What sets the width of forum posts?

[richy96]

Hi

I have a problem with my site - this may be related to other mods I have done.... but anyway

What sets the width of the forum posts in a thread?

I have a lot of threads that display correctly - inspecting the elements show the width of the thread posts themselves are always 605 (pixels?)

Some threads display much too wide and these always seem to be 929 pixels wide - then on the same thread go to page 2 or 3 and that one may display the correct width

I also have some threads which display a bit to wide and these seem to be 657 pixels wide

This is obviously related to the content of the thread as far as I know they all start off the correct width (can't be certain about that but I'm pretty sure it is the case at least for ones I create)

I've tried to pin it down to some factor like someones sig, or the fact the thread contains quotes, or attached images, but I can't seem to find the common factor

So what controls the width of this central table with the forum postbits/ posts and are there common causes that can mess it up?

Additional info
My site uses VBa CMPS so has modules displayed vertically, to both sides of the forum thread, and one module across the top of all threads before the page content. This contains some Quick Link buttons and is the same for every thread (generated from the same template) as are the modules to left and right. I use horizontal postbits if that is relevant

Rich

[Simon Lloyd]

You probably have "Auto" set here Message Area Width (pixels)
Admincp>Styles & Templates>Style Manager>YOUR STYLE: StyleVars>Message Area Width (pixels)

[richy96]

Thanks for the reply

The attached image shows my settings, I do not have that set to auto.

I have not changed these settings since the site was first created

We did some more investigating on this last night

First of all we have a thread in the admin only forum which has this problem
However on Firefox I see page 1 much too wide, page 2 and 3 OK, page 4 a bit too wide. Another mod on Firefox sees the same

However one of my mods on Google Chrome seems PAge 1 and 4 OK, Page 2 and 3 much too wide

I checked on IE8 and see all four pages OK !

Also we tried a test thread - all posting till it went wide

One of our admins posted and it triggered the problem (in firefox at least) - deleting his post the thread went to normal width

But when he posted again (there were a few other posts too from other mods) something made the thread go a bit to wide - but deleting his post this morning did not return things to normal!

I am really confused

[Lynne]

Can we get a link to see the problem?

[richy96]

Sure

This thread is a perfect example - page one displays wide in both IE8 and Mozilla (not tried Chrome myself) but page two of the thread is fine

page one of the thread
http://www.swapscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1182 shows much too wide


page two of the thread
http://www.swapscene.com/forums/show...?t=1182&page=2 shows OK

The forum is visible to non-members (though you can't see images, avatars etc and usernames are reversed when not logged in)

However you can still see the problem with the forum width and I guess it proves that the vbA custom modules are not causing the problem?

Or feel free to log in as

user: guest
password: testaccount


and see the page as members would see it, with the VBa modules around the forum thread, and my custom written 'quick links' bar across the top of every site page, including all the option from 'My Control Panel' (Which is called 'My Account' on this site)

Or sign your own account - it's a free site.


I'm very interested to know what the cause of this problem is, and of course I want to fix it!

We have had occasional thread showing too wide since the site opened I beleive (for example sometimes with images attached) but just recently this has become a problem - and strangely enough threads with attached images seem to display OK

[Lynne]

Your problem is the length of your user titles. Your user ssergit1ondnaregit has a really long user title and it pushes the whole postbit out for the whole page.

[richy96]

Sorry for not returning sooner and thanking Lynne for the advice.

Yes that fixed the problem