Re: [Sheflug] web pages incorrectly displayed

[John Southern <john [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 17 November 2005 10:36, lesleyb wrote:
> > http://www.zodiacs-children.com/
>
> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Publisher 10">
> sort of gives the game away.

I tried this under Firefox and it all seemed OK. Curiously under Konqueror it 
was all fine. Changing to another machine causes some of the text to be 
written on top of the other. The difference in machines is down to graphics 
resolution.

On the broken display if I adjust the font size down, all works.

Looking at the source code (Can that rubbish really be called code?) we find 
that it is truly terrible. The w3C validation test finds 88 errors.
It even sets the printer to Epson 830.

<b:SzDevice>EPSON Stylus Photo 830 Series</b:SzDevice>
<b:SzDriver>EPSON Stylus Photo 830 Series</b:SzDriver>

It sets so many scripts fonts and options which are then overwritten that if 
there was an award for the poorest code this would win.

The actual code was 582K (not counting the images) That was over fifteen 
thousand lines for less than 900 characters on screen. The vast majority of 
the code was setting and unsetting options that were never used. They did use 
publisher to draw the little item boxes and to map areas of the screen so the 
links would work.

Publisher is awful anyway. Apart from PageMaker, little will accept a .pub 
file and the compatibility even between similar versions is such that it 
causes problems. Using to make a website should be a crime.

Although browser issues are still a problem, this horrible code is down to 
someone wanting a quick fix on their computer and if it does not work on 
anyone else's, so be it.

John
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