Bugs :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
Using KM 0.9 with Gecko 1.7.12. I did a web page a short while back with an almost-black background image. The page has a couple of lists, an unordered one and an ordered one.
To my surprise and confusion, the numbers and bullets weren't there. At least, I couldn't see them. Experimenting with the background found that the list numbers and bullets are always black, regardless of the text color. (Firefox, Opera and IE display bullets and numbers in the same color as the text.)
This means that K-Meleon users who come across the page will be confused by the "missing" bullets and numbers. I don't know where this is handled, apparently not by the rendering engine since FF works fine. Anyone have a solution?
Somersault
By using the following CSS code as a style, I was able to get it to use a different color. I don't know how you would do this sort of thing with HTML, but with CSS... this is how:
<html>
<head>
<title>whatever</title>
<style type="text/css">
BODY {
color: #FF0000;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
......body text....
</body>
</html>
The underlined code is the important part. I am almost positive that isn't standards compliant, but umm- it gets the job done.
Brian
Well, ummm... yes, it works, but it's hardly more than a kludge. Not too handy if the web site in question isn't mine. And, since the css doesn't have the same effect in other browsers (which use the text color regardless) it doesn't give much scope for artistic endeavour. (I must say that bright red bullets on a black background with green text are rather spectacular.)
There must be somewhere that the color is determined within KM, and it SHOULD be set to the text color. Maybe someone else can figure out where.
Thanks, though; it was amusing to try it out and it does solve the problem for this one page (which is mine).
Somersault
That is weird. The standard bullets should always follow the colour of the text.
Somersault- How about posting a link to a page with this problem? It's easier to solve problems if we can see them for ourselves.
Since you only mention this problem having occurred on one site, it's quite possible that there was some error in your HTML, try running it through the validator http://validator.w3.org/ to be sure.
It's also possible that you changed some setting in KM at some point, and that is causing this problem.
Things like this are supposed to be part of the rendering engine (ie, gecko), so all gecko based browsers are supposed to display them the same. Have you tried it with a different version of KM? Perhaps there's a bug in gecko 1.7.12 and your copy of firefox uses a different (non-bugged) version of the rendering engine?
Brian- Your "hack" code is fully standards compliant, and is actually the "proper" way to do it now. It used to be that you were supposed to set the color of the background and text in the body tag like this: <body bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF"> Now that CSS has become widespread however, the way you're supposed to do it is:
<style>
body { background-color: #000000; color: #FFFFFF}
</style>
<body>
page text
</body>
I just attempted to reproduce your problem with KM ME 0.49, gecko engine 1.8, and was unable to. The bullets and numbers appeared in the same color as the text. I tried setting the text color in the body tag, using the style tag, and using the font tag, all had the same results. Either there's something odd with your page, or there's something odd with your version of KM. Please post your page here so we can check it.
First, I can't post the page here: it's on a private, password protected site belonging to one of my clients. I'll have to see if I can find somewhere else to post a page that exhibits the same symptoms.
Second, to the suggestion I try a different version of KM, I've been avoiding that VERY strongly because of the difficulty in setting up a common profile. Some readers may recall that I use several copies of KM all pointing to the same profile on my LAN file server, but I did that using an edited version of Douglas' km@.bat and I'd have a lot of work to do all over again, probably using one of the later methods developed during the discussion at the time.
Third, setting the "text" color in the body tag has the same effect as the style code mentioned above. This gave me an idea. The layout of the page is roughly this:
- body tag sets background color (black) and image (dark)
- font tag sets font and font color for the page
- misc text
- list
- misc text
- list
- close font tag
However, if I set the font color within each list it works fine. I suppose I should check the standards on this; other browsers seem happy with the way I did it first, but I guess putting the text color in the body tag (or in a style sheet) is "correct". (I have memories of older versions of Opera that would cancel emphasis tags every time a paragraph started, but since most wysiwyg HTML editors put the tags OUTSIDE the paragraph nothing was ever bold or italic in Opera.)
I'll validate the HTML, as a first step, and see if I can post (somewhere) a page that exhibits the symptom.
