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CSS Nightmare!

by alcymart
9 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
I helped so many hundreds here at WF and now it's my turn to ask for help. Yes, you're reading correctly...Nobody is perfect...

I'll start from the beginning. My web page many months ago had a truckload of CSS in it!

It had so much of it that I decided to create an external CSS file and remove it from the HTML so it would make it easier for crawlers to read.

I know nothing about CSS, I was creating my web page with Dreamweaver 2004 and as I created, it dropped CSS in for whatever reason.

Anyway, everything worked perfectly after I linked the external CSS file in my HTML source.

yesterday I optimized some of my page, and Dreamweaver added a great deal of CSS...arggg

I said, ok, I'll merge this new CSS in the external file somehow. WRONG!!

It's not as easy as I thought! It seemed to work until I realized after testing a few online crawling simulators that they could not read the text in the body! What the ****!

I then opened my IBP software to optimize my page and there again, it stated that I wasn't using text in my body and gave me score of Zero!!

It's as if the HTML or some parts became invisible after I merged the new CSS with the old one at the end of the CSS file.

I reverted to my backup and everything is perfect now except that I didn't touch the extra CSS it added and put back my old CSS file which works flawless now and is the page you see in my signature, but I want to move that CSS too externally with the other CSS file

I need to know what's going on and what could be wrong? Is it in my HTML source or did I merge the CSS wrongly in the external file?

I'm asking for help on this mind bender to me. Please advise if you need to see my external CSS file or not to help me out on this one?

Thanks,

Bernard
#css #nightmare
  • Profile picture of the author carrot
    Really need to see the 'live' site with the error in place to diagnose.
    You could put it up on another domain/subdomain if that would help your privacy, but i (or anyone else) will really need to see the whole picture to understand the problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author phpbbxpert
    Programs like DreamWeaver are notorious for adding code all over the place.
    Also usually breaking code.

    My guess is that the file is full of errors and that is why the simulators wont crawl it.
    Use http://validator.w3.org/
    That will tell you how bad it is and if you can understand the report, where to start.

    I just spent 2 hours yesterday fixing someone's DreamWeaver muckup with 289 errors and 18 warnings.
    Still if you can't code it seems that DW is what everyone's using or something similar.

    Anyway, as mentioned above, we would have to see the page to diagnose the issue.

    It could be any number of issues HTML, CSS or both, but I would bet on validation.
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    • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
      The very 1st thing you need to do is dump Dreamweaver. The things you're describing are exactly the things that finally drove me to abandon Dreamweaver. God!!! it drove me crazy. It created such nightmares you wouldn't believe. Especially if your site is very big.

      I finally bought an academic version of Visual Studio and spent a few days getting up to speed with it but it was worth every bit of it. Absolutely the best editing software I've ever used And guess what, the Express version (FREE) is everything the paid version is and it's FREE. Since I first bought VS Microsoft has had several new releases and now I only use the Express version, there is virtually no difference in functionality unless you are a shop that needs version control so multiple people can work on the same file simultaneously, that's the only difference between the two versions.

      VS doesn't screw with your formatting. Also if you work in split view you can see what is being added in the code view as you're typing it. So for instance if you put something in as a <h1> but you want it to get that from your external style sheet you simply make sure that h1 is defined in you style sheet and that the link is present i n your page and it will automatically pull the styling from the style sheet. Though frankly DW should do this also, but on the other hand DW is such apain I shouldn't assume anything about DW.

      Anyway just do a Google search for Visual Studio Express Download and it should take you right to the download page.
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      • Profile picture of the author alcymart
        Originally Posted by ronc0011 View Post

        The very 1st thing you need to do is dump Dreamweaver. The things you're describing are exactly the things that finally drove me to abandon Dreamweaver. God!!! it drove me crazy. It created such nightmares you wouldn't believe. Especially if your site is very big.

