Why doesn't Netscape 4.08 give a shit about specified table cell widths???

I have a table with two columns. The table width is set to 100%.

The left column is a specified width. The right column is not because I want it to take up the rest of the width of the page.

The left column width is fine if the right column has at least 1 line of text that spans the entire width of the cell.

But in Netscape 4.08, if the right column does not have something in it that is the full width of the remainder of the table, Netscape starts to make the left column wider so that the two column widths somewhat even out, even though I have specified the left cell width and I don't want it to be any wider, no matter what.

This works fine in IE, anyone know how to stop Netscape from doing this???

Thanks,
Ryan

You're just going to have to accept the fact that netscape is a horrible, horrible browser. I've faced simliar problems with it many times in the past. You're just goint to have to somehow make sure that there's always enough text to take up one line so the table cell doesnt shrink on you. I know, it's really annoying. It's something you learn to live with

Try adding a transparent gif image with the width that you want at in the left column and setting the width of the right column to 100%. That's all

<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="100"><img src="transparent.gif" width="100" height="1"></td>
<td width="100"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%"></td>
<td width="100%"></td>
</tr>
</table>

billy: I agree, Netscape is just a developer's pain in the ***. I hear that the next release is significantly different, hopefully for the better. Although we're going to have to design for backwards compatibility with NN4 for quite some time to come.

Argrajoca: Thanks for the idea, that sounds like it should work. I'll give it a shot right now.

Sigh. I've been working with Netscape since version .99 It's painfully old but 9 times out of 10 it is not "wrong" about anything it does support completely.

In the "old days" ALL of the browsers focuses on the content as king. If your paragraph contained too much text for your specificed table cell, the table would be stretched to whatever larger structure limits there were, usually stretching the table down and causing vertical scrolling when the browser was not wide enough. The philosophy there is that WHEN you don't allow for every possible case of people seeing your content differently, those people will still be able to use your site. Microsoft decided for themselves that no, the formatting would be absolute in all cases, and if necessiary, the content in the cell will be cliped if there is not enough room.

Someone using "large fonts" (I hate it, but it's not that uncommon) will have some of the ending text/image cut off when it's formatted to fit in IE.

Yes, I'll grant that the age of NN is a very, very serious problem and causes a large number of headaches, but it's the DHTML and CSS support that's most problematic, and a little server-side scripting can usually fix even that.

Your table cell content not formating to the exact width you need? If it's text throw in a transparent GIF that's 1x1px and format it to 1px high and the exact px wide you want. Netscape will NOT cut that image off.

If your table is all images, like a site/page shell effect, and it's not lining up perfectly, then check your math. If all the widths and heights add up exactly with the overall table information, Netscape will never have a problem, period. Tables are old and the NN suport for them is very specific and consistent.