I am entering the code for the JT's web page in chapter 8, and it was working fine until I got to the "text-align" code in dinner_menu.css that sets the text to center:

h3, h4, h5, h4 + p, h5 + p {
    text-align: center;
}

When I run this, it works in NetScape & Opera - moves the menu text to the center. But, in IE the text stayed on the left!

I set up a test div in dinner_menu.html:

        <div id='body'>
            <h1>
                JT's at Night
            </h1>
            <div id='content'>
                <img src='images/photos/dinner_plate.jpg'
                     alt='dinner plate'/>
                <div id="test">
                <h3>Appetizers</h3>
                    <h4>Stone Crab Claws <em>Market Price</em></h4>
                        <p>
                            1/2 lb of claws straight from local docks served
                            cracked with a house stone crab mustard sauce.
                        </p>
                    <h4>Sesame Seared Tuna <em>$8</em></h4>
                        <p>
                            Sashimi grade yellowfin tuna encrusted in sesame
                            seeds lightly seared and served with soy dipping
                            sauce and wasabi.
                        </p>
                </div>
                    <h4>Pita and Hummus <em>$4</em></h4>

And added a test entry to the end of dinner_meny.css:

div#test {
    text-align: center;
}

This moved the text to the center in IE.

As a further test, I changed the div#test text-align to right, and added the line:

text-decoration: underline;

Well, IE put the text to the right, and underlined it. Netscape & Opera both left it in the center, and underlined it!

This shows me that all three browsers reacted to the div#test code, but for some reason the text-align was over-ridden in Netscape & Opera, while IE used ONLY the align code in div#test...

Any ideas on this, or suggestions of where I might have miss-entered the code, would be helpful. I have, BTW, gone through the code 5 times trying to find any errors.

I guess it'd help you to know that I totally ignored Internet Explorer until Chapter 18.

The problems you're having have to do with the fact that Explorer 6 doesn't support the adjacent sibling selectors in the rule "h4 + p" and "h5 + p".

In Chapter 18 I present how to implement a javascript called "IE7", which brings CSS 2 selector support to Internet Explorer 5, 5.5 and 6 (among other things that Explorer doesn't support natively).

My reasoning behind this was that I wanted to demonstrate how CSS works in browsers having the most CSS support possible. Though I recognize this isn't very useful since 90% of the world uses IE6 to browse the internet. I addressed that by giving Internet Explorer a Chapter of its own at the end of the book that demonstrates common CSS bugs, and how to use Dean Edwards's IE7 JavaScript to increase CSS support in IE without your users needing to upgrade or do anything on their end. After Chapter 18, the JT's website looks pretty much the same between IE 5.5, IE 6, Firefox, Opera, et all. Though admitedly, I was using an earlier version of the IE7 javascript when I wrote the book, so some things may have changed since then using a newer, faster, more stable version of that javascript.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Regards,
Rich

--
[http://www.smilingsouls.net]
Mail_IMAP: A PHP/C-Client/PEAR solution for webmail
Author: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets For Web Design

OK, that makes sense - thanks! I've managed to avoid IE for quite some time, but it looks like I'll need to use it at least for testing - as this situation showed me! And it's good to know there are some work-arounds for any problems like this.

And it's always good to know I wasn't really screwing up...

Thanks,

Stephen