RangerRick98's Journal: Firefox /. Rendering Bugfix via Adblock

UPDATE (10/25/2004): The bug is evidentally going to be fixed for Firefox 1.1. More information is available at the bugzilla URL mentioned in the comments.

Okay, I've only had this going for about two days, but so far it seems to be working, and I usually have to reload/reflow /. a couple of times during the day, so I'm assuming this works. If it doesn't work for you, reply and let me know.

Anyway, as most/all Firefox users know, /. doesn't always render as the authors intend when viewed in Firefox. I used the DOM inspector to try to trace the problem to its source, and based on that and a comment I saw someone else make, I believe it's due to an "empty" 1x1 GIF image that's used as a spacer at the bottom of the lefthand column. Firefox appears to render that image with a different width than called for and that screws up the column widths in the table (in the table in the table...; good lord, we need to shove CSS down these guys' throats! :).

Anyway, here's what I did to fix it, and since then, I haven't had any formatting problems:

1. Get adblock either from their official site or from Mozilla Update
2. Restart Firefox to install the extension
3. Go to Slashdot
4. Click on Adblock at the lower-right
5. Scroll through the list and find "http://images.slashdot.org/pix.gif" (or type it in the box)
6. Click OK

You may have to go into the adblock preferences and choose "Remove Ads" instead of "Hide Ads". I forget which is the default, but mine's been set to "Remove Ads" for a while, which works well. Adblock will now automatically remove that image from the page, and /. should render properly.

Strange

[alib001]

I take you find it an intermittent bug - happening infrequently?

I'm using the workaround of flicking [Ctrl]+[-] then [Ctrl]+[+] to fix mangled /. pages.

I wonder why a spacer GIF would screw things up...

Re:Strange

[RangerRick98]

It was intermittant, yes. I just ended up ignoring it until the next time I refreshed the page, most of the time. Haven't had to worry about it since I blocked that GIF, though, so I guess that was it.

I think I had read something about Firefox rendering the image with an improper width and not resizing it after the page had more fully loaded, or something like that.

Sweet!

[BenjiTheGreat98]

I did what you suggested and tried to click as many links as I could. I've done 20+ and still haven't had an error. Thanks.

Very wierd bug

[Kick the Donkey]

Yes, Slashdot definitly needs to be CSS-tized. However, this particluar issue only affects me about 1 out of 100 page views, if that.

Is the problem with Firefox/gecko? Or is it just lousy HTML? The world may never know.

Re:Very wierd bug

[Evil Pete]

Affects me at least 75% of page loads.

Will try it and report back.

Re:Very wierd bug

[Evil Pete]

Yay. Excellent, well done. Some pages still don't render perfectly the first time every time but the difference is dramatic. Maybe Slashdot should just simply remove the offending pix.gif, huh? Seems the simplest solution.

Re:Very wierd bug

[RangerRick98]

It's possible that the spacer is required for the page to render properly in other browsers, though. I know a lot of sites have resorted to that sort of thing (or did before they became CSS/XHTML compliant-ish) for IE.

Re:Very wierd bug

[Selanit]

Yes, Slashdot definitly needs to be CSS-tized.

I agree. What's more, it already has been -- just about a year ago. The thing is, the changes haven't been incorporated back into the slashcode. Check out this article. [alistapart.com]

Have you reported the fix?

[Morosoph]

There must be a bug filed already, and many mozilla developers must read slashdot.

Just a thought. It might even motivate a real fix :-)

Re:Have you reported the fix?

[RangerRick98]

I posted a reply and link back to here at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27034 4

Re:Have you reported the fix?

[Morosoph]

Good man!

I was too tired to do it myself when I posted initially, and it's right that you should take the credit.

coolios!

[naph]

i hate it when slash doesn't render properly. i know people have said it a million times but is it really that difficult to re-wrote the site to use some decent markup/css??

That fixed Firefox

[Mr. Flibble]

Thanks for the post (and mention in your sig) /. now renders properly on Firefox

Extension to Fix Slashdot Error

[sr180]

http://hardgrok.org/blog/item/slashfix-firefox-ext ension.html [hardgrok.org]

I didnt write it, a user I cant remember has it advertised in his signature. Go to that page, install it and the slashdot rendering problems disappear!