IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Hello

The following HTML code makes IE7 to display the horizontal scroll bar
and permit a rather large amount of horizontal scrolling

====
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
> ...
> Changing to non-italic font style disables scrolling.
> ...

Here's the non-italic version of the table-based page

http://home.comcast.net/~andrey-t/test_ni.html

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

"Andrey Tarasevich" wrote in message
news:oKudna3W8fH0lbLbnZ2dnUVZ_oernZ2d@comcast.com...
> Hello
>
> The following HTML code makes IE7 to display the horizontal scroll bar and
> permit a rather large amount of horizontal scrolling
>
> ====
> > "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
>
>
>
>

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
> Hello
>
> The following HTML code makes IE7 to display the horizontal scroll bar
> and permit a rather large amount of horizontal scrolling
>


IE has a bug associated with italic fonts in calculating the width,
especially next to floated blocks. You are lucky that is only produces a
scroll bar, a typical result is similar to the peek-a-boo bug and the
text simply disappears! As a side note, italic fonts are harder to read,
and best to limit their use. I would not use them for any significant
amount of text but rather as a couple of words emphasis.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> ...
> IE has a bug associated with italic fonts in calculating the width,
> especially next to floated blocks. You are lucky that is only produces a
> scroll bar, a typical result is similar to the peek-a-boo bug and the
> text simply disappears! As a side note, italic fonts are harder to read,
> and best to limit their use. I would not use them for any significant
> amount of text but rather as a couple of words emphasis.
> ...

Well, in my case I only used italics for a secondary and rather non-intrusive
navigation link. I liked the way it looked and it worked in IE6. Now I get this
stupid scroll bar in IE7. I wonder why it only happens in combination with
'position: relative'. But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...

Is there a general workaround for IE7 italic font bug?

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
> ...
> I wonder why it only happens in combination with
> 'position: relative'. But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...
> ...

I just noticed that when I use a 'div' as a wrapper instead of a 'table' , the
bug occurs regardless of the 'position' property. Indeed, this problem is caused
by italics only.

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
> Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
>> ...
>> I wonder why it only happens in combination with
>> 'position: relative'. But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...
>> ...
>
> I just noticed that when I use a 'div' as a wrapper instead of a 'table' , the
> bug occurs regardless of the 'position' property. Indeed, this problem is caused
> by italics only.
>
Yep. That is what I discovered, I don't have IE7, running W2K so my
solution was to style EM as bold instead of italic. Not what I preferred
but I needed to get the job done!

(In my dreams Big Bill and Mr Steve are roasting on a spit!) ;-)

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>>> ...
>>> I wonder why it only happens in combination with
>>> 'position: relative'. But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...
>>> ...
>>
>> I just noticed that when I use a 'div' as a wrapper instead of a 'table' , the
>> bug occurs regardless of the 'position' property. Indeed, this problem is caused
>> by italics only.
>>
> Yep. That is what I discovered, I don't have IE7, running W2K so my
> solution was to style EM as bold instead of italic. Not what I preferred
> but I needed to get the job done!
> ...

Turns out there's a workaround. One of the parent enclosing elements needs to
have its 'overflow' style set to something other than the default 'visible'. In
my case 'overflow: hidden' makes most sense and it fixes the problem.

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

In article ,
Andrey Tarasevich wrote:

> But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...

This is a tricky question. At the level of computer programming
and unexpected side effects on the machine, there is very likely
a logic in the sense of a deterministic algorithm: sets of
circumstances, which if repeated, will trigger the effect. The
bug label is due to its unwanted effect and often to its hidden
causal paths.

It is not out of the question that some things happen as
surprising unintended effects in other than this algorithmic way,
as an instability that is sensitive to all sorts of dynamical
processes, so special appearing, that it falls outside the usual
deterministic causal chains that earthlings understand.

--
dorayme

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

In article ,
"Jonathan N. Little" wrote:

> (In my dreams Big Bill and Mr Steve are roasting on a spit!) ;-)

Mr Steve? You saying something about Macs?

--
dorayme

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

On 2007-04-26, dorayme wrote:
> In article ,
> Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
>
>> But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...
>
> This is a tricky question. At the level of computer programming
> and unexpected side effects on the machine, there is very likely
> a logic in the sense of a deterministic algorithm: sets of
> circumstances, which if repeated, will trigger the effect. The
> bug label is due to its unwanted effect and often to its hidden
> causal paths.
>
> It is not out of the question that some things happen as
> surprising unintended effects in other than this algorithmic way,
> as an instability that is sensitive to all sorts of dynamical
> processes, so special appearing, that it falls outside the usual
> deterministic causal chains that earthlings understand.

