I’m sure the more experienced members will know the answer to this.
I have created a page in Freeway pro 5. 900 px wide and 900 px high.
I created a background image in elements, 900 px high.
I import the graphic and create the page. All looks well in Freeway and safari.
The problem occurs when viewed in Int Explorer and Google Chrome on a windows machine.
The page ends underneath my last piece of text or graphic box. It does not display the bottom of the page even though the page size was defined as 900 px and the background graphic fills this area?
I have gotten around it by adding some small text to the very bottom of my page in freeway.
Any idea why this happens and how I can avoid it in future?
Difficult to see on my 1280 x 800 laptop but what I will say is that your layout doesn’t hang together when you increase the text size.
I think Safari defaults to zooming the whole page but if you go to the View Menu and check Zoom Text Only then increase your text sizes a little you will see that your page starts to fall apart.
Essentially your page is constructed of layered Divs. These expand when the size of the text is increased causing the layers to overlap.
Windows PCs tend to display text larger to start with so if you have tried NetRenderer you will see how JoePC sees your page.
There are several ways to overcome this - the box model being one - but not the only one.
Things like your form begs to be laid out inside a table - one column for the categories the other for the input fields. That will hold it together and greatly help with alignment of the different fields. (Any particular reason that you are using Matt’s Formmail script? Generally regarded as a target for spammers. Why not use the PHP Feedbackform action that comes with FW - less hackable.)
There is no reason why you cannot put your plant list inside an HTML box and set a border on it a bit of padding to keep the text from the sides and it will expand with the text size.
The other thing about your bg graphic is that there is no flexibility with it. Your are restricted to a page height of 900px - any larger and you get the bottom of the graphic cutting across the page. As it does when you increase text size. Better to leave it off meantime.
I have not uploaded to the web yet but have placed the feedback form in a table.
When previewing in Safari, I enlarge the text, it keeps the alignment between the prompts and the input boxes a lot better but the text still overlaps itself and so becomes unreadable. I guess there is no way of avoiding this ?
Also, with regards to the background image, should I create the same effect with Graphic boxes top and bottom instead of the BG image ?
I have not uploaded to the web yet but have placed the feedback form in a table. When previewing in Safari, I enlarge the text, it keeps the alignment between the prompts and the input boxes a lot better but the text still overlaps itself and so becomes unreadable. I guess there is no way of avoiding this ?
Yes this should be avoidable - duplicate the page and give it another name and upload that somewhere so we can see where you are going wrong.
with regards to the background image, should I create the same effect with Graphic boxes top and bottom instead of the BG image ?
Not quite sure how you have built this - whether or not you have defined the heights of your 2 columns but I dont think there is any reason why you cannot specify a height for them. Obviously both the same and large enough to accommodate all the text even at a slightly larger size.