Aug/093
HTML email with images broken in Windows Live Hotmail and Firefox
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...If you’ve ever had to design/build HTML emails for work or fun or whatever, you might have run into a bit of an issue getting your email to display consistently in the multitude of email clients out there. I tend to just test my emails in Gmail, Outlook, Windows Live Hotmail and occasionally Mac Mail.
I used to only test in Windows Live Hotmail using IE as I was resigned to the fact that it never worked properly in Firefox – until now! I finally got hassled into finding a solution for the only issue we had left – a 3 or 4 pixel gap appearing in between all the images.
It turns out the problem is the way the browsers in quirks and standards mode align images to the text baseline – the 3 or 4 pixel gap is there to allow room for the descenders of lowecase letters like “p” and “y” – even if there are no letters in the <td> with the <img> in it.
There are 2 things you can do to resolve the issue – force all the images to be aligned to the bottom of the <td> rather than the default (text baseline):
<img src="something.gif" alt="..." style="vertical-align: bottom;" />Or you can take the issue out of the rendering engines hands and fool it by making all the images block-level rather than inline:
<img src="something.gif" alt="..." style="display: block;" />I prefer the second option, but the first one should work fine too! ;)
Apr/091
Apple iPhone OS 3.0 – function follows form
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...I was reading a post over at ALA today called In Defense of Eye Candy, in which Stephen Anderson talks about how actually putting some effort into the way a site looks can have positive effects on the way the site is used.
The more we learn about people, and how our brains process information, the more we learn the truth of that phrase: form and function aren’t separate items. If we believe that style somehow exists independent of functionality, that we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate pieces, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.
Just 5 minutes after I read the article I opened up Safari to test one of our sites in, and saw a great big shiny blue button advertising the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software on the apple startpage.
Ok, yes, the graphics are quite cool, but what drew my attention was the list of new features Apple will be adding to the iPhone/iPod Touch, including:
* Search your iPhone
* Cut, copy, and paste
* Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
* Read and compose email and text messages in landscape
Apparently, “For iPhone owners, it just keeps getting better” – that’s right – it’s getting so much better that after a year and a half, iPhone users will finally be able to do things other phones/PDAs have been already been doing for years! :D
I’m thinking someone at Apple should read Anderson’s articles and get them to spend a little less time faffing around with flashy graphics, and a little more time on functionality…
Come on Apple, sort it aaaaht.