I am pleased to say that one small but stubborn layout problem which has plagued me since the start of this site has been resolved. For whatever reason, Internet Explorer 7 has difficulty with clearing float elements (clear: both in CSS), which may result in seemingly random, sometimes screen-long whitespace being inserted before the element being cleared. The problem is widely recognized among the web design community, but the exact nature of the bug is as yet not known. Last week, I have finally found a solution to this after some thorough experimenting.

What does it have to do with you, the visitor of this site? Since I'm using clearing technique for placement of pictures in the text, the immediate result of the problem was my inability to publish images larger than roughly 640 pixels across. On screens 1024x768 in resolution, which about 40% of our visitors seem to have, using any larger image in an article would trigger the IE7 clearing float problem, resulting in the layout being scrambled.

So finding the solution means: larger images. And larger images mean more detail and more viewing pleasure. This is well reflected in today's updates in Photo Galleries:

• A new gallery for today is devoted to Seafire Mk.XVII SX336, a unique airworthy Griffon-powered Seafire. Photography by Mark Mills.
  
  
• I have also reworked two previous galleries to increase the picture size: BBMF 50th Anniversary, 2007 and Ronnie Olsthoorn Photo Gallery. I'm pleased with the result and think that both these galleries are well worth a second look.

Enjoy.

Labels: site updates, warbirds, webmaster