I've done searches and seem to come "close" to a solution but not quite.

I have two custom widget areas on my front page, within the upper top left and right of the center page. They have appeared fine on Firefox, Safari, and IE, but within 24 hours they are now wacky.

www.cambridgebaptistchurch.org

Even with IE Developer I can't figure this out at all and not being a techie, experiencing serious frustration. The widget area content shifts to the left side taking up only about 1/3 or so of the widget area. There are two almost identical widget areas below them that are fine.

Please take a look and share your insight and possible solutions.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Craig

It probably has something to do with the CSS I had previously suggested. Could you please post the code you are using for the widget areas? I think we could tweak that code instead of using CSS which may fix the problem.

Hi Larry,

Here is the code for FP1 and FP2:

#my_widget_area_fp_1 {
width:200px;
margin-right:10px !important;
padding-right:10px;
}
#my_widget_area_fp_2 {
width:155px !important;
}
#my_widget_area_fp_2 div.widget-title {
margin-bottom:10px !important;
}

Viewing in IE8 using Developer Tools and drilling down html to fp1 the Style indicates Inherited: strikethrough with the correct values as above. However, when I click on "width: 200px;" and click again in the Style section the widget area fp1 goes all the way across squeezing fp2 then back to what it should look like. Well, until I refresh the screen anyway.

What is interesting, I used this exact code with a slight modification for the widget areas below FPB1 and FPB2 and they appear fine in both browsers:

#my_widget_area_fpb_1 {
padding-right:5px;
}
#my_widget_area_fpb_2 {
padding-left:5px;
}
#my_widget_area_fpb_2 div.widget-title {
}

I hope this helps.

Thank you,
Craig

The code I'm talking about Craig is the code you used to create the widget areas. I think we can tweak that to eliminate some of the CSS.

OK Larry,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Here is the php code for both fp_1 & 2, fpb_1 & 2:

<?php bfa_widget_area('name=My widget area FP&cells=2&align=3&align_2=2&align_3=7&width_4=700 &before_widget=<div id="74" class="header-widget %2$s">&after_widget=</div>'); ?>

<?php bfa_widget_area('name=My widget area FPB&cells=2&align=1&align_1=4&align_1=2&width_4=70 0&before_widget=<div id="74" class="header-widget %2$s">&after_widget=</div>'); ?>


Thank you,
Craig

Try using this for creating the widget area and eliminate the CSS. I don't know why I didn't think of this before.

<?php bfa_widget_area('name=My widget area FP&cells=2&align_1=3&align_2=9&width_1=400&width_2=300 &before_widget=<div id="74" class="header-widget %2$s">&after_widget=</div>'); ?>

That should give you a two cell widget area with a left area width of 400px and a right area of 200px.

It seems like I periodically have to fiddle with CSS with IE. Does that code make sense to you? Half the battle is wrapping my head around some of the Greek that some call code.

OK! Asking "me" if this makes sense is scaring me Larry. I replaced the original fp_1 code and of course it was all messed up. Proceeded to my Insert CSS/HTML code and remove the adjusting code we used before. Things looked close. Put it all back in removing the width: for each fp. Recreated the title break and included the 10 px padding. Looked really good FF and IE. Went to widget and tweaked the NextGEN Slideshow width from 290 to 303 px. Looks great on FF and acceptable to me on IE.

So, once again Larry, I would say this is a great success. In my researching this came across www.validator.we3.org a markup validation free service to check websites. I'm slowing piecing it together but currently have 89 errors and 3 warnings. OK, I don't know what any of that means but it doesn't sound good for function and optimization.

Thank you,
Craig

I didn't mean to scare you. All I was asking is did you at least see where I was going with the code. Some people look at code and get a deer in the headlights look. I just wanted to know if you "sort of" understood and it looks like you did fine at the end of it all as the site looks ok to me in IE now with just a little clipping on the right of the slideshow which you could probably tweak the widths to fix at some point.

Yes, you put me on the right track and are teaching me a great deal. I no longer have any fear of delving into code but not without first saving the original to Notepad to fall back on.

I don't even think I'm going to invest additional time into the IE appearance unless I hear back from visitors about it, then I will address it. Not like this site will be featured by Flynn or the "Today Show." LOL!

Thank you again Larry.
Craig