Firefox Novice Begs for Advice

[e46]

Hi, there everíbody!

This is the first time, that I ask for help, but I'm getting desperate! :-)
I have a rather big site on which I'm working for 5 years now (not only the coding but the content as well), but now I've run into a problem, which I can't seem to circumvent.
The problem is with some borders, FF just don't seem to render to borders to my merged cells. (I'v tried to separate them and make a stile for each cell, but that was no help!)

So what I get in IE (the blue borders are OK , altough I don't know why there is such a a big space around the Google searchbox)
pic of right up corner in IE

And this is what I get in FF (no blue blue borders on the first cell but space around the Google searchbox which is OK)
pic of same in Firefox

the URL is: http://www.eskuvoi1x1.hu/kalauz.htm

I've checked this with Firefoks's design gadget, but it shows a simple <td>, without any styles, and I can not fix it, at least I've tried some possibilities, but it seems that I can't find the remedy myself.


A little footnote: I'm working on my daughter's site as well, and I've made two sets of stylsheets, one for FF and one for IE. But, I've started that one in this month, and it's far more simple that the above one.

Second little footnote :-) : In Hungary (that's the .hu in the domain name) Firefox is getting very popular approx. 25% of the visitors using it, and the number is rising.

Third little footnote (I promise there would be no more :-) : My big site is still not public (after 5 years hahaha!) as I only make it public, when it is ready (and I have to confess, that I tend to be a maximalist, well, at least regarding my handiwork :-)

I would really be very happy if any of You wise people could help me!
Thanks
Elizabeth

[just a feeling]

Would u correct first ur 31 html errors and 66 CSS errors ?

http://validator.w3.org/

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[e46]

Would u correct first ur 31 html errors and 66 CSS errors ?

http://validator.w3.org/

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Yeah, I think it's just a feeling... and not the kindest either... as for example, the validator markes for error the colored scrollbars, the property "align" which are widely used and working.
By the way, I've decided to configure the whole thing without borders, because FF doesn't like to apply style to empty cell.

Any way, thanks for reading my post.
Best regards
Elizabeth

[drhowarddrfine]

As always, Firefox is performing correctly while IE is not. I am away for most of the day but will be back to show the problem. Always assume FF is correct and IE is incorrect. Do not try and fix the correct browser first.

[e46]

As always, Firefox is performing correctly while IE is not. I am away for most of the day but will be back to show the problem. Always assume FF is correct and IE is incorrect. Do not try and fix the correct browser first.

Thanks! I absolutely agree with You, nevertheless, I've made the search tables without borders, this is the easiest thing to do, because I would llike to achive an acceptable look in both browsers, and this site is a little bit too huge for me to handle alone. Been working on it for five years now, so I thought to first go public with such compromises, and then overhaul later. Actually I'm working on my daughter's site as well, she will open business as doctor of complementary and traditional chinese medicine, and on this eskuvoi1x1.hu, there are a lot of articles which were written by her, and they are all referenced on her site.
On her site, there are only a few pages ready as yet, but if U would like to take a look: http://www.harmoment.hu/index.htm
So that is the reason why I must make such compromises, as both sites shall have to be up and runningby the end of October.

[drhowarddrfine]

The same as advised above, Validate for your list of html and css errors.
You would be correct to use the xml declaration, the first line of your markup, for all modern browsers, however, IE chokes on that first line and goes into quirks mode. No harm will occur if you remove it, though takinng IE out of 'quirks' may move some things around a bit.
(heading back out the door)

[e46]

The same as advised above, Validate for your list of html and css errors.
You would be correct to use the xml declaration, the first line of your markup, for all modern browsers, however, IE chokes on that first line and goes into quirks mode. No harm will occur if you remove it, though takinng IE out of 'quirks' may move some things around a bit.
(heading back out the door)

Thanks, that was a real valuable piece of advice! :-)
Actually I kinda' had some notion about it, the only problem, (which I tend to forget) is when I start MM Dreamveawer 'clean up code' command it always "fixes" my "syntax", puts back the incriminated first line. I've tried to delete it from all my files now, but I will re-check them all for this "bug".
Thanks again :-)