Question for WebDevelopers: re Firefox display issues

[Beefcake]

I would classify myself as a very amateur web developer. I used to know what I was doing back in the early days of html, but am now completely out of the loop on coding standards and browser incompatibilities.

I built a website for my wife's dance school a couple of years ago, but only found out yesterday that site doesn't display properly, and the drop down menus don't work when it's viewed with firefox.

Doing a google search is a little overwhelming, since I really don't even know where to start (what the potential problem is). The site is pretty basic, with a combination of html, flash, javascript and style sheets (I used Dreamweaver as my editor).

Can anyone recommend a good source out on the web where I might start reading up on the most common sources for these types of issues?

[MickMcGeough]

In my experience, if the standards are followed, it displays properly in firefox 99% of the time and is botched in IE.

I'm a hand coder so I can't help with Dreamweaver much. All I remember about it is that it used to use some nonstandard tags that could cause problems

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_..._21652156.html

(scroll to the bottom)

If you post the source I'll tell you if I see anything obvious. What's the address?

[fredr123]

http://getfirebug.com/

Try this addon to Firefox. I've had good experience debugging stuff with it.

[Beefcake]

Thanks guys, both sites look like they could be helpful.

McG, while i develop in dreamweaver, i use the split view so that I can also make sure all the code looks right to me (a habbit from previously being a programmer as a profession). i really just use dreamweaver for the ease of seeing a real-time preview and when I want to work with big tables (saves lots of coding time).

The link is: http://www.irwinirishdancing.com

As mentioned, it's a pretty simple site with no server-side functions, and all the tags I use seem pretty basic to me. It'd be great if a quick skim points something glaringly obvious out to you.

[Kerplunk]

Could it be something to do with how the menu layers are created and used (specifically the <DIV> sections)? Firefox may handle positioning settings differently than IE.

[HOOT]

That page looked fine to me in Firefox...

[llama64]

Originally Posted by HOOT

That page looked fine to me in Firefox...

The javascript menu system doesn't seem to function in Firefox. This is kinda odd/ironic since it was written by Netscape :P

My recommendation is to spend some time learning some CSS skills and rework the javascript menu into a pure CSS system.

An example might be: http://www.seoconsultants.com/css/menus/tutorial/
(I haven't followed their advice to the letter, but it seems pretty close to me).

The reason I suggest switching to CSS is mainly that Javascript is to easily broken due to cross-browser incompatibilities. CSS is a little easier to code for, though you will experience difficulties getting Internet Explorer to play ball.

Drop down menus are a tricky thing to do properly. Otherwise, the site looks really nice, especially for someone who clames to be an amature

[photon]

Or even better would be to purchase an inexpensive well maintained CSS menu system, I'd rather pay someone else to worry about all the cross browser stuff. But I hate web development.

[Russic]

web development killed my inner child.