Marquee Tags (HTML)

[Kyon]

Damn that Internet Explorer. I created a (very simplistic) website for my father, with 2 marquee tags in it. They work great on Safari/Chrome/Firefox, but of course, not on Internet Explorer. What seems to be the problem is that the height is automatically adjusted when the contents get too big (no matter what I set it to; I have it at 90% via CSS).
Is there some special IE (ughh, again) value that needs to be set? I really need to fix this soon, but I can't wrap my head around it (because of the lack of documentation).
P.S. If you want to see this horrid creation, check this out:
http://www.black-j-a-c-k.nl/

Thanks in advance,


Kyon

[Bazzy]

<marquee> is not standard HTML, you shouldn't use it
Another reason not to use it: http://www.catb.org/~esr/html-hell.html

[Kyon]

Fun fact, it's the absolute inverse of what they claim there; it works better on all non-Microsoft browsers. But as an alternative I'd have to use Javascripts and the like, but I haven't really gone deep into that subject, I only know the basics.

[Bazzy]

You can use CSS

[moorecm]

I favor the JavaScript approach but another alternative is to create an animated GIF...

[Kyon]

How could I use CSS it for that? (What values do I need to set?) Since it seems to be changing it to whatever it wants in IE (not in the other browsers).

[Bazzy]

By the way, I suggest you using this tool: http://validator.w3.org/
To see if you are using HTML properly

[Return 0]

Scrolling marquees are typically considered bad web design.

[moorecm]

Flash is also an option.

[Bazzy]

Flash is no better than marquee :^P

[rapidcoder]

Flash is no better than marquee :^P

True. The only correct way to do this is to use a Java applet. :^P

[chrisname]

Ugh, I hate flash. I can't wait for HTML 5.

[rapidcoder]

Sorry, but HTML 5 won't eliminate Flash nor Java/Silverlight applets (this time I'm quite serious). Different thing for different purpose. It will be a great success if HTML5 rules out Flash from serving video (but I doubt it because of DRM issues). Probably they will live side by side for a long long time.

[thepedestrian]

Can you maybe clarify your question a bit more. I can help you out but I'm not sure which height you are referring to.

Additionally, one thing to note is that different browsers have different internal padding on the body tag. You would want to set this and margin to in the CSS like so:

body {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}

Anyways I'm not sure I see the problem so maybe if you can take a screenshot. Also what version of IE are you using?

On a sidenote, iframes are horrible for SEO. You can use server-side includes which are much simpler and give cleaner code and also optimized code that search engines love.

[chrisname]

@rapidcoder,
But it will be so much easier for web developers to publish videos when all they have to do is
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#Example

<video src="movie.webm" controls>
This is fallback text to display if the browser
does not support the video element.
</video>

What do you mean by "DRM issues"?

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/html5
YouTube is already experimenting with WebM.

[thepedestrian]

@rapidcoder
Yes, chrisname is definitely right. And it's much more than just video, the new canvas tag has unlimited possibilities. Javascript + HTML5 = a combination of endless possibilities.

Just Google HTML5 demos and you will be amazed.

Also don't forget CSS3. :)

[Computergeek01]

IE 8 with or without compatibility view enabled renders exactly the same as Firefox 3.6.3. I agree, a screen shot is necessary I'm guessing as with most non-IE-users-OMG-this-browser-sucks you have another element causing havok.

EDIT: Regarding DRM and Flash vs HTML5, HTML5 is supposed to be an open standard so any Digital Rights Managment officially supported by the code would be viewable by anyone wanting to look it up and ciurcumventing it would not technically be a crime with the way the laws are written now (US). Adobe Flash on the other hand can come up with a DRM standard to provide to its users and the source code secret. Sure you might be able to develop your own DRM with HTML5 but this would raise the startup\development costs, where Adobe would be able to sell the same tool to all of its customers at a lower price then it would cost to develop in HTML5. At least this is what I understand about the argument.

[rapidcoder]

Yes, chrisname is definitely right. And it's much more than just video, the new canvas tag has unlimited possibilities. Javascript + HTML5 = a combination of endless possibilities.

... and the same compatibility problems that HTML and Javascript always suffered from.
You can never be sure that what works in one browser will work in another one, especially in IE which has over 50% of market. Flash and Java got that right and are deployed on more than 90% desktops - which means you write once and more than 90% of your customers can use it out-of-the-box (and the rest 10% will install a plugin which takes 2 minutes or so).
HTML5 is not a real competitor for them.

Another thing is anything requiring a little more performance or larger codebase than 100 lines of JavaScript.

[Kyon]

http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/4292/screenbd.jpg

That's a screenshot of a small part of the screen. It shows how the marquee stretches out to be able to contain all that is place within the marquee tags, while I want it to have a fixed length. Sad enough, this screenshot was taken in FF, IE produces the same behavior.. Safari does not.

[chrisname]

Just don't use marquee tags, it's that simple. Use something with predictable behaviour.