Somersault
A bit more experimenting shows the following:
KM (at least the version I use) makes list bullets and numbers in the default text color unless the font color is defined within the list itself in which case the font color is used.
Opera 8.51, IE 6 and Firefox 1.5.0.1 all make list bullets and numbers the same as the current font color, regardless of the default.
I'll pass the page through the validator and see what it has to say, right now I'm supposed to be working, sigh.
Somersault
Font tags are no longer "proper". They still work, but the "correct" way now is to use css.
In my test page, I had the font tags surrounding 4 seperate lists (one ordered, one unordered), and it worked normally.
As for the different KM, don't bother with a common profile. Just install a different version with a new profile and try that page with it. If it works properly, then the problem is either with your KM or your profile/settings.
Posting the page shouldn't be a problem, just take the page, remove or change anything that the client doesn't want publicly viewable, then upload the file to any free website (geocities, freewebs, t35, tripod, etc).
@Drahken
Your page works flawlessly in K-MeleonCCF 0.05.2. It looks exactly as it does in the screenshot.
Brian
Drahken's page looks fine here. Oh well, looks as if I'm in for a bunch of experimenting. Trial and error coming up.
Somersault
Took a lot of trial and error, but if you download Drahken's first link, change the <br> after the first list to a <p> (without the matching </p> the numbers and bullets change to the color specified in the style sheet. If no "color" is specified (or no text color in the body tag) they'll be black.
I suppose the unterminated paragraph is illegal, but that construction is used a lot on the web, and Firefox, Opera and IE don't display this behavior. (Try the same with one of them and you'll see.)
I've fixed it for my own page, but am wondering about the thousands of pages out there that aren't 100% compliant with this standard.
Somersault
I updated that page with what you just posted, but still can't get the same problem: http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/lists-test2.png
Not closing any tag is completely illegal in HTML. The only exceptions are tags that don't have closing tags (the image tag, the br tag, the hr tag, etc). In the newer forms of html and xhtml (the successor to html), even those are supposed to be closed (or at least be in the form of <br /> ). Any site that doesn't have their tags closed is wrong and needs to be fixed.
You can fix such things locally to some degree by using the usercontent.css file. You can dictate that all sites you visit have the list color set to white or blue or whatever. Of course, that could get problematic in itself. If you have a KM built on the 1.8GRE, then you could make the css apply only to specific sites, but the 1.7x GRE doesn't support this function.
Better to be holy than pragmatic, I guess. OK, so who's going to start notifying the owners of the millions of sites that don't perfectly adhere to the standards, but that work fine with browsers other than KM? Not sure that will fly.
Why I mentioned Firefox would be obvious to anyone who follows the Mozillazine Forums, where a typical response is "tell the owners of the multi-billion dollar multinational to fix their site, Firefox is perfect".
Ah well, at least I've fixed MY site.
Somersault
As I said, I think it's actually just a problem with your copy of KM for some reason. I am unable to reproduce your problem.
Also, if you find a site that is bugged like that, click the contact link and tell the owner to fix it. Making sure to close all your tags IS pragmatic, as failing to do so can (and will) lead to many different problems. These problems can be as trivial as bullets not being easily visible or as serious as rendering the site impossible to read or navigate. There are some things that trying to make people be "proper" is little more than being "stuck up" (like using the style tag for page colors instead of putting the color attributes in the body tag, or using <span style="color:#FF0000"> instead of <font color=red>), but in cases like this it's a matter of pure practicallity. Using the font tag or body tag instead of css will have almost no effect on the page, but not closing your tags can have disaterous effects.
You can talk about issues with k-meleon here. Issues means: bugs, malfunction, crashes, etc. Remember that issues with web rendering is beyond the scope of what K-meleon is, a shell for an engine.
List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 07, 2006 03:44AM
Using KM 0.9 with Gecko 1.7.12. I did a web page a short while back with an almost-black background image. The page has a couple of lists, an unordered one and an ordered one.
To my surprise and confusion, the numbers and bullets weren't there. At least, I couldn't see them. Experimenting with the background found that the list numbers and bullets are always black, regardless of the text color. (Firefox, Opera and IE display bullets and numbers in the same color as the text.)
