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mac-at-kearsarge · Feb 21, 2007, 11:09 PM

Long story short: This past fall my best friend started a new restaurant in my area. As the geekiest guy he knows, I've been doing a lot of the technical stuff to help him get ready for the offical opening. One of the things he asked me to do, was build a website fior him. I haven't built a real website in years, so the most I know is HTML and some jave script (ie the would of CSS and such is strange and foreign to me)

So, I built his website, and it looks awesome, trouble is, to achieve an effect I wanted, I used a graphic as a background in a table. This worked perfectly, except for one little catch...IE on Windows won't display the graphic (Although Firefox on windows does so just fine, and of course safari has no poblems with it at all)

I've tried researching this issue, and did find several mentions of this problem, but I could not find any solution of how to fix it (At least none that made sense to me).

If any of you could explain to me (In a way that a guy who only know old school HTML can underand) how I can fix this, I would be very greatful (and might even give you a cookie of your choice). Thanks in advance. M@K

MM-o4 · Feb 21, 2007, 11:39 PM

can you post a link so I can look at your code?

-MM-

SirCastor · Feb 22, 2007, 12:35 AM

yeah, post the code, we'll getcha fixed up.

(BTW: The developer's forum is where this belongs)

mac-at-kearsarge · Feb 22, 2007, 12:52 AM

Sure, you can find the pages here: LRB - Welcome!
Please keep in mind there's still some work to do. Most of the content so far i threw in quickly so my friend could get an idea of what it would look like, so if you come across any spelling/grammar errors, please ignore them.

(As for the wrong forum, mods please feel free to this to the correct forum)

macintologist · Feb 22, 2007, 01:34 AM

Why don't you use iWeb, or even better, Rapidweaver?

This is a website I created in 5 minutes with Rapidweaver

Freethought

If you end up writing you website yourself, I recommend ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS writing the text on a plain color background, or if you like patterns, a very very VERY subtle patterned, but

NEVER EVER EVER EEEVER write text over an image background.

k thx bye

Edit: so I did a quick search for other restaurant websites, look at this one

Millennium Restaurant

What do you notice about the background that the text is written on. Notice how it's plain colored? Yep yep

andi*pandi · Feb 22, 2007, 09:15 AM

^agreed. The image is hard to read text over anyhow, so choosing a different design path may solve your problem. The part of the image of the plane with the chili peppers is good, maybe make that into some kind of banner/sidebar.

BlueSky · Feb 22, 2007, 10:53 AM

At first I thought the image was of a German plane pulling a Mexican out of quicksand. After I looked at it a while it looks like a German plane pulling a Mexican out of quicksand.

mac-at-kearsarge · Feb 22, 2007, 05:17 PM

Perhaps it would make more sense to you folks if you enter the site from the front door: LRB - Welcome!.

There you see the full logo (Drawn by my best friends girlfriend so I HAVE to use it), and yes I know it needs to be resized so it looks right.

Then one you get into the pages I linkend above: The image has been done in a way that it's supposed to be a watermark effect. (Andi*pandi "^agreed. The image is hard to read text over anyhow, so choosing a different design path may solve your problem. The part of the image of the plane with the chili peppers is good, maybe make that into some kind of banner/sidebar.") There for it's supoosed to hard to see, ie I want it to be subtle.

Either way, I still want to know how to get it to display in IE.

SirCastor · Feb 22, 2007, 05:36 PM

-----------------------
<tr valign="top">
<td height="625" style="background: url(redbaronbg.jpg);"><p class="style9">
-----------------------

Since I charge by the hour, that'll be $40 please...

BTW: You'll probably need to make some adjustments to the text inside to make it look the same, but it works. I would also recommend you avoid putting the image back there, it doesn't work well.

andi*pandi · Feb 22, 2007, 06:26 PM

^there you go. inline css.

also fyi, "entry" pages are no longer in vogue. They are considered a wasted click that a user with small bandwidth or patience may not tolerate, when they want info NOW.

Sorry you are stuck with the image, there's something weird about that leg/boot combo... but I still think some kind of sidebar treatment is the way to go for it. Did the restaurant have a logo before your friend bought it? Was it horrible? Your friend might be losing some brand identity/patron recognition by going with his GF's drawing.

- - e r i k - - · Feb 22, 2007, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

also fyi, "entry" pages are no longer in vogue. They are considered a wasted click that a user with small bandwidth or patience may not tolerate, when they want info NOW.

QFT™

I would have worded it stronger though.

Don't use f*cking entry-pages!!!

MM-o4 · Feb 22, 2007, 07:41 PM

or you could place the background image in the body tag.

see at the top of your code before the 'head' tag is the CSS styles that the app u use automaically creates.

I would put the background image here.

--------
body {
background-color: #CC9933;
background-image: url(redbaronbg.jpg);
background-position: top;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
text-align: center;
margin-top: 0px;
}
--------

hows that?

-MM-

Goldfinger · Feb 23, 2007, 04:30 AM

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

^there you go. inline css.

also fyi, "entry" pages are no longer in vogue. They are considered a wasted click that a user with small bandwidth or patience may not tolerate, when they want info NOW.

Sorry you are stuck with the image, there's something weird about that leg/boot combo... but I still think some kind of sidebar treatment is the way to go for it. Did the restaurant have a logo before your friend bought it? Was it horrible? Your friend might be losing some brand identity/patron recognition by going with his GF's drawing.

But what about a company website of a company that has divisions in a few countries. You'd use an "entry" page to let the users select the country/language, right ?

SirCastor · Feb 23, 2007, 04:35 AM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

But what about a company website of a company that has divisions in a few countries. You'd use an "entry" page to let the users select the country/language, right ?

Often yes, but users are more tolerant of huge multi-nationals. That said, I would find an alternative to that, like IP snooping to take them to where I think they wanna be, and give them the option up in a corner or something.

Goldfinger · Feb 23, 2007, 06:16 AM

Originally Posted by SirCastor

Often yes, but users are more tolerant of huge multi-nationals. That said, I would find an alternative to that, like IP snooping to take them to where I think they wanna be, and give them the option up in a corner or something.

The thing is I'm building a website for my dad's company. He has divisions in a few countries but not all divisions sell the same stuff, the product lineups differ a bit from country to country. That's why it's important that you choose the correct country. It's not just the language that's important.

I hate the idea of an entry page as well but it seems to be the best way to make sure that the visitors get to see what they want.