I need advice from a computer wiz!

[Twice-Shy]

Hi, this is a shot in the dark, does anybody out there no anything about computer programming and HTML? I've been trying virtually all day to line up neatly the HTMLl links found on our 'SHY Hypnosis Downloads' page (www.shyunited.com/id47.html) on the main website. As you can see, the links are placed messilly and I have been trying to line them up nice and neat to the left. Can anybody help me? I can let you see the full HTML if you want.

Thanks guys

shane

[Derrick]

I'm no expert, but after looking at the code, it doesn't look like you specified alignment for the links. You could center them all manually with the center tag, which is probably what I would end up doing because I don't remember much html, or try modifying the p tag with alignment like you did for the "Shy United Recommended..." text.

 <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2" color="#000000"><DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>SHY United Recommended Self-Help Hypnosis Downloads</FONT></STRONG>
                                   <!--"''"--></DIV></font>
                                </p>
                                <p><b>
                                   <font color=white>
                                   
                                   
                                   
                                   Building Self Confidence
                                   <a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/downloads/self_improvement/confidence_building.html?215">Build your self confidence
                                   now</a>
                                   





Code modified...


<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2" color="#000000"><DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>SHY United Recommended Self-Help Hypnosis Downloads</FONT></STRONG>
<!--"''"--></DIV></font>
</p>
<p align="left"><b>
<font color=white>



Building Self Confidence
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/downloads/self_improvement/confidence_building.html?215">Build your self confidence
now</a>

[tim]

Ew, nasty HTML, font tags and the whole bunch of links down the left side in individual table cells.

I copied your code and pasted it into dreamweaver. It seems you have a whole lot of text that is appearing in white over a white background due to the <font color=white> tag. The links show because they have the link color of blue. They're unaligned because there is white text in front of them. To see what I mean start on the left side of one of the links and drag your cursor back. That will select the presently invisible text.

(Since I criticized the look of your HTML, maybe I should make the offer to clean up some of it if you need help. Email is in my profile.)

[Derrick]

Looks like tim hit the nail on the head.

[Twice-Shy]

Thanks for the help, guys. I've IM'd the HTML to Tim. I use a WYSIWYG pprgram to build and maintain the site and my HTML skills are virtually non-existent. The HTML links on that page were writtten originally by somebody else - namely the company that supplies the hypnosis downloads.

Shane

[HAWK]

you really should switch to CSS (cascading style sheets). Tables are ugly and unneccessary anymore, CSS is becoming the new standard. Hope ya change it, but what tim said is correct, you have text in front of the links. You should also set a hover color over the links to let the visitors know that they are on the link that they want (and it is appealing visually). Look at some web design sites to help you learn CSS or buy a book on it, it is a very very great big help, especially for a medium or large size website as you can change the look of all your pages by editing just a single file (*.css) that you put on the server that you are hosting your site on, in the same directory as your homepage (index.html).

[Tal]

There's also a serious coding error in one of the links...

Interview Anxiety
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/downloads/personal_development/interview.html?215>Beat interview nerves and anxiety</a>

It's missing a quotation mark before the anchor tag closes, following the url.


Regarding CSS and tables, I prefer tables and I dislike separate css files. If they timeout on download, the styles on the page are all missing. But then I use PHP includes, so I don't have need of external style sheets.

[Twice-Shy]

Thanks for all the advice. Tim has had a look at the HTML and cleaned out a couple of lines. It's working fine now. I use a WYSIWYG program to build the site because I have virtually no HTML skill. The HTML links were sent to me by the company that supplies our hypnosis downloads and all I did was copy their code into my WYSIWYG program. The site will be two years old this March and I will probably see about giving it a fresh (and more professional) look before the end of the year.
Shane

[HAWK]

I have never known a style sheet to "timeout" while downloading. As for your choice in tables over CSS, thats a personal prefence, but one that eventually will have to change as the W3C is not supporting tables anymore for page layout. Tables werer never meant to be used as page layout, they just were because people found that you could make complicated but attractive web sites by using tables. The only drawback is all the tags that tables require and then to change the whole site layout, you must go page by page and edit every single ine of code by hand, its very very tiresom. Thats where CSS comes in, it achieves all that tables did and more while giving you a single file thats in charge of every page on your website. Much much better and that is why CCS3 is coming out which will give even greater control over the site layout, achieving more than tables ever did.