MOUSE-OVER MENUS & iWEB: my crippled site

Question

For hours and hours, over the