Hi All,

I'm just a newbie to this whole website/Publisher business, but after
having some problems displaying our new website on different PC's I
stumbled across this newsgroup - which has been an absolute mine of
information (thank-you all!)  I have also been having problems getting
our website to display properly on 120DPI widescreen laptops. I tried
grouping all of the objects on each page as you have suggested, and
although it improved the layout in IE7, I found that it was still not
identical to the original 96DPI layout.  The other downside (as you
alluded to, Robert) was that all of the text-based hyperlinks
disappeared in Firefox.  The quality of the text and images were also
degraded when viewed in Firefox (something to do with the grouping of
objects?).

However, after a bit of playing around with the HTML code (which I'm
also new to), it looks to me like one of the problems is with the way
that objects are positioned on-screen, using either point or pixel-
based measurements.  For example, to display a particular image on our
website, Publisher 2007 generated the following code:

   [if gte vml 1]><v:rect
    id="_x0000_s1273" style='position:absolute;left:293.25pt;top:
136.5pt;width:312pt;height:57.21pt;
    ...
   </v:rect><![endif]
   [if !vml]><span style='position:absolute;z-index:164;left:
391px;top:182px;width:416px;height:76px'>
   <img width=416 height=76 src="index_files/image3451.gif"
v:shapes="_x0000_s1273">
   </span><![endif]

So from my novice viewpoint, it looks like if VML is used (in IE6 or
IE7, but not Firefox?) then the image is positioned using pt-based
coordinates

   ("left:293.25pt;top:136.5pt;width:312pt;height:57.21pt")

but if VML isn't used then the image is positioned using pixels

   ("left:391px;top:182px;width:416px;height:76px").

I found that if I manually went through the HTML code and replaced the
"left" and "top" point coordinates in the VML reference with pixel
coordinates, that the page then displayed correctly at 120DPI.  So in
the previous example, I changed the first part of the code to be:

   [if gte vml 1]><v:rect
    id="_x0000_s1273" style='position:absolute;left:391px;top:
182px;width:312pt;height:57.21pt;
    ...
   </v:rect><![endif]

Note that I didn't change the "width" or "height" scaling factors.  I
also didn't have to reposition every object on the page - only the
textboxes and pictures, but not the lines.  Obviously this solution
isn't appropriate for a huge site, but for my purposes it only took a
short period of time to complete (our site consists of only 7 pages).
But it looks to me like a simple change to the engine generating the
HTML code would fix a lot of the display problems that are occurring.
And as people have commented before, this is only going to become more
of an issue in the future with an increasing uptake of higher-res
screens.

Shaun

I've done a little bit more research into this and it appears that when a 96
dpi site is viewed at 120dpi it is actually the externally generated HTML
fragments that behave correctly (which makes sense) and the Publisher
generated code which shifts around. Firefox seems to be able to interpret  
this better than IE. The upshot is that HTML fragments and Publisher
generated code will probably never align correctly when viewed at a different
dpi setting in IE, and this needs to be taken into account when designing a
site. If you can view the front page of www.hendersonlightingdesign.com at
both 96 and 120 you will see that the layout has had to be designed around
the HTML generatedbehaviour of the Flash movie. The 96 version is closest to
what was required but had to be compromised slightly to accomodate the
movie's position at 120.

As for Firefoxes recognition of text selected hyperlinks, it all appears to
be a bit arbitary. Sometimes they will come through and sometimes not. I have
a feeling this is more to do with their layer order when the file is
published.

Incidentally does anyone know why hyperlinks created with hotspots will not
execute files?