Layers in dreamweaver

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

Hi i was just wondering if anyone else has problems with layers, like when i design it in DW etc and then post it up on the net it looks fine, but when i view it on different monitors and resolutions etc the layers are not positioned in their correct positions and overlap other site material, can anyone suggest how to over come this problem.

Cheers
Cheers!
Daniel
http://www.lucid3.cjb.net

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

Seems to be a common problem, also which browser you are using. I had a layer pop up in Netscape in a different position from IE.
Sorry, I don't know a cure, other than writing different versions of the page with a script that can detect resolution and browser and branches correspondingly.

Mike

sersun's picture

They have: 32 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

Without seeing what's going on, here's one thing to check:

You probably want your website left-aligned in the window. If it is getting centered, the x/y locations with repect to the content will be different. There are some tricks to get around this, but I doubt it's easy with Dreamweaver.

sersun

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

layers isnt wide spread, well it is but its not, i made a site using layers which looked good in IE 5.0, Netscape 4.7 and 6.0 at all screen sizes (was set wide) but with css turned off or on a mac looked like, well it was just one big mess.

for the time being, use tables as layers support isnt wide spread enough yet, maybe a few more years.

or other option make 3 versions of your site, mac, ie and netscape and hope the others fit in there somewhere.

the site i did is at
http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/doodlepad/index.html if you wanna check/see it

good luck

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

If you are using layers purely for positioning then my advise is don't! As it's been said above layers have some major incompatibilities and just aren't worth the hassle at the moment! It's not a problem caused by DW just layers in general.

One good thing with DW is that you can use layers to get the layout you want then use the convert layers to tables command and bing... problems solved! The layout you wanted without the problems of layers Wink

Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I have seen some successful layouts done with layers - A List Apart is a good example. They do seem to be a bit tricky to get working properly though - the link I gave you above has a tutorial on how to get liquid layouts with layers - I'm definitely going to go through that myself now that I remember.

Tee hee - funny story. I was taking this digital media course awhile back and the idiot instructor did one day of tables, told people they weren't that important, and jumped right into layers. No, you don't need to know how to do complex table layouts at all. Ha!

tania721's picture

They have: 39 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

Regarding which output looks the best across a range of browsers and screensizes etc...(and using Dreamweaver), would you say its best to save the layout with layers intact, or convert layers to tables and use transparent gifs and centre on the screen?

I'm relatively new to Dreamweaver and was just curious Smiling

Tania

`Imagination is more important than Knowledge' ~ Albert Einstein

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

The best thing to do is to start with tables and stay with tables. Using layers themselves is messy to start with - converting them to tables just makes a big mess. If you're unsure about how to do this the best thing to do would be to save some pages from other sites so you can get an idea of how they set things up.

Keegan's picture

They have: 300 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

Tania, while I stay totally away from layers (Tried that on a game site with timelines, was cool but way too code intensive moving 30 layers around, flash would have been better. Dreamweaver has a netscape resize fix that you may be unaware of, it is a command I think. It makes the browser refresh when the viewer changes their browser width or heighth

K

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