I'm admin of a forum and for the past day or two I've had a member complaining that the layout of the reply page is messed up. He says that the smilies and reply box (which sit alongside one another) are overlapping, and that the post preview also overlaps.

Another member has already confirmed that everything is fine for him, as it is for me - but because my forum has very little activity, I've not been able to establish if anyone else is having the same issue.

I've asked the user the obvious questions; he's using IE8 (recently upgraded - which I'm guessing is when the problems started) and has his monitor res set at 1280 x 1024 (slightly higher than my settings). The one question I haven't had him answer yet, is what size monitor he's using - although I don't know enough about this kind of thing to say whether or not that would make a difference.

Any help/suggestions much appreciated. Thanks.

Did you write the forum script or are you using a pre-made?

As far as I have heard, IE8 should be presenting the page as Firefox or Chrome would.
It could be a number of things. Post the link or code so we can see the problem.

Hi, racer.

I started with the default template, but have made many customisations - especially with the reply box, smilies etc, as I didn't like the way they were originally. I'm not too clued up on CSS and web design, but had a lot of help from someone who is. To get the effect I wanted with the reply box etc, it had to be taken outside its (cell? frame?) as I wanted it left-aligned, not centered as was the default. I did have some problems getting things just-so - overlapping elements being one of them. I have the main CSS designed to look okay on Firefox, and then an 'IE only' hack so that the afore mentioned overlapping is dealt with.

I'm not sure where in my CSS the main code for the reply box, smilies etc is, but here's the IE hack:

<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css">


.ak_msgform_postreply_preview_button,
.ak_msgform_newtopic_preview_button,
.ak_msgform_editpost_preview_button
{ position: absolute; margin-top: -10px; margin-left: -18px; }
.ak_msgform_newtopic_submit_button,
.ak_msgform_postreply_submit_button,
.ak_msgform_editpost_submit_button,
{ position: absolute; margin-top: -10px; margin-left: 50px; }
#sidebar { margin-top: -163px; }
.ak_msgform_subject_right_td input, .ak_msgform_message_right_td textarea {
position : relative; left: -18px; }
.ak_msg_post_master_table { margin-top : 20px; margin-bottom : -10px; }


</style>
<![endif]-->

It would be really helpful if someone could take a look at the forum (there's no need to sign up or anything - just pick a section and hit 'post new topic' or open a thread and hit 'add a reply') and tell me if there's any overlapping issues for you. Thanks. http://www.runboard.com/bored472