Ever Shambling Onwards...

So, IE's up to it's old tricks again. I have a checkbox, which has a label associated with it. I want something to happen when the checkbox changes state - which means either when the checkbox is clicked, when the label is clicked or when the spacebar is pressed when the checkbox has focus. I also want the checkbox to automatically become checked when you do something else.

This should be easy, but there's one small problem. IE manages to fuck it right up. This isn't vastly surprising, but it's still annoying. The best I've managed to get so far is for everything to work as it should, unless you doubleclick, in which case IE somehow manages to get confused and swap the two states over... Everything still works, but when it says it's on, it behaves like it's off. When it says it's off it behaves like it's on.

Idiotic browser.

Internet Explorer. Yes, both of you. Seven, and your deadbeat parent, Six.

I understand that you want to be special and unique snowflakes in a world full of conformity, but you're got a job to do and you're not doing it. Everybody else in the class understands - even weird little Safari & Opera at the back there!

What you seem to not be able to grasp is that one thing is contained within another in the markup, it is expected that it will be contained within it on the screen - even just a little bit. The anchor point should be inside the container, at the very least. No, not next to it a few pixels away - inside it! Near and Inside have different meanings!

Yes, I know you're doing it right over there. But you're using exactly the same code in these three other places, and getting it wrong. You've shown you can get it right... now why can't you do it more than once?

All I can think is that you're doing it on purpose just to get attention. Stop it. It's not big and it's not clever!

That's it! Go and stand in the corridor. I'll have words with you later.

Don't make me send a letter to your parents, Six, or your grandparents, Seven. Five-point-oh and Five-point-five have enough on their plates dealing with all the drool and constant falling over. They don't need you causing them trouble as well.

Edit: IE has been successfully slapped, and is now behaving.

Edit 2: I'm not sure WHY it's behaving, but it is. I used an analytical process to identify what the problem must be, then applied a fix for that. The fix worked, so I went in to clean up the root of the problem... and found that it wasn't there. I've successfully applied a very specific workaround that will only fix this specific problem. The workaround worked, despite the only possible root cause not actually being there. Sod it. It works - I'm going to leave it alone now. The CSS is clearly haunted.

Percussion Rhythmyx, you have brought my wrath down upon yourself. When something works in the preview, it should also work when published out. All of the content items I'm using are in a public state, all of the content types are properly coded. The page is assembled and complete. The CSS is in place and functional, and all of the markup is good.

Why, oh why, when I run a full publish edition, do you decide to simply not bother with half of the homepage? What's more, why do you decide to not bother with it and then tell me it's all worked fine.

To add insult to injury, most of the bits you've left out this time were present last time and working fine. Can it be that adding something new to the page will miraculously break previously functioning parts for no apparent reason? Why yes, it can.

Rhythmyx, you are the diseased offspring of a pile of festering yak sputum and the horn of a bull that has recently been removed from the rear of a matador. Remove yourself from my sight before I am forced to smite you with fire for making me type your name (no mean feat, I should add) in a rant such as this.

I've asked nicely, Internet Explorer, but you still persist.

Don't make me hurt you!

So, the project that was meant to go live yesterday (already rather late, after a lot of slippage at the client end) is now aimed at Thursday. Or perhaps even later. Joy.

Images. More specifically, photos. Everybody wants websites with loads of photos on, yet they go quiet whenever you ask them what they want to be in the images, or what messages they want to convey, or to who.

Then they default to pictures of the buildings. Yes, we have some quite nice buildings, but if you're wanting to sell the university, or to make it look vibrant and active, they don't really cut it. They make everything look like an estate agent's brochure. How about some people, folks? Not just mugshots, either. Something active, with a bit of movement or personality...

Gah.

5...
4...
3...
2...
1...
( boom! )

<div id="Internally bitching at manager">
Bah! What is the point in asking me to "deal with something" when you know full well that I don't have the required server permissions to do any of the work involved in "dealing with it" and will have to just come back to you at each and every step? You could have done the whole job in about 10-15 minutes by just getting on with it. As a bare minimum you could have done the bits I can't do and then emailed me the details so I could do the face to face bit...

As it is, I've already been back to you four times to ask you to do somehting, and each time you do the first bit that's needed towards it and then don't bother with the rest.

Gah!
</div>

The way this needs to work, you see, is that I ask you what you want and how you want it to behave, then you tell me, and then I can tell you if it's possible and how long it will take to build it, then I go away and build it based on that specification.

Generally, this process will fail if your response to my "what do you want" and "how should it behave" emails basically boils down to "I don't know... you tell me what I want!".

Doing this is likely to inspire me to create you a virtual goldfish boiling simulator or somesuch. I am rarely short of bizarre ideas for brief or specification free webpages or systems.

Hmmm... I need to deliver a rant, but I don't have time to prepare one properly before leaving the office...

Suffice to say that Internet Explorer is currently acquiring possession of my Capra Hircus in fairly significant proportions.