This means that K-Meleon users who come across the page will be confused by the "missing" bullets and numbers. I don't know where this is handled, apparently not by the rendering engine since FF works fine. Anyone have a solution?
Somersault
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
bst82551
Date: March 07, 2006 04:04AM
By using the following CSS code as a style, I was able to get it to use a different color. I don't know how you would do this sort of thing with HTML, but with CSS... this is how:
<html>
<head>
<title>whatever</title>
<style type="text/css">
BODY {
color: #FF0000;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
......body text....
</body>
</html>
The underlined code is the important part. I am almost positive that isn't standards compliant, but umm- it gets the job done.
Brian
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 07, 2006 04:55AM
Well, ummm... yes, it works, but it's hardly more than a kludge. Not too handy if the web site in question isn't mine. And, since the css doesn't have the same effect in other browsers (which use the text color regardless) it doesn't give much scope for artistic endeavour. (I must say that bright red bullets on a black background with green text are rather spectacular.)
There must be somewhere that the color is determined within KM, and it SHOULD be set to the text color. Maybe someone else can figure out where.
Thanks, though; it was amusing to try it out and it does solve the problem for this one page (which is mine).
Somersault
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
everling
Date: March 07, 2006 06:46AM
That is weird. The standard bullets should always follow the colour of the text.
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 07, 2006 12:41PM
Somersault- How about posting a link to a page with this problem? It's easier to solve problems if we can see them for ourselves.
Since you only mention this problem having occurred on one site, it's quite possible that there was some error in your HTML, try running it through the validator http://validator.w3.org/ to be sure.
It's also possible that you changed some setting in KM at some point, and that is causing this problem.
Things like this are supposed to be part of the rendering engine (ie, gecko), so all gecko based browsers are supposed to display them the same. Have you tried it with a different version of KM? Perhaps there's a bug in gecko 1.7.12 and your copy of firefox uses a different (non-bugged) version of the rendering engine?
Brian- Your "hack" code is fully standards compliant, and is actually the "proper" way to do it now. It used to be that you were supposed to set the color of the background and text in the body tag like this: <body bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF"> Now that CSS has become widespread however, the way you're supposed to do it is:
<style>
body { background-color: #000000; color: #FFFFFF}
</style>
<body>
page text
</body>
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 07, 2006 12:53PM
I just attempted to reproduce your problem with KM ME 0.49, gecko engine 1.8, and was unable to. The bullets and numbers appeared in the same color as the text. I tried setting the text color in the body tag, using the style tag, and using the font tag, all had the same results. Either there's something odd with your page, or there's something odd with your version of KM. Please post your page here so we can check it.
Combined response
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 07, 2006 03:00PM
First, I can't post the page here: it's on a private, password protected site belonging to one of my clients. I'll have to see if I can find somewhere else to post a page that exhibits the same symptoms.
Second, to the suggestion I try a different version of KM, I've been avoiding that VERY strongly because of the difficulty in setting up a common profile. Some readers may recall that I use several copies of KM all pointing to the same profile on my LAN file server, but I did that using an edited version of Douglas' km@.bat and I'd have a lot of work to do all over again, probably using one of the later methods developed during the discussion at the time.
Third, setting the "text" color in the body tag has the same effect as the style code mentioned above. This gave me an idea. The layout of the page is roughly this:
- body tag sets background color (black) and image (dark)
- font tag sets font and font color for the page
- misc text
- list
- misc text
- list
- close font tag
However, if I set the font color within each list it works fine. I suppose I should check the standards on this; other browsers seem happy with the way I did it first, but I guess putting the text color in the body tag (or in a style sheet) is "correct". (I have memories of older versions of Opera that would cancel emphasis tags every time a paragraph started, but since most wysiwyg HTML editors put the tags OUTSIDE the paragraph nothing was ever bold or italic in Opera.)
I'll validate the HTML, as a first step, and see if I can post (somewhere) a page that exhibits the symptom.
