99161 - espn.go.com - go.com - Table Layout Shown Incorrectly at ESPN Message Boards

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect, P1)

Description

[Robert Rainwater]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:0.9.3+) Gecko/20010910
BuildID:    2001091003

The message boards at ESPN incorectly display the main page content at the
bottom of the page.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to http://boards.espn.go.com/cgi/nfl/request.dll?LIST&room=nfl_nfl

Actual Results:  The main content is shown at the bottom of the page instead of
to the right of the navigation.

Comment 1

[James Paige]

possibly related: bug 71019 and bug 78275

Comment 2

[Marc Attinasi]

Maybe a table problem, like bug 71019 and bug 78275, but it is unclear. they
look much different. Anybody want to volunteer to rip this mess apart and make a
testcase?

Over to karnaze to look at - bounce as necessary.

Comment 3

[Marc Attinasi]

*** Bug 104160 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Here's the page in a nutshell:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>ESPN.com - NFL Message Boards</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="pcie_pos.css" title="master">
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="nflboard.css" title="default">
  </head>
  <body>
    ...
    <div id="chrome">
      navigation stuff
    </div>
    <div id="mainmess">
      discussion forum
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

There are two style sheets used, pcie_pos.css and nflboard.css. Internet 
Explorer (on Mac OS, and Windows too I guess) applies both these style sheets 
at once. Mozilla applies only pcie_pos.css, not nflboard.css; and because the 
positioning of <div id="mainmess"> -- which includes the the discussion forum
-- is specified in nflboard.css, in Mozilla it ends up in the wrong place.

The HTML spec <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/styles.html#h-14.3.2> says, 
`If two or more LINK elements specify a preferred style sheet, the first one 
takes precedence'. Therefore, Mozilla is doing the right thing, ESPN is doing 
the wrong thing, and this is a Tech Evangelism bug.

Comment 5

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

[--> default owner and QA contact, bla bla]

Comment 6

[James Cox]

work around for this... 

go to View > Use StyleSheet > default - will reposition the discussion table,
but will eradicate any A: styles.

Comment 7

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

handle with other disney properties

Comment 8

[See]

Using Mozilla Build 2001122106 (0.9.7), once you turn off Java Script
(Preferences > Advanced > Scripts * Windows), you can view the Table Layout
properly.  Problem is, no stylesheets are loaded and the page looks mighty dull.

Comment 9

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

still an issue

Comment 10

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

contacted

Comment 11

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

contacted again.

Comment 12

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

they still have the master and default sheets but appear to worked around it on
this particular page via inline styles. Layout is reasonable. Will mark this
fixed although they continue to need help on the exact same issues over and over.