Question

FFOX 3 acts different for OVERFLOW:AUTO

Asked by: AmigoJack

Hello there :)

After testing active projects with the new Firefox 3 I experienced that a lot of large IMGs in DIVs are ignoring the style "overflow: auto". I broke this down to the code snippet below, which just works as it should in other browsers (like MSIE 6.0 or OPER 9.5). The images should be larger than the width of the Firefox 3 window, so the overflow should engage.

What bugs me most is: it happens ONLY if the DIV is inside a TABLE. Not surrounded by anything it works as expected. In fact I havent tested for other situations, but right now this is the starting situation to be solved. And of course re-designing the HTML-Layout is not what I'm asking for ;-)

Maybe some Mozilla-only-CSS exists for this? Although I don't want to hack. Or could it be a bug?

Thanx for reading :)
Awaiting all your ideas

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="de" dir="ltr"><head>
	<title>.</title>
	<style type="text/css">
		div { overflow: scroll; }
	</style>
</head><body>
	please make sure both pictures have a width greater than the width of your browser window.
 
	<table><tr>
		<td>
		<div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="1.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></div>
		</td>
	</table>
 
	<div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="2.jpg" alt="this displays the scrollbars just like years ago - why not in tables also" /></a></div>
</body></html>

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Asked On: 2008-07-03 at 04:58:49ID23536499
Tags: firefox
,; css
,; overflow
Topics: Firefox Web Browser
,; Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
,; Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Participating Experts: 2
Points: 500
Comments: 24

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Answers

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-03 at 05:12:39ID: 21924633

Identical behaviour in FF2.0.0.14 after I added the </tr>

Still not woriking in FF3?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="de" dir="ltr"><head>
        <title>.</title>
        <style type="text/css">
                div { overflow: scroll; }
        </style>
</head><body>
        please make sure both pictures have a width greater than the width of your browser window.
 
        <table><tr>
                <td>
                <div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></div>
                </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
 
        <div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this displays the scrollbars just like years ago - why not in tables also" /></a></div>
</body></html>

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by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-03 at 05:31:48ID: 21924757

Oh sorry, just forgot that.
However, with or without </TR> the same behaviour remains in FFOX3 :(

Sidenote: I jumped directly from FFOX1.5 to FFOX3 - did you mean that FFOX2 is displaying it correct (both images are scrollable) or FFOX2 also acts weird and only adds scrollbars to the second image?

20080702-ffox3-overflow.JPG
- 42 KB
How I see it (the wrong way)

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-03 at 05:37:55ID: 21924806

No FF 2 works as expected

testoverflow.jpg
- 79 KB
test overflow FF

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-03 at 09:31:52ID: 21927048

You are right FF3 on Mac does not scroll horizontally

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-07-03 at 11:42:21ID: 21928070

Could this be another of the MANY bugs in FF3? The fact that the behaviour changes depending on the relation of the DIV to a Table suggest either (1) they only tested FF3 in the arrangement that looks correct, or (2) they have changed their rendering model, and now consider a DIV in a TABLE to be "bad" coding?

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-03 at 23:55:07ID: 21931372

And they are of course correct in considering that ;)

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-07-04 at 11:34:37ID: 21934343

Just a thought -- try overflow:visible -- see if any difference.

by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-07 at 05:48:42ID: 21944500

"overflow:visible;" just does what I expected: showing the whole pictures :-(

I guess it IS a bug. I won't start a discussion which will point out situations where there is no alternative for a DIV inside a TABLE. Aside from that it is clearly allowed by XHTML - if FFOX starts to ignore XSS by dictating its very own definition of good and bad it starts to be even more annoying than MSIE.

Hmm... if nobody really has a solution or explanation for this I would at least share some points for contending my problems :-) Is everybody ok with that?

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-07 at 05:58:37ID: 21944547

May I ask what mandates a div inside a table?

I fail to see the need.

by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-07 at 09:44:17ID: 21946559

Yes: block elements with a fixed width inside a table cell which has a dynamic width (and height of course) and which needs to be on the same horizontal and vertical position as its neighbours. And this is just a basic scenario on a more complex layout. Only a table fulfills all the needs of a matrix which a conglomeration of block elements can not.

Show me a matrix of block elements not bound to a fixed size or position (not to forget the case of merged cells aka spanning) to prove me wrong ;-)

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-07 at 11:25:49ID: 21947392

http://www.google.com/search?q=css+div+same+hight

http://www.google.com/search?q=css+div+table+replacement

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-07-07 at 11:33:32ID: 21947432

I agree with the need for tables to develop consistent alignment / position / order -- so you won't find me disagreeing with your analysis above. Which brings to mind, why even use the DIVs at all? With a good solid table layout, I have NEVER found the needs for using DIVs in such a case.

If you have an element you need to address that is not a link or form field, then just use SPAN instead of DIV. DIVs are contrary to table layout anyway -- they span the full width of the page, whereas a SPAN fits nicely into a table layout, without any conflict.

<TD width="200"> Element 1</TD>
<TD width="400"> Element 2</TD>
<TD width="200"> Element 3</TD>

Try adapting your DIVs to SPANs and you will probably solve the issue. I think Firefox3 authors are thinking this when they decided that DIVs should not go into tables. That is true in simple cases, but I can think of all kinds of complex layouts where you should be able to nest DIVs in tables -- but they are probably thinking -- NO, you use a SPAN for that, not a DIV. Maybe they are right .....

