Page not displaying correctly in IE8, since files moved.

[Anonymous]

I copied the pages I am working on to a new folder so that I could begin a final order of the folders as they will be on the server. I have no problems opening them in Firefox with Dreamweaver, but they won’t open with IE8 now. I get a message that says “To preview pages containing server side code, you need a testing server. Would you like to specify one now?” The code is not on the server side, but is still within the pages which are on my PC. If I transfer a page to the server, such as this one, then the page is totally messed up in IE8 as to where it displayed ok before.

It appears it might be due to the .php extension instead of .html. I’m not sure why, but the .html versions open fine.

Best Regards.

[Senff]

PHP files need to go through web server software first (to process them into HTML code) before a browser can view them. That’s why a .HTML file will open in any browser directly from your file manager without a problem, but a PHP file won’t.

Even though the files are on your local PC, it is still considered a server.

Its not an IE problem — you’ll get errors in Firefox and Chrome or any other regular browser as well. No experience with Dreamweaver, not sure how that works.

The page on your actual web server (not your local) at http://www.wslmf.org/new%20site/index.php looks pretty much the same in any browser I view it in and is not specifically broken in IE8.

[Anonymous]

Greetings Senff,

Here’s a grab of how it looks to me (server side) on IE8.

Not sure why it looks Ok for you on IE8 and not me. Very odd.

Best Regards.

[chrisburton]

Please be specific. What exactly is wrong with your screenshot? Images not showing up? Elements not where they’re supposed to be?

I can tell you off the bat that the following is not a correct file path.

file:///H:/new site/master/images/wslmf_logo.png

In the future I would encourage you to put all images in a folder and call them from there. This way you do not have trouble moving the site from local development to the server.

[Anonymous]

Greetings Chris,

I know that the header and logo images aren’t linked correctly, but since these aren’t the problem I saw no reason to link them. The screen grab shows quite obvious that the menu bar is not displaying properly for one thing.

Here’s the way the page is supposed to look. It shows the logo and header here, but again these are not the issue. The specifics of my problem are in my first post above.

Best Regards.

[chrisburton]

Are you using PHP?

[Anonymous]

This one was saved as html.

This one was saved as php.

Both using DW.

Both show fine in Firefox, and the php shows as in the screen grab above and in the live page linked in this reply.

Is there a webkit fix for this for IE8?

[chrisburton]

I have tested both links in IE8 on Windows 7. I am not seeing either of those issues. It must be due to Dreamweaver. I would recommend not using that program for development either way.

Screenshot

[__]

I would definitely recommend not developing with dreamweaver also. Just as Dreamweaver uses its own rendering engine (which is different than any real web browser will use), it uses its own engine to “preview” php stuff.

If you’re developing with html, then WYSIWYG editors (like DreamWeaver) are “okay” if you use them as code editors and aren’t doing anything complex, but they are completely useless -counterproductive, even- for previewing the design.

If you’re developing with PHP, or any other programming language, then WYSAWYG’s are simply a waste of time and money. You won’t get reliable results. You’d be much better off installing apache+php and running an actual local server. There are plenty of packages (XAMPP, for example) that make this simple even for complete beginners.

[Anonymous]

Greetings Chris,

It wouldn’t be due to DW if it displays alright to you, and everyone else. It must be an issue with my version of IE8. I’ve noticed while messing around with this again that if I refresh IE8 while viewing the php version linked above, the drop-down menu will display subnav buttons under the home button, but then disappear again. None of the other buttons ever appear.

Best Regards.

[Anonymous]

Greetings traq,

Yes, I’ve come to loathe DW. I do believe though that this issue is hinting at a problem with my version of IE8. I see no other explanation as others using IE8 reportedly see nothing wrong with the page.

I am going to switch to another developing tool.

Best Regards.

[Author]

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