Gadgetopia

well, the design is "scary" if your browser isn't fully W3C's CSS2 & DOM compliant :D

you should have seen the site at the beginning, when IE users had ugly repeating arrows in the menu (because the attribute "no-repeat" is ignored by IE), or language flags disaligned (because IE has a bug for DIV positioning via CSS), not to mention the problem of the non-standard "cursor:hand" and the like...

We made already a lot of "tweaks" to the Standards for accomodating IE5, 5.01, 5.5 and 6 users, we won't go further IMHO.

People just have to use Mozilla Firefox, like anybody having good common sense ;-)

I'm using Firefox. It's still scary.

Thanks Deane, I didn't knew you would be interested in kindly writing such a news ;-)

As for "The design of the site is a little scary, but the content seems quite good", I will make some quick comments :

• qu'importe le flacon pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse
• what's the most important ? A "top-class" design that works only with IE, displays a lot of JSP errors, is slow and full of advertisements, or a modern but relatively basic layout, designed for all modern browsers on all platforms only displaying the relevant data I search for ?
• I prefer to use a "scary" site full of good ideas rather than a "nice" site full at 50% with outdated garbage like Win31, OWL, FileMaker, Btrieve, Windows 98 and the like ;-)
• we're not competing against ee.com : some people just won't change their habits whatever the facts & good reasons they could have to do so (like a lot of IE users ;-) It's perhaps a remain of the so-called "not invented here syndrom".
• some people prefer to pay for a service ; personally if I can get it for free, I'm happier :D

• If I'm not prevented by some sh**tty "user agreement" from using my own mother tongue, it's even better :D

• the door is open to any suggestions, error reports and feedback. The site is finishing its beta-test phase and the "beta feedback & todo" link is still there for a while, for anybody to express himself or herself ;-)

Thanks again, and I hope you'll enjoy your stay on http://www.europeanexperts.org We will always be there to help you if you've problems ;-)

On second thought, it's no scarier than the design of this site.

I'm getting PHP and SQL errors left and right on this site. Half the time the left navigation overlaps the main conent. It certainly wasn't developed by experts.

Colors and layout are fugly, but they're just starting out.

Now excuse me, I have to go eat my Freedom Fries...

Matt, you can't get SQL errors nor PHP errors on this site, unless you fell in a deadly trap like a full filesystem or the like. Highly unprobable. The elements that "overlap" are due to YOUR browser being "not developed by experts" :D If you look at the site with any decent browser having decent CSS support, you'll see what I mean. The layout is fine on IE 5.01+ and Firefox. It thus shouls be ok on Netscape and Opera, but I read that Opera 7 has the same problems with "background: no-repeat" than IE has. Best regards and try to post constructive comments, not only fake & imprecise ones to despise the site (are you on EE.COM ? Working for them ? I wouldn't be surprised ;-) Thanks :D

Hello to all. In case you find the layout "fugly" or wonder what the nominal layout of the site is supposed to be, here is it with both Firefox and IE :

(images) http://www.fecj.org/europeanexperts/eeefirefox.jpg http://www.fecj.org/europeanexperts/eeeie501.jpg

Normally, the design isn't mangled, elements overlapped or however illegible, whatever the browser and the interface language used, but this can't be guaranteed

you can also find our starting stats at http://www.fecj.org/europeanexperts/curstats.png

best regards and you experts please continue to flow IN our community :D

My guess is that the problem most people are having is that the top menu (home|register|current questions|etc) hides behind the div containing the search box for browser widths lower than 1024 (checked with FF PR1). Even though it IS a site for computer folks, who probably run at high resolutions, most people with monitor resolutions that high don't usually run their browser at full screen widths.

While I'm sure the information lays out better at 1280, tweaking the design so it holds up down to at least 800x600 would probably solve a lot of your mystery design complaints.

Also, I can pretty well vouch for the fact, that, when Matt does any work at all, he's not doing it for EE.com (if it's our usual Matt, anyway)

Actually, the "limit" width using FF PR1 seems to be 985px. Below this value, "login"/"disconnect" is wrapped but still visible. It's true I assume people run at least 1024x768 This has been "decided" after looking at the web stats for screen resolutions. It's true the site should be seen at full screen, but that's the case for a lot of other good sites. No solution is perfect, anyway... We can't reasonable accomodate 640x480 users... We sure will do something about the problem if enough users introduce a feedback entry about it :D Thanks for the feedback, Joe.

I'm running at 1280*1024 using XP w/ IE 6 and the left menu overlaps the main content.

If I can't get SQL errors on the site, what's this? Looks like SQL to me. bad query 'select * from wordlist where clefWL='click to see this user\'s Profile' and (idl= or idl=1) order by idl desc;' : You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'or idl=1) order by id_l desc' at line 1

If looks as though you've suppressed the PHP warnings though. Good work.

Also, the "page generated in 14873.247860 milliseconds" is great, thanks for the good laugh.

I'll be staying away from this site as well as EE.com :-)

Funny:

"and try to post constructive comments, not only fake & imprecise ones to despise the site"

Even funnier:

"What you WILL NOT find on this site :

• fascists managing a commercial site and despising all the rules of equity, fairness and democracy
• slow and buggy JSP pages, and a snooty interface full of advertisements and vain auto-congratulation"

Google Groups is far more useful to me than either of these "experts" sites.

I'm closing the comments here before things get too far out of hand. Matt, Dave -- go to your rooms.