where are my images?

[xjohn]

I can't figure out why none of the images on this page are displaying in Internet Explorer. The images display in Safari, but not in IE (Mac). I can even download the images to my desktop from IE, but for some reason they don't display.

Anyone have any ideas? Is it just my copy of IE? Is IE slowly decaying now that they've stopped development?

Thanks.

 

[Wardofsky]

Worked for me.
Are you sure you have the latest version of Safari?

 

[xjohn]

Actually, it works for me in Safari, but not in IE.

 

[jimthorn]

Looks like a textbook case of IE for Mac choking on the page's CSS (style sheet). Unfortunately, since IE for Mac hasn't been updated in a while, not all CSS2 was implemented or implemented correctly. IIRC, it's actually better than IE 5 for Windows was, but has its own unique problems. It gave me quite a bit of trouble when I was trying to design pages that display and work correctly across all current standard browsers. If that's your site, I would recommend tweaking the CSS file a bit. Note that its not only the image not loading, but it doesn't like your right-side list of Links, which are shown too far to the left (under the main content).

On the plus side, fewer and fewer Mac users probably use IE these days. I only use it for checking page rendering (like you're doing).

 

[xjohn]

Thanks, jimthorn.

I figured it probably had something to do with the CSS. I can understand how having trouble with the CSS would affect the background images loading, but it seems strange that trouble with the CSS would keep all images from loading.

Also, thanks for letting me know about the links being covered up. I hadn't noticed because IE had the CSS cached. Hitting reload wouldn't even get it to refresh. I had to flush the cache.

Frustrating.

 

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by xjohn
Frustrating.

isn't that microsoft's secret slogan? i mean, they ask you where you want to go today, but all roads lead to Rome, and that's usually frustrating. or something.

i guess it really is too bad that microsoft is pulling the plug on IE:Mac.

 

[xjohn]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
i guess it really is too bad that microsoft is pulling the plug on IE:Mac.

Too bad in that it means that IE won't be getting any better, but great in that it will lead to less people using IE.

Overall, though, less competition is a bad thing.

---

Ok, I've fixed the links in IE, I think.

---

The following is interesting, though, and would suggest that the problem with IE is something more than just with the CSS:

When I tell IE to NOT load the stylesheet, it displays the page with no CSS formating, but the images still don't display!

I'm perplexed. Anybody have any ideas?

(p.s. the images display in both safari and camino. Since I have no PC, I have no idea how the page looks in IE6.)

 

[jimthorn]

Originally posted by xjohn
Too bad in that it means that IE won't be getting any better, but great in that it will lead to less people using IE.

Overall, though, less competition is a bad thing.

Actually, less people using IE creates more competition in my opinion, because no other single browser has as much blind loyalty. And IE being the most widely-used browser has caused a bit of stagnation in web standards and design because Microsoft only makes IE standards-compliant when they feel like it.

Originally posted by xjohn
Ok, I've fixed the links in IE, I think.

Yes, they look better now.

Originally posted by xjohn
The following is interesting, though, and would suggest that the problem with IE is something more than just with the CSS:

When I tell IE to NOT load the stylesheet, it displays the page with no CSS formating, but the images still don't display! I'm perplexed. Anybody have any ideas?

By images, I assume you mean the one in the upper left corner, of the house. The only other images I'm aware of are the Asian characters displayed over "John's Nonsense" and the floating image of the cover of The Economist magazine in the bottom right corner. Both of these other images show up in IE and Safari. Now the house image is another story. Just taking a casual glance at your CSS code, it looks like the house image is there, not in the XHTML. Therefore, displaying the page with no CSS will of course give you no picture. But as to why it doesn't show normally in IE/Mac, try tweaking the z-index attributes. As I recall, IE/Mac doesn't always "stack" CSS-positioned elements in the right order. The picture may be showing up, but "under" the white of the page. I had some CSS-created "buttons" not work correctly in IE/Mac because of this same z-index problem (the clickable link was "under" the transparent button, which couldn't be clicked through... that took a while to figure out, since no other browser did that...).

Anyway, hope this all helps.

 

[jimthorn]

Holy...!

After posting my last comments about IE, I checked VersionTracker, and out of the blue, today Microsoft released IE 5.2.3 for Mac! ?!

 

[xjohn]

Originally posted by jimthorn
By images, I assume you mean the one in the upper left corner, of the house. The only other images I'm aware of are the Asian characters displayed over "John's Nonsense" and the floating image of the cover of The Economist magazine in the bottom right corner. Both of these other images show up in IE and Safari.

Actually, these images weren't displaying for me in IE. I'm not sure why. They're working now.

Now the house image is another story. Just taking a casual glance at your CSS code, it looks like the house image is there, not in the XHTML. Therefore, displaying the page with no CSS will of course give you no picture. But as to why it doesn't show normally in IE/Mac, try tweaking the z-index attributes.

I actually figured it might have to do with the z-index, too. But after messing around with it for a while, I still couldn't get the background image to display.

Finally, though, I figured out what was going on, and now the image is displaying in IE. (5.2.3, by the way--the last update!)

It turned out that IE wasn't displaying the empty DIV element that I was using for the background image; I guess just because it was empty. I had the CSS height set to 100%, but it still wouldn't display at all.

So what I ended up doing was filling the DIV element (called "filler") up with BR tags (50 of them!). Now IE displays the image!

I guess what was happening was that IE wasn't using the CSS "height" attribute...??

Anyway, hope this all helps.

Yes, thanks so much for the help. It helps to have another set of eyes. Otherwise, I'd have probably given up! Hopefully I can reciprocate sometime.

 

[andyduncan]

CodeBitch from Macedition writes a great series of articles on web development, particularly CSS. She also has an indispensable guide to CSS support on mac browsers you should check out.