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-07 at 23:57:16ID: 21951502

Hmm, this works in FF3

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
  div { height:200px; width:200px; overflow: scroll; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td><div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></div></td>
<td><div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></div></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body></html>

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by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-08 at 09:28:21ID: 21955443

@mplungjan:
Of course this works, as you specify a width for the DIV. But I can't because of the dynamic width I need.

@scrathcyboy:
I'm pessimistic on that, since a SPAN can be a DIV and vice versa (style attribute "display"), so it wouldn't make any sense. But thanks for taking this serious ;-)

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-07-08 at 17:25:02ID: 21959594

"I'm pessimistic on that, since a SPAN can be a DIV and vice versa"

Not really. The DIV is generally uncontrolled in width, unless specified.
The SPAN takes ONLY the room it needs for the material in the SPAN.
The two are very different, you should explore the differences before a "blanket write off".

As you noted at the outset, this is a FF3 ONLY "bug" because they changed the rules.
Face that, and get on with whatever compliant coding you need. Mozilla Devs are not going to back down from their current "position" with FF3. You are fighting a losing battle on that.

Good luck.

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-09 at 01:02:32ID: 21961388

I could not get a span to scroll...

by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-09 at 03:05:39ID: 21961893

Ok, today I tested it again, replacing the DIVs with SPANs - and the behaviour is the one I expected: the SPAN (with style attribute "display: block") behaves the same way a DIV does. Same would be for a DIV with style attribute "display: inline" acting like a SPAN. This does not collide with my very fundamental understanding from the beginning ages ago.

The following code rendered with FFOX3 gives the same undesired (=wrong) result as the code with which this thread started (because a "block"ed SPAN is the same as a DIV; and besides inline elements of course don't scroll). If this really is a new "rule", then it has nothing to do with DIVs in table cells - moreover it is completely about block elements in table cells. All this still does not make sense at all - this behaviour is ridiculous if wanted.

Since yesterday I searched for a bugtrack-like system for FFOX3 but failed to find one :(

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="de" dir="ltr"><head>
	<title>.</title>
	<style type="text/css">
		span { display: block; overflow: scroll; }
	</style>
</head><body>
	please make sure both pictures have a width greater than the width of your browser window.
 
	<table><tr>
		<td>
		<span><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></span>
		</td>
	</tr></table>
 
	<span><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this displays the scrollbars just like years ago - why not in tables also" /></a></span>
</body></html>

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by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-09 at 05:19:50ID: 21962708

Here

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="de" dir="ltr"><head>
        <title>.</title>
        <style type="text/css">
                div { overflow: scroll; }
        </style>
</head><body>
        please make sure both pictures have a width greater than the width of your browser window.
 
        <table><tr>
                <td>
                <div><a href="bla.htm"><img onLoad="if (window.innerWidth) this.parentNode.parentNode.style.width=window.innerWidth+'px'" src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this wont display scrollbars, instead the scrollbars of the browser itself have to be used" /></a></div>
                </td>
        </tr></table>
 
        <div><a href="bla.htm"><img src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg" alt="this displays the scrollbars just like years ago - why not in tables also" /></a></div>
</body></html>

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by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-10 at 11:39:33ID: 21976252

Sorry, I wanted a "solution", not a rather dirty js-hack. Aware from that it does not cover the situation of resizing the browser while viewing the page. And after reading a bunch of entries in the Mozilla-Bugtrack I'm very sure it's rather a bug than something wanted.

I'd like to not accept any solution but I want to give at least each of you 100 points for your efforts, while the rest should be refunded since most of the answers (mostly mplungjan's) did not help at all. Call me mean for that, but years ago I experienced real experts here :-/

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-11 at 00:46:25ID: 21980607

...most of the answers (mostly mplungjan's) did not help at all...

I did not give any answers, I tried to help you overcome a NEW browser limitation, but now I just feel shitty for even trying (and the resizing can be detected and acted upon) - feel free to delete the question...

... years ago I experienced real experts here ...

Thanks. I was here years ago too

by: AmigoJackPosted on 2008-07-11 at 01:05:28ID: 21980684

Sorry mplungjan, this was my mistake. I simply did not recognize that you are only commenting on all this. So I considered it all to be unhelpful. I also remember your name from back then and was rather happy to see someone known answering (sorry: commenting) my posts. But i misinterpreted it all as half-knowledgeable chit-chat without any true or clear target. Pardon me! And there are many reasons why JavaScript is not an option. First one is, that ironically mostly the FFOX-users disable JavaScript... and one other is that it slows down the site with every substitution for that (imagine around 20 images or more).

(A good example for a JavaScript-overkill is EE itself :D And on top of that the new editbox is either way too slow in FFOX1.5 or it totally screws up the site in OPER9)

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-11 at 01:16:59ID: 21980731

It is called Experts-Exchange for a reason...
You found an issue with a brand new browser and I tried a few things to see if we could find out why or how.
I often comment just to give input to the asker and never use the "proposed solution" radio

Some questions have "not possible" as an answer too...

Michel
PS: If you consider a block construct in the table, perhaps you could also try an Iframe? It works best if you put it in a doc with margin=0

<table width="100%"><tr>
<td>
<iframe width="100%" 
src="http://www.antoinettemulder.com/photogallery/juni%202006/een%20echte%20big%20bag.jpg"></iframe></div>
</td>
</tr></table>

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FFOX 3 acts different for OVERFLOW:AUTO

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firefox

css

overflow

Firefox Web Browser

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

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