        I finally bought an academic version of Visual Studio and spent a few days getting up to speed with it but it was worth every bit of it. Absolutely the best editing software I've ever used And guess what, the Express version (FREE) is everything the paid version is and it's FREE. Since I first bought VS Microsoft has had several new releases and now I only use the Express version, there is virtually no difference in functionality unless you are a shop that needs version control so multiple people can work on the same file simultaneously, that's the only difference between the two versions.

        VS doesn't screw with your formatting. Also if you work in split view you can see what is being added in the code view as you're typing it. So for instance if you put something in as a <h1> but you want it to get that from your external style sheet you simply make sure that h1 is defined in you style sheet and that the link is present i n your page and it will automatically pull the styling from the style sheet. Though frankly DW should do this also, but on the other hand DW is such apain I shouldn't assume anything about DW.

        Anyway just do a Google search for Visual Studio Express Download and it should take you right to the download page.

        I will start with your suggestion, DW has become a pain in the arde for me too. Thank you for your great suggestion in which I will go forward with right now!
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    • Profile picture of the author alcymart
      Originally Posted by phpbbxpert View Post

      Programs like DreamWeaver are notorious for adding code all over the place.
      Also usually breaking code.

      My guess is that the file is full of errors and that is why the simulators wont crawl it.
      Use The W3C Markup Validation Service
      That will tell you how bad it is and if you can understand the report, where to start.

      I just spent 2 hours yesterday fixing someone's DreamWeaver muckup with 289 errors and 18 warnings.
      Still if you can't code it seems that DW is what everyone's using or something similar.

      Anyway, as mentioned above, we would have to see the page to diagnose the issue.

      It could be any number of issues HTML, CSS or both, but I would bet on validation.

      I'm constantly making sure it passes validation of course.

      Bernard
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Unless we see how is it when it doesn't work... it's difficult to guess.

    Just a reminder, CSS stands for cascading style sheet - and the styles are applied in this order:
    1. external stylesheet
    2. style in the head section
    3. inline style
    meaning #2 overrides #1;
    and #3 overrides #1 and #2.

    It is possible there is some conflict when you put everything on the same lavel (i.e. external css file).
    Or maybe you just made some mistake/typo when you merged the styles...

    (Note: Keep in mind I have no idea what those "optimizer" gizmos are and what they do or tell you...)
    Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author promo_guy
    Hi Bernard,

    Let me know if you need help. It could be something minor (but if you're not familiar with CSS you wouldn't know) or it could be something complicated.

    As others have said, without seeing a site, it's hard to tell. But, I can almost guarantee you it's a minor thing!

    Let me know if you need help
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  • Profile picture of the author alcymart
    Just wanted to keep all of you updated. Promo_guy is helping me out with this issue. Things are progressing well...

    Thanks all for your suggestions thus far, I'll turn to one of you if me and promo_guy don't resolve for good the issue I'm having. DW is a crappy soft for all I know. It keeps adding code for nothing. I'm seeking to buy something better. Trying Visual Studio Express now and learning it thanks to ronc0011. Seems great thus far. It doesn't seem to add crappy code lines.

    Take care,

    Bernard St-Pierre
    Marketing Consultant
    Copywriter/Teacher
    Signature
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    • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
      Originally Posted by alcymart View Post

      Just wanted to keep all of you updated. Promo_guy is helping me out with this issue. Things are progressing well...

      Thanks all for your suggestions thus far, I'll turn to one of you if me and promo_guy don't resolve for good the issue I'm having. DW is a crappy soft for all I know. It keeps adding code for nothing. I'm seeking to buy something better. Trying Visual Studio Express now and learning it thanks to ronc0011. Seems great thus far. It doesn't seem to add crappy code lines.

      Take care,

      Bernard St-Pierre
      Marketing Consultant
      Copywriter/Teacher

      Another really great thing about VS is that it validates your code as you're typing it. Depending on the speed of your machine it sometimes takes a moment or two for it to catch up but you will see it flagging stuff as you type. Also note it will flag stuff on unfinished lines. So you may see flags (underlined text) that will go away once you have finished the line.

      The cool thing is that you always know that your code is W3C compliant and the tool tip (hover over the flagged text) will tell you where to start looking for the problem.
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