Geocaching.com And Firefox 1.0

[+Onemadfool]

I love the new browser, but is anyone else using and noticing that somethings just don't load correctly when using Firefox? The majority of the text loads, but maps and sometimes backgrounds and sounds will not load correctly. Just curious if this is happening for anyone else or if I am missing something.

 

Onemadfool

[+baloo&bd]

I have used Firefox since before they changed the name to Firefox on GC and not had any problems. It may be either the security settings in FF or your Firewall or Ad programs.

[beebot]

I'm using FireFox 1.0 (and FireFox 0.9.1 on my laptop) and haven't had the problems you mention. Check your version under Help - About Mozill Firefox... I know your post says 1.0, but is it the PreRelease? perhaps you need to upgrade it to 1.0 final release?

Edited November 24, 2004 by beebot

[+fizzymagic]

This is what the geocaching.com home page looks like in Firefox 1.0 for me:

 

 

Of course, it looks almost as bad in IE, and it has looked this way for about the past year, so it's not the fault of Firefox. The issue is that I don't use the smallest possible font size as my default.

 

Still, it looks pretty ugly as the primary face of geocaching.com to the outside world, so maybe now would be a good opportunity to fix it.

Edited November 24, 2004 by fizzymagic

[beebot]

Fizzymagic, in looking at the HTML it would take quite a bit of work to bring the code into the 21st century to make it Standards Compliant so that users can view it properly with larger font sizes.

[+fizzymagic]

Beebot, you're right. But the home page can easily be fixed -- just put the offending text into an image. Since the table size is fixed in pixels, that would do nicely for now.

[beebot]

Making the text into an image would be a quick, bandaid solution but it would be a step backwards as far as web standards are concerned.

 

As an image, users wouldn't be able to scale the text (in the image) to a larger size for readability.

 

Since it works for more than 95% of the site users at this point, if I were one of the web developers of Geocaching.com, I would recommend that you change your font size temporarily to read the page. Then I would put the problem on the "to be updated" list of things to improve on the web site.

 

In Firefox you can quickly change the font size by hitting Ctrl + "-" (Control-Minus) a couple of times to shrink the font sizes displayed on the page. Then hit Ctrl + "0" (Control-Zero) to reset the font back to your "normal size" (normal = whatever you have set in the options).

 

Ctrl + "+" (Control-Plus) to enlarge text - see View | Text Size in the Firefox menu.

Edited November 25, 2004 by beebot

[+Hynr]

I would vote for fixing the code so it can be viewed with larger fonts. I'm sure that it can be fixed. The flaw is with the web site, not the user; so telling the user to fix it by selelcting a smaller font is not satisfactory, especially if the user has eyesight that is not corrected to perfect vision.

[+New England n00b]

True, and I agree - bu tfor an immediate fix, it kinda works.

[+benjamin921]

Works great for me. XP-Home. 1024x768.

[+hedberg]

It have been mentioned earlier on these forums; Firefox follow all standards to exactly 100%, nothing more or less. If anything is not correctly coded, then will it not show. For example can you do code like this:

 

<TABLE><TR><TD><B>HELLO</TD><TD><FONT FACE="ARIAL">TEST</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

This will be shown in Explorer, Netscape etc. But most probably will Firefox complain since the commands were not correctly ended. </B> and </FONT> are missing.

 

Also do not Firefox support Java always. We own an online store and it doesn't support Firefox, but it will soon be updated to do that.

 

Firefox has decided to follow all kind of standards by the book. So if something isn't by the book, then will Firefox not work properly.

[+IV_Warrior]

Firefox has decided to follow all kind of standards by the book. So if something isn't by the book, then will Firefox not work properly.

Well, I wouldn't say Firefox isn't working properly, I'd say the poorly coded page won't show properly

[+fizzymagic]

Thanks for the advice to change my font size; it's not a big issue for me, because I never load that page anyway.

 

My concern is that the home page of geocaching.com, the very first impression of geocaching for most people, doesn't show up correctly for those who have increased the default font size in their browsers. I think that making that page look good should be a high priority.

 

Here are some screen shots, all taken using Internet Explorer -- not Firefox:

 

Text Size set to Medium:

 

Text Size set to Smaller:

 

Text Size set to Larger:

 

IMO, for any text size other than Medium, the home page looks pretty bad.