons why folks might choose to divide their information/images between the "Short Description" and "Long Description" fields. For example: when using Google Earth to view cache locations it includes only the "Short Description" information in some of its functionality, if I restrict all my information to a single table or <div> tag in the "Long Description" then it is unavailable for viewing elsewhere. If the various boxes on the right side of the cache page interfere with one field and not the other, they will no longer share the same <center> alignment, using tables or <div> does not change this. Also, when viewing a cache page as the owner it may look different than what everyone else will see due to the extra owner options. That's fine except that I want to be able to design a cache-page and know it is going to be viewed reasonably consistently while at the same time being able to use both the short and long description fields. Yes, I know it is nit-picky, but I do care about how the pages I create look.

 

Team Teuton's page may look different to the owner than to the rest of us. We may or may not see the same left-shifting... it depends on the layout of the specific cache page, window size, etc...

 

This off-center shifting didn't occur (to my knowledge anyway) until recently. It seems reasonable to assume it is a temporary situation, but some confirmation would be helpful. Why redesign cache-pages if it is just a temporary hiccup?

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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I haven't tested it, but you might try puttin a <BR CLEAR=RIGHT> before the short discription. It should have the effect of pushing everything down so that it begins after the boxes on the right.

 

Edit: Just tested on one of my caches. It works but you may not like the large white space before the br. If you have some text that you don't care about the centering you might want to put the br after that.

Edited by tozainamboku
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<br clear="right"> is a success!

 

(...and there was great rejoicing throughout the land...)

 

Team Teuton and The Leprechauns: I looked at your cache-pages and this should work for you as well. It will easily allow you to have your "prettiful" cache-page back. If you need any help with this tag please feel free to send me an e-mail through my profile page on Geocaching.com.

 

Toz: THANK YOU BUDDY!!! I owe you a frosty-chocolate-milkshake!

 

(Mmmmm, milkshake...)

 

Also, huge thanks to Lil Devil and Prime Suspect for your helpful input. Using tables was my first thought too, but it didn't address all the issues I was concerned with. It is precisely because there are folks like you guys who are so willing to help out and make suggestions on the forums that dummies like me get to learn new stuff!

 

Ultimately, this tag is just a functional work-around for an issue I am still curious about; but heck, at least it works without sacrificing data fields or aesthetics! Basically we are exchanging the offending left-shift for a possible vertical shift, clearly the lesser of two evils and barely noticeable. It may create unexpected issues down the road as the Geocaching.com web-site matures/changes but for now it is nice to see all my data fields and images properly aligned again!

 

:huh:

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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I think <center> was HTML 3.2 element, that was deprecated in 1997, when HTML 4.0 became the new standard. That means it has not been part of HTML for nearly 9 years and that it really shouldn't be used any more. Same as <font> and several other tags from the early years of web.

 

If you really want to break the style defined for pages in style sheets, i guess you could use something like <div align="center">...</div>.

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I think <center> was HTML 3.2 element, that was deprecated in 1997, when HTML 4.0 became the new standard. That means it has not been part of HTML for nearly 9 years and that it really shouldn't be used any more. Same as <font> and several other tags from the early years of web.

 

If you really want to break the style defined for pages in style sheets, i guess you could use something like <div align="center">...</div>.

I was wondering about that... Although <center> has been deprecated for some time it still certainly works. Is there any reason to believe newer browsers will actually stop supporting it? Don't get me wrong, I really like CSS and encourage folks to stick with W3C compliant HTML! It just seems to me that there is very little reason for future browsers NOT to be backwards compatible with older code, especially with regards to commonly used elements such as <center>.

 

I know I must be missing some fundamental bit of logic here and it is way off-topic for this thread, but I would certainly welcome input from folks more knowledgeable about these things...

 

If HTML/XHTML (and whatever standards will come next) continue to change (which they will) and if browsers are not backwards compatible with older code, then any code you write for the web will eventually become obsolete, right?

 

:laughing:

 

Also, is it possible to define our own CSS within the "Short Description" and "Long Description" fields? If not, then any formatting we do is breaking the style defined for the page anyway. Right?

 

(This is why I work in the arts, not technology!)

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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Edit to add I don't see what centering everything does to improve the above linked cache page. I think it would look better with only the 4 short lines in the middle, and the table, centered.

I'm with Devil. Reading centered text is like trying to read all caps. Right-align all your paragraphs and center the table. Centering is for titles or headings, not for the body.

 

Jamie

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I'm with Devil. Reading centered text is like trying to read all caps. Right-align all your paragraphs and center the table. Centering is for titles or headings, not for the body.

 

Jamie

I appreciate your opinion, but it really isn't quite on topic for this thread. There has recently been a change to the way Geocaching.com displays centered text and images which has affected my (and some other cachers) cache-pages. Some of us like our pages centered, that's fine. If you don't, that's also fine; after all, they are not your pages. Lets keep this a technical discussion about HTML code and the display functionality of Geocaching.com... I am not discounting your personal aesthetic preferences, but they simply don't add anything constructive to this particular discussion.

 

;)

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I appreciate your opinion, but it really isn't quite on topic for this thread. There has recently been a change to the way Geocaching.com displays centered text and images which has affected my (and some other cachers) cache-pages. Some of us like our pages centered, that's fine. If you don't, that's also fine; after all, they are not your pages. Lets keep this a technical discussion about HTML code and the display functionality of Geocaching.com...

