Yet another fixed-width & centered question

[martin05rc]

v4.0.3 clean install into XAMPP environment for testing.

I am after a simple 960px wide fixed-width layout.
I also want this layout to remain centered as the browser window width is changed.
I thought "simple enough" but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Clean installation of vB. No changes whatsoever.
Attachment 115642

Nothing but the Default style exists.
Attachment 115643

At this point I created a new style to experiment with.
Attachment 115644

"doc_width" was set to 960px.
Attachment 115645

"doc_margin" right and left set to "auto"
Attachment 115646

Switched to the new style.
Attachment 115647

Load into browser with new style enabled.
Other than the horizontal scrollbar being there and doing something weird there is no indication of trouble. The horizontal scrollbar should not be there at all. Something is wrong.
Attachment 115648

As the browser's right edge is moved in (making the browser window slightly narrower) various elements don't stay in alignment.
Attachment 115649

A manual refresh brings everything back into alignment.
Attachment 115650

Making the browser window wider shows that the problem is still there and it is broken in both directions.
Attachment 115651


Here's the score on the above:

Safari (on both PC and Mac): not broken.
Firefox (on both PC and Mac): not broken.
Chrome (on both PC and Mac): not broken.
IE7 - Broken.
IE8 in "compatibility mode" - Broken.
IE8 with "compatibility mode" turned off - not broken.

I tried this on about 15 different PC's running XP Pro, Vista Home, Vista Ultimate 64 and three different Macs. I even ran this on XP Pro and Ubuntu running in VMware virtual machines. The above results reproduced everywhere (IE could only be run on MS OS's, of course).

Any thoughts on this?

I'll post a reply to this with more details on my work.


Thanks,

-Martin