Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Firefox v Internet Explorer

Oooeee! (She's been on the coffee again...) Oi loiks Firefox, oi duz.

Part the First:
While she was working on my blog to make it more beautiful and practical (as per William Morris's dictum that everything in your home should be both.) NZM directed me to Firefox, as Blogger's recommended er... web-thingy....

Isn't it fast and crisp? It's also much more tolerant of my tendency to post stuff that's too wide for the field: where Internet Explorer shows the ghost of where the borders are supposed to be, Firefox does something clever that keeps everything tidily ghost-free. Yay!

What IE does better is hold onto the text. In an earlier entry, I wrote about Christmas and
'the whole carolsingingmassattendingpantomimecheering-roastgoosestuffingtreedecoratngfairylightpopping-stockingfillingcrackerpullingQueenupstanding-JamesBondwatchingDelboychortling- thing.'

IE coped once I put the hyphens in (after the original entry took up the whole screen! LOL!!) but in Firefox the line of text goes streaming across the screen.

So, time for an experiment. Let's see if this the latest entry, which will appear at the top of the page, will fit - or kick my sidebar down to the bottom of the page. I'm rather enjoying this!

Part the Second
And the result is: a draw!
Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, Firefox and Internet Explorer both carry the post, and leave the sidebar where it is. However, while IE is not as sharp, and (next time I break the border again) will show a ghost, it does contain the text. Firefox, on the other hand (crystalline) has the text skedaddling across the sidebar, like a stream of lemmings heading for the nearest cliff. Well, it makes me laugh.

OK. Back to the dollies. I'm having such fun with this, though I've learnt to upload my pics into drafts, for as long as Blogger.Photo's up and running, then come back later and post text. Much less frustrating than trying to do the lot at once, and sitting waiting to see whether it will, work, or do almost everything, or crash and take the lot with it.

BTW I lost a post last night as I was saving it.....Aaaaaarghhh!.....Noooooooo!!!! Not only did the entry disappear, but Blogger crashed completely. After a couple of days of Blogger-wrangling I had learnt NOT to let it get to me (Pain...... Gain..... It works.). When I could get back in again, the entry was not in the directory, so I clicked on Create New Post, and then on Recover Post. The prompt came up, and I clicked to continue since I had nothing to lose, but my temper. And lo! There appearethed on my screen the entire entry, fully formatted, with all pics in glorious colour.
ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou....whimper.... (Testing Firefox again....heeheehee...)

So, chums, remember Recover Post. And if you're familiar with Pacific Daylight Time, don't bother blogging at 2pm, because there's a Scheduled outage at 2PM PDT. Blogger's got a headache...

P.S. I do get frustrated with Blogger, but on the other hand (as I've mentioned elsewhere) I suspect that it's become a victim of its own success. How many millions of us use this facility at any given time? I don't know how many staff or computers they've got, but I don't see how it could ever be enough. Me, I'm a fan of Blogger, warts and all (No - not me! Blogger!) So I have no problems with a scheduled outage if it's going to improve the service that keeps me in touch with so many interesting people.

Part the Third.
Hmm. Back Again. Slight technical hitch with font size stuck in Large. Can't fix it in Firefox. Going to try in IE.

Less amusing than earlier. Is this Firefox's revenge for the wind-up? Hmph!


Part the Last
I think I've fixed it, by taking one para at a time, and going back to check. If this entry is still shouting at you, please accept my apologies. I didn't mean to push the formatting to critical mass...


5 comments:

Deepak Morris said...

I think I'm drunk.

Deepak

Passionate Dilettante said...

Oi! This is a test, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with my short term memory! What about yours, old chap? There's nothing wrong with my........ OMG.... only out of bed 5 mins and plunged into mental health anxieties.... Good morning Deepak.... grr... ;P


P.S. I think you might be drunk....

Elle said...

Uploading pictures to draft! please do tell Mamaduck. I've been quite impressed with all those pictures you have inserted between the text. I want to do it too :)

Passionate Dilettante said...

Hi Elle: in a minute you'll realise that you already know how to do this!

In Create New Post you have the option of publishing with the orange button or saving a draft with the blue one. When an entry has lots of photos and scans, which may take a lot of time to upload if Blog.Photo's being temperamental, (e.g. both Sarah and Sybil) I start by uploading all the pics first, and saving them as a draft with a title.

I can then come back later, when I've got more time, click on Edit and add text.

It also gives you more flexibility and control on choice of image and size. For Sybil, I tried and deleted a couple of different photos before I was satisfied. Sometimes I may upload the same image in different sizes, to see which looks best; particularly useful if I've taken the image from a website, and it turns out to be much bigger or smaller than I expected.

If you know about the HTML button, stop reading now!

OK. You have the option of working in Compose or clicking on HTML. Clicking on the latter takes you to another screen, where each image is shown as a lines of code.

On the Compose page, your photos may be in random order, and although you want to put them in a specific sequence, you're reluctant to try cutting and pasting, just in case you lose them completely, and have to start again. (The gloomy mutter of experience.....).

In HTML you can see exactly what you're cutting and pasting, and pop back to Compose to see how it looks.

Also, when you want to add text, or alter spacing, it's less risky to do it on the HTML page. Your first photo will automatically align at the top of your page, and if you try to insert a word above it in Compose, and accidentally clip the image, it will disappear - and there's no UNDO button!

On the HTML page, it's like inserting a word at the start of a text message: set the cursor, and type. You can then go back to Compose, and continue as you wish.

This also applies to inserting text between pics.

As a final check, I publish, and if there's any problem, I leave my blog open, but go back to Dashboard, click Edit, and, using the blog as a visual reference, tweak it from either HTML (for spacing of images and text) or Compose (for typos and spelling/grammar/phrasing). Then hit publish again, and refresh on the blog page, and voila! I go off and make a myself a cup of tea, or watch Dharma and Greg!

You have no idea how strange it is for me to be giving advice rather than asking for it! I hope this helps, and look forward to more of your pics.

Elle said...

Thank you soooo much MamaDuck. I'm off to the zoo to take some pictures for Desert Lady...I'm going to use your instructions to get the photo's between the text. Can't wait!