When using the <center> tag on Cache or Travel-Bug pages, the display is no longer consistent. Text and images displayed using the <center> tag are thrown off (left of) center if they are adjacent to the attributes or inventory boxes on the right. Text and images below these boxes are correctly displayed on center. Multiple images or text fields using the <center> tag no longer align vertically unless they are all far enough down the screen so as to avoid the very noticeable left-shift. Is this a temporary hiccup as the web-site is being reworked or should I redesign my cache pages?

 

;)

 

I am not complaining and I am grateful for all the effort and hard work being put into the web-sites update, just pointing out a new (to me anyway) display issue and wondering if it is temporary...

So back to the topic...

 

Gc.com has not changed the way pages are rendered ("displayed") on user's screen or on other media. That is done by the browser program on end user's PC, terminal, cell phone etc. In this case, the expected function with <center> tag is not defined in current HTML standard, so one can't really say how it should be handled. I guess different browsers show it in different ways.

 

I haven't really studied in depth the way those boxes are positioned on the page, but I'd guess they are floated. This should reduce the free space, where other elements of the page are rendered. I think it sounds quite reasonable that a browser centers to the middle of the free space, not the center of browser window.

 

The problem when using deprecated features is that you don't know when program designers stop to support them. Naturally new features conflict with the logic used 10 years ago (that's why the old ones are deprecated), and every browser wants to do current features right. If that means that deprecated features will break, that's no big loss - supporting them is not crucial.

 

Page designers (I'm talking about web pages in general) should stick to standards and use HTML validators. Otherwise they should test their code with all possible browsers and all recent versions of those. If you run gc.com front page with w3.org validator, you notice it fails first time on the second line :) No wonder people have had difficulties with different browsers... If user tries to mix antique features with initially faulty framework using modern features, no wonder browsers don't know what you meant.

 

I've seen some terribly broken cache pages (but luckily not so often than other web pages). I usually use Firefox on Linux/KDE, or Safari or Firefox on Mac. To see some pages, I have to use my wife's Windows-PC and can't even use Firefox there. That's because some people think if they can see their page, everyone else can see it. too. They've learned some cool trick 10 years ago, combine it with some new features and copypaste in some javascript they found on the 'Net, test it with their MSIE and just publish it on a free site that adds it's banners, popups and trackers...

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So back to the topic...

 

Gc.com has not changed the way pages are rendered ("displayed") on user's screen or on other media. That is done by the browser program on end user's PC, terminal, cell phone etc. In this case, the expected function with <center> tag is not defined in current HTML standard, so one can't really say how it should be handled. I guess different browsers show it in different ways.

 

(snip...)

Thanks for the response!

 

Sometimes in my forum posts I am not quite as articulate as I should be so let me state this clearly... I am in no way advocating the use of depricated HTML elements. I was using the <center> tag on my cache-page simply because I did not know that it was depricated; fortunately, I have changed it to <div align="center"> because of the information I have learned through this thread. I am very grateful for that information and thankful for all the folks who have generously shared their knowledge... Thank you!!!

 

As far as "rendered" vs. "displayed", this is probably an issue of semantics as my use of the word "displayed" may have varying connotations for other folks. Geocaching.com cache-pages have experienced some display changes recently as evidenced by the addition of new content (within the boxes on the right side of the page) causing my previously center-aligned text/images to become misaligned. I was not intending to say anything about the way the pages are rendered in any specific browser and I apologize if I was unclear. Geocaching.com added new content therefore (to my way of thinking) they changed the display. Upgrading from <center> to <div align="center"> was certainly beneficial as far as browser compatibility (yeay!), but it did absolutely nothing to address the specific misalignment problem I was experiencing as my cache pages were still incorrectly aligned. It was only after including <br clear="right"> as suggested by Toz that I was able to resolve my specific issue and return my pages to their previously correct center alignment.

 

Just for the sake of clarity: by "correct" I mean the way in which I originally intended the pages to look and the way they in fact did look prior to recent changes/additions to the Geocaching.com web-site. I am not suggesting there is anything incorrect technically with the sites functionality; instead, I am specifically addressing the appearance of my cache-pages layout/alignment and my personal idea of aesthetical correctness.

 

I am in no way an HTML expert (obviously, LOL!) but the question of compatibility/deprication is of interest to me. On my personal web-pages I enjoy using CSS and always check my CSS/HTML with the W3C Validator, a terrific resource! I completely agree with VesaK, deprecated HTML should be avoided...

 

:lol:

Edited by Team Snorkasaurus
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In this case, the expected function with <center> tag is not defined in current HTML standard, so one can't really say how it should be handled.
Nonsense. It's a fundamental principle of HTML that markups written using older standards are just as valid as markups written using newer. There are decade-old static web pages that display as well with modern browsers as they did with Mosaic 1.0. It would be madness to stop rendering a generation of web pages whenever a new HTML definition is released.
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In this case, the expected function with <center> tag is not defined in current HTML standard, so one can't really say how it should be handled.
Nonsense. It's a fundamental principle of HTML that markups written using older standards are just as valid as markups written using newer. There are decade-old static web pages that display as well with modern browsers as they did with Mosaic 1.0. It would be madness to stop rendering a generation of web pages whenever a new HTML definition is released.

A lot of these old markups don't have DTDs and stuff - would you claim that these were actually written using older standards? Or just written during a time of lower standards?

 

So the the bigger problem is that people tend to think that if it renders fine in their browser that the markup is actually valid. Then when it fails to render fine in the future or in other browsers, they want to blame it all on the browser.

 

It is the browsers' fault after all - their permissiveness encouraged sloppy behavior - stronger compliance checking would have helped everyone in the end.

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