HELP!!!!!! What's wrong here?

Hi,
I go to ISU so I hope I can help you out.

I have looked at your pages and there are many errors in the code. I suspect you may be using an editor such as Dreamweaver or something. In any case you should look here for all your html errors:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www.public.iastate.edu/%7Eylwang/00/4-learning/441.htmhttp://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www.public.iastate.edu/%7Eylwang/00/4-learning/441.htm

and here for your css errors:
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css2&warning=2&uri=http%3A//www.public.iastate.edu/%7Eylwang/00/4-learning/441.htm

You may notice in the html errors it says that a table tag is not closed. This can usually cause some very serious display issues. I wish I could help out more but there is a ton of code there to sort through. Code validation solves the majority of display issues. Glad to see another Cyclone here. Let me know if you know of any web design jobs. I have been trying to find one for ages!

-dk

I just very quickly glanced, and I see no closing table tag, no closing body tag, and no closing html tag.

Yes, validate the code! (And you should at the very LEAST be using HTML 4.01...XHTML even better...)

I will have to come over to the library and sort them out!

Their site needs some work in terms of good coding. This can be a real issue for people with different means of looking at the site (blind kids with screen readers). I would agree that moving to xhtml would be a good idea. HTML 4.0 is really ancient.

-dk

The footer code is just missing from the page too. Are you using templates or something to do that? That must have gotten messed up somehow.

In Dreamweaver, there are a few things you can do to fix up your code. It normally doesn't write bad code on its own. Something strange must have happened here.

To validate your code, use shift-F6 to bring up the validation window. There you can see any mistakes. In the preferences there is a section to choose which standard to validate to. You can also convert your code to the new standard, xHTML by choosing file > convert.

ETA: I pulled your code into DW just to see what's happening and it looks like that empty table cell is just getting pushed over more on the first page. ON the second page is much narrower. The reason why it's doing that, I think, is because it's missing the footer code. So it doesn't have anything to do with valid code or not (although it would be a good idea to look into that).

Actually, this whole page would be a lot easier to manage if you used CSS isntead of tables for most of your layouts. It would be okay to use tables for the base layout, biut the two headers at the top and the left margin do not need to be done with tables. Learn how to use CSS for margin and padding and you'd be albe to greatly simplify your table structure.

WOW, thanks a lot for all of you!!!!!!!

I'm just a graphic designer. Learn to build a web site from dreamweaver and now using ultraedit for editing the web pages. But still there is a lot to learn for me.

dk01:
It's good to see a Cyclone here. I am just a graduate assistant working for the web site. I will let you know if I know any web design jobs available.

Megan:
what you mean by "missing the footer code"? I am sorry that I have to ask you such a silly question. I will try to learn CSS. Is W3schools a good place to start learning CSS? Thanks.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page - you're missing the part of the table with the bottom navbar and the address. I think that might be messing things up at the top. W3 Schools is an excellent place to learn CSS. Any DW training materials you have access to might be helpful as well.

Dreamweaver is an excellent tool. No need to stop using it. You can always switch to code view if you need to get in there for any reason.

To Megan:
The problem is the footer code IS in my original file. But when I uploaded the file to the web. It just disappears. How could that happen?

I just realized that the original size of 441.htm was 23KB. The moment I uploaded it using Filezella, it shrinked to 16KB and lost all the rest part of the coding.

So now I am guessing maybe it's because something wrong with the software Filezella that I am using for uploading files.

Anyone has this experience before?

To be honest I have never used Filezilla before. Try using a standard ftp client (Like leechftp) and see if that helps. Maybe it has something to do with it not being able to keep a connection for long enough.

-dk

Finally I found out the source of the problem!!!

It IS because of Filezilla. When the file is over 16 KB or so, it changed. I have to manually chang the transfer type to binary instead of ASCII to get things done correctly. Now everything is fine.

Thank you, dk01 and all those tried to help. Thanks a lot and good night.