Somersault
Update
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 07, 2006 03:13PM
A bit more experimenting shows the following:
KM (at least the version I use) makes list bullets and numbers in the default text color unless the font color is defined within the list itself in which case the font color is used.
Opera 8.51, IE 6 and Firefox 1.5.0.1 all make list bullets and numbers the same as the current font color, regardless of the default.
I'll pass the page through the validator and see what it has to say, right now I'm supposed to be working, sigh.
Somersault
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 07, 2006 03:14PM
Font tags are no longer "proper". They still work, but the "correct" way now is to use css.
In my test page, I had the font tags surrounding 4 seperate lists (one ordered, one unordered), and it worked normally.
As for the different KM, don't bother with a common profile. Just install a different version with a new profile and try that page with it. If it works properly, then the problem is either with your KM or your profile/settings.
Posting the page shouldn't be a problem, just take the page, remove or change anything that the client doesn't want publicly viewable, then upload the file to any free website (geocities, freewebs, t35, tripod, etc).
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 07, 2006 03:18PM
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
bst82551
Date: March 07, 2006 07:51PM
@Drahken
Your page works flawlessly in K-MeleonCCF 0.05.2. It looks exactly as it does in the screenshot.
Brian
Sigh
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 08, 2006 02:24AM
Drahken's page looks fine here. Oh well, looks as if I'm in for a bunch of experimenting. Trial and error coming up.
Somersault
Well, I found it, but don't understand it.
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 08, 2006 03:38AM
Took a lot of trial and error, but if you download Drahken's first link, change the <br> after the first list to a <p> (without the matching </p> the numbers and bullets change to the color specified in the style sheet. If no "color" is specified (or no text color in the body tag) they'll be black.
I suppose the unterminated paragraph is illegal, but that construction is used a lot on the web, and Firefox, Opera and IE don't display this behavior. (Try the same with one of them and you'll see.)
I've fixed it for my own page, but am wondering about the thousands of pages out there that aren't 100% compliant with this standard.
Somersault
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 08, 2006 12:34PM
I updated that page with what you just posted, but still can't get the same problem: http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/lists-test2.png
Not closing any tag is completely illegal in HTML. The only exceptions are tags that don't have closing tags (the image tag, the br tag, the hr tag, etc). In the newer forms of html and xhtml (the successor to html), even those are supposed to be closed (or at least be in the form of <br /> ). Any site that doesn't have their tags closed is wrong and needs to be fixed.
You can fix such things locally to some degree by using the usercontent.css file. You can dictate that all sites you visit have the list color set to white or blue or whatever. Of course, that could get problematic in itself. If you have a KM built on the 1.8GRE, then you could make the css apply only to specific sites, but the 1.7x GRE doesn't support this function.
Gosh, this is beginning to sound like Firefox
Posted by:
Somersault
Date: March 08, 2006 04:21PM
Better to be holy than pragmatic, I guess. OK, so who's going to start notifying the owners of the millions of sites that don't perfectly adhere to the standards, but that work fine with browsers other than KM? Not sure that will fly.
Why I mentioned Firefox would be obvious to anyone who follows the Mozillazine Forums, where a typical response is "tell the owners of the multi-billion dollar multinational to fix their site, Firefox is perfect".
Ah well, at least I've fixed MY site.
Somersault
Re: List numbers and bullets are always black
Posted by:
Drahken
Date: March 08, 2006 05:46PM
As I said, I think it's actually just a problem with your copy of KM for some reason. I am unable to reproduce your problem.
Also, if you find a site that is bugged like that, click the contact link and tell the owner to fix it. Making sure to close all your tags IS pragmatic, as failing to do so can (and will) lead to many different problems. These problems can be as trivial as bullets not being easily visible or as serious as rendering the site impossible to read or navigate. There are some things that trying to make people be "proper" is little more than being "stuck up" (like using the style tag for page colors instead of putting the color attributes in the body tag, or using <span style="color:#FF0000"> instead of <font color=red>), but in cases like this it's a matter of pure practicallity. Using the font tag or body tag instead of css will have almost no effect on the page, but not closing your tags can have disaterous effects.
English
