I think I might cry

My lovely wonderful website that has been working magically is currently under review by the web hosts to check for malicious content. the error page that appears says it will only take 2 - 4 hrs, but its been like that all day. PLEASE let that be sorted by tomorrow...freaking free web hosting...

Just can't stop...

Ok - i've solved the IE issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yayayayayayayayayay!

The separate css file did the trick. Plus I went and stuck a black border around all of my divs to work out exactly what the hell was going on. ie was adding the padding twice or something and completely throwing all divs out of place. Apparently this works differently on ie versions earlier than 7. I am testing my site on version 7 and all looks good there. I applied the Tanteck hack in the hope that it will also solve earlier ie version issues. won't know for sure until i find a machine with an earlier version. Will do for now though...
http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/ie7-dehacker.html

In fact, it looks better re alignment on the ie version now, so I'm going to go back and stick black borders on everything in the normal css file and see what it looks like. Should probably wait until I get home though so I can test on Safari at the same time.

This all being said, the site actually looks fine as it is right now in all the browsers I wanted it to work in. Perhaps I should just leave it and work on my actual assignment instead...that woudl make sense! I wonder if you ever feel like something like a site is ever 'finished'...

just taking notes...

Sites that have helped today:
http://bonrouge.com/br.php?page=faq#haslayout
which sent me to

http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/onhavinglayout.html

In theory, my problem lies with the hasLayout issue. I tried a couple of their hacks, but it wasn't working for me. They did prompt me to thinking maybe I should just add in a separate style sheet for IE. Much cleaner solution...

The other good thing about this site was it helped me track down the Holly hack http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?page=1&cid=C37E0
which had disappeared from a couple of the other places i tried to track it down. I think the creators have written a book and want you to buy that instead...

It also helped me track down http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/ie7-dehacker.html
which I'm sure is the page that Rustum had put forward with some solutions.

Better read that before just diving in and mucking around with new css files...

Ironing out the last few bits and bobs

OK, I've sorted the form re wording of pop up messages, formatted the text for the warning messages and sorted out the container sizes for the two side bars so everything now fits in without mucking up the rest of the page format.

I've checked the XHTML and CSS validity of all of the pages (and stuck my little sticker thing at the bottom of the pages). All good there.

Last thing off the bits and bobs list (and the biggest scariest one) is sorting out the IE issues. One of the things IE was doing (creative little beast) was sticking an outline around all of my image links. Got rid of that with some simple CSS (thanks to this handy site http://bonrouge.com/~faq)

Now I just have to work out how to sort out the way it stuffs around the text positioning on the page. I know its got something to do with the way its popping out the div sizes or margins or something. I noticed Rustum had posted a link on someone else's blog with what i think was the solution to this problem. Unfortunately I can't get into the dmt blog list site, the link's down or something. Time to trawl the brains trust i.e. google

The problem with free webhosting and clients

OK. PHP form magically started working again. This is both good and extremely mysterious...

I swear I haven't touch the code since yesterday (when it was working except wasn't sending emails). Yesterday I even tried it with the safe and tested code I was using the other day and it wasn't sending emails. Today - emails.

The reason it is mysterious: I sent off a message to the free site help desk ('My php form suddenly stopped working. I haven't changed the code. Is there a problem with your server?') and I actually got a reply this time! This is what they sent:
Hello,

No, we did not changed any server settings so the problem must be on your side.

Thank you,
www.000webhost.com

And - lo! By magic, the world is fine again. Perhaps my planets weren't in correct alignment. Mercury is in retrograde, and that's known to cause random electronic hiccups...

Anyway, client wants to meet to discuss the content in her site. ie what she should have on there. I should have just said 'no, I'm freaking busy at the moment, no time to sleep, little capacity to care re your site content' but I'm nice. Plus I am making her meet me at a coffee shop with my favourite coffee (Campos coffee. Its a lovely drop, even the most novice of barista usually manages to make a lovely cup of coffee out of it. Unless the coffee's been a bit over roasted. It did happen once. Toby's Estate is a close second. Can be touch and go - the better the barista, the better the coffee with that one. And it can get lovely. They have their 'warehouse' outlet cafe on City Rd, just off Broadway. You can get an awesome coffee there. Its not cheap, though.) But I digress....

PHP - yee haa!

Thanks to Daniel and Amber for all of their feedback over term. Thanks also to Amber for trying to sort out my PHP in class last night. But biggest thank you of all goes to Alastair for being so patient while we nutted out the php code for my form. It now works! Well, it refreshes the page, validates the email address and leaves a warning message if the email doesn't process properly, which is what I had been trying to make it do. Unfortunately all I ever see now is that error message. Even when i use the old code in the old form (the basic version). So all good re my project (except for tweaking the form layout to fit the warning messages and sorting out the IE/CSS issue). Except for solving the mystery as to why the PHP stopped working...might have to find another free web host....

Nobody loves me

In fact, I think Nobody is stalking me!!!
haha!!!

I obviously have the whole php email thing working fine from my site now. I've sent myself a heap of test emails, and they all say they are from 'nobody'. Small things amuse small minds...

So I got the whole css thing sorted out - thanks to Sarah (the aptly named) Champion and Linda from my Monday night class, who pointed out that php doesn't read css like html does... I'm torn between feeling like an idiot and feeling annoyed that this wasn't made clearer somewhere...like where were all he other ignoramuses on the web query sites asking the same questions? Actually, re the css problem, there were a couple of posts. This is the cure I used that sorted it all out:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/php/3243313.htm

Nifty trick...

And somehow the javascript is now working on my navigation buttons again. Its a bit slow (slower than the uni server) but it works!

Now, there are still a couple of things to do before this thing is actually properly ready for business. Firstly, i have to get the real content. I have to have a 'meeting' with my 'client' on Friday as she wants to chat about what she should write. Frankly, I don't care! I am like, put whatever the hell you want on this thing, once its done i never want to see it again! I'm obviously joking. Really. This being said I don't have the time to stop for freaking coffee meetings about things that won't actually affect my assignment marks at the moment. I am part thinking the whole real client thing was a bad idea. This being said, its good to have something to motivate me with its creation etc. Whatever.

Anyway, there are 2 things I need to sort out technically

1. the IE issue. But not before tomorrow

2. the form works, but it takes you to a confirmation page that is just a line of text saying 'email sent successful' or something. you need to back button to get back to the page you were on and then the email field is still filled in. I tried using javascript to verify the email address is a valid email address, and to clear the form but neither worked. i was going to play around with that tonight, but while i was looking for the css cure I stumbled upon this:

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2004/04/22/php_css_forms.html?page=2

its a way to use php to verify the email and clear the field! Seeing as I'm using php anyway, I may as well give it a go...