Don’t even know where to begin… but it’s a minor problem!

First you might want to try Validating your website. According to this you have four errors.

This ensures that it appears (pretty much) the same in all browsers. There are some exceptions, as some older browsers do not meet common web standards, but this will help make you site more accesible.

Also check out Position is Everything a good place for “tricks” to help you outsmart the flaws inInternet Explorer. Lastly, download firefox! It’s free, and you can also get a plugin for it called Tidy that allows you to view see validation errors (and where on the page they are) when you view a web site’s source.

Learning CSS is easy and it will make you a better blogger because it will make your blogs better!

Okay… I got it to validate. Unfortunately, the problem I’m having had nothing to do with the errors in the page.

I do have Firefox- I didn’t really make that clear. My point is that not everyone uses Firefox; a quick glance at any site visitor stats package shows that! That’s how I know the page displays properly in Firefox.

Forgive me, for I am about to rant. I don’t want to learn CSS. I want to blog. Blogging shouldn’t be about learning to program so a person can write; it should be about *writing*, and the readers who’re scoping that writing out. </rant>

Anyway, it validates and still has the problem. I poked around the pages you mention and can’t figure anything out- like I said, I’m a complete newbie to CSS and php and all that jazz. I just want it to work!

My problem is that while I can tinker, and have little/no fear of doing so, I’m so clueless that I don’t know where/how to begin. Any/all help greatly appreciated.

The reason I suggest learning CSS is beacuse having a well-designed site makes your blog more accesible to everyone, therefore, more people will read what you blog about.

There is no point in spending an hour writing an articulate post and then putting it on a web site the looks confusing or loads improperly because 90 percent of your readers will be too lazy or frustrated to wade through the mess. They’ll never read the post you spent an hour composing.

If your site is valid that’s the first step. Now, take a look at Position is Everything again and see what flaws inherent in Explorer might be skewing your header. Also, you might want to install a stat program that will tell you what browsers people are using to look at your site — maybe there really aren’t that many using IE. I use statcounter, which is free.

Lastly, understand that older versions of IE, namely 5.0 and lower, are really screwed up and there may be no way around having the exact design you want work in that format. However, giving up should be a last resort for you because most of the time these errors can be fixed by changing a few lines of CSS code, something that should take two minutes at the most.

I can’t test in IE, but what happens when you reduce the css for that area to
#toplinks {
text-align: left;
}

I tried your suggestion, podz- thanks for it. I tried taking out each of the four lines that make up the #toplinks area, first individually and then in various combinations with each other.

None of those combinations puts the links where they’re supposed to be, although strangely enough with every single combo IE keeps them out to the right side while Firefox keeps them on the left.

brittanie, I hear what you’re saying. You’re just making a lot of… uhm… assumptions about what I want, or what people should want/do, based on your own criteria and paradigm for viewing things.

That’s fine- we can ultimately only see the world through our own eyes- but I think you’re missing the point I’m making. In today’s specialized world, the vast majority of bloggers don’t and shouldn’t have to take the time to learn how to write CSS just to get their blogs up. That would defeat the purpose of having programmers!

Saying people need to learn CSS to be able to blog would be like saying people need to learn how to do air traffic control if they want to take an airplane ride somewhere. It’d be silly; it’s much more efficient if they pay some nitwit (like, say, me) to be a controller, so they can get on with their holiday. ??

I really do appreciate the help, but telling me “learn CSS” isn’t really what I’m looking for. If you don’t have anything more concrete than that, just say “dude, it’ll take way too long for you to learn, so give it up”.

My next plan is to simply do away with the links. I’m thinking I don’t really need them anyway, as I will have whatever links I want/need down the side columns as it is.

Cheers,

Paul

A horizontal navbar would work well.
Part of the problem is that these links sit inside the #header. So a horizontal navbar under the header but above the content would work. You could get the spacing correct and background correct too so it wouldn’t look a whole lot different. That sound worth a go? It’s one extra div, that’s all.

Thanks, and got your comment as well. I might give it a shot, but I’m still organizing the new three-column look (was on two columns prior) along with some new plugins.

For now, I’ve just deleted the links in question, so this thread is no good anymore… Thanks again to all.