That's true, but the distinction is usually between a bug and a
non-conformance. IE taking width to mean outer margin width (or whatever
it does take it to mean) is often called a bug even though it's
obviously intentional. There is still some logic to it, it's just not
what the spec says.

Usually you just call it a bug if it's something that ought to get
fixed, whether it's a correct implementation of the wrong thing or a
wrong attempt at the right thing.

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

dorayme wrote:
> In article ,
> "Jonathan N. Little" wrote:
>
>> (In my dreams Big Bill and Mr Steve are roasting on a spit!) ;-)
>
> Mr Steve? You saying something about Macs?
>
New CEO and old buddy of Bill, Steve Ballmer. You know the guy that
looks like Peter Boyle in "Young Frankenstein"

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

In article ,
Ben C wrote:

> On 2007-04-26, dorayme wrote:
> > In article ,
> > Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
> >
> >> But of course bugs don't have to follow any logic...
> >
> > This is a tricky question. At the level of computer programming
> > and unexpected side effects on the machine, there is very likely
> > a logic in the sense of a deterministic algorithm: sets of
> > circumstances, which if repeated, will trigger the effect. The
> > bug label is due to its unwanted effect and often to its hidden
> > causal paths.
> >
> > It is not out of the question that some things happen as
> > surprising unintended effects in other than this algorithmic way,
> > as an instability that is sensitive to all sorts of dynamical
> > processes, so special appearing, that it falls outside the usual
> > deterministic causal chains that earthlings understand.
>
> That's true, but the distinction is usually between a bug and a
> non-conformance. IE taking width to mean outer margin width (or whatever
> it does take it to mean) is often called a bug even though it's
> obviously intentional. There is still some logic to it, it's just not
> what the spec says.
>
> Usually you just call it a bug if it's something that ought to get
> fixed, whether it's a correct implementation of the wrong thing or a
> wrong attempt at the right thing.

I am sure you are generally right as a description of common
speech.

The distinction that I was pointing out would then be applied to
within the class of bugs. At least the ones that do follow a
known logic can be dealt with if enough effort is assigned. Those
that do not follow a known logic can be split into a further two
types. One, those that do follow a logic but not a known one.
Two, those that don't follow a logic that can ever be learned in
an individual case.

--
dorayme

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

On 2007-04-26, dorayme wrote:
[...]
> The distinction that I was pointing out would then be applied to
> within the class of bugs. At least the ones that do follow a
> known logic can be dealt with if enough effort is assigned. Those
> that do not follow a known logic can be split into a further two
> types. One, those that do follow a logic but not a known one.
> Two, those that don't follow a logic that can ever be learned in
> an individual case.

Do you mean logic in the sense of something that the manifestation of
the bug follows? In other words, something related to reproducibility?

In theory the logic behind any bug is there is in the program source
text. In practice if you just read the source text you will find a bug
every few lines but never the one you're looking for.

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

In article ,
Ben C wrote:

> On 2007-04-26, dorayme wrote:
> [...]
> > The distinction that I was pointing out would then be applied to
> > within the class of bugs. At least the ones that do follow a
> > known logic can be dealt with if enough effort is assigned. Those
> > that do not follow a known logic can be split into a further two
> > types. One, those that do follow a logic but not a known one.
> > Two, those that don't follow a logic that can ever be learned in
> > an individual case.
>
> Do you mean logic in the sense of something that the manifestation of
> the bug follows? In other words, something related to reproducibility?

Yes, that will do fine, reproducibility.

My speculation was also that there could be some surprising and
unwanted effects that are not in this class because they fall
under some part of chaotic events in the partly understood
technical sense that is discussed under Chaos Theory.

--
dorayme

Re: IE7 - annoying and unexplainable horzontal scroll

On 2007-04-27, dorayme wrote:
> In article ,
> Ben C wrote:
>
>> On 2007-04-26, dorayme wrote:
>> [...]
>> > The distinction that I was pointing out would then be applied to
>> > within the class of bugs. At least the ones that do follow a
>> > known logic can be dealt with if enough effort is assigned. Those
>> > that do not follow a known logic can be split into a further two
>> > types. One, those that do follow a logic but not a known one.
>> > Two, those that don't follow a logic that can ever be learned in
>> > an individual case.
>>
>> Do you mean logic in the sense of something that the manifestation of
>> the bug follows? In other words, something related to reproducibility?
>
> Yes, that will do fine, reproducibility.
>
> My speculation was also that there could be some surprising and
> unwanted effects that are not in this class because they fall
> under some part of chaotic events in the partly understood
> technical sense that is discussed under Chaos Theory.

Certainly, especially when the bug is related to uninitialized memory or
unforseen concurrency between threads or processes.