Question

Rails 2.3.5 (internal work server – stuck at this version for inside apps)

The company ‘standard’ browser where I work is IE and about 70% of users are using IE7.

What I’ve slowly been learning (IE7 only) is that if you have FORM beginning or end tags inside a TR or TD, IE7 will create extra lines, sometimes doing very odd things. My solution so far is to put FORM beginning and end tags outside the TABLE tags.

Then, because I want a single line break between tables … if I use a
tag after tables in IE7 only I’ll get 3 blank lines between tables where in every other browser there will just be a single line.

Right now I’m dealing with a simple table list of users with a form on each line (delete or change access level). After playing around A LOT with this, IE7 messes up the least when I place the FORM and FORM END tags inbetween table tags like:

<table class="table_standard_blue">
  <tr>
    <td>
      FOO
    </td>
  </tr>
  <% users.each do |user| %>
    <% form_for(user) do |f| %>
      <tr>
        <td>
            SOME SELECT / SOME BUTTON
      </td>
      </tr>
    <% end %>
  <% end %>
</table>

While the ‘guts’ of the table will look fine this way, the problem this leaves behind is basically what looks like an extra line break above and below the table (in IE7 only). If I have a couple of tables like this, the effect magnifies and it looks like two blank lines between tables (where in IE8/Firefox) there will be no blank lines.

I know there’s something about RAILS putting extra spaces in with FORM tags (and there’s suppose to be some fix in RAILS 3 – which I can’t use of course at work). Does anyone have any idea how I could fix or hide what’s going on in IE7?

Thanks – much appreciated.

Answer 1

Thanks for the help. Span tags didn’t have any affect at all. Also, I went throught multiple doc types and none of them mand any difference. I kept google searching and found a solution though. I’m not 100% sure but it seems to be a problem with IE7 and forms in general (not something a RAILS form_for is doing). Adding this into my stylesheet fixed everything:

FORM
{
    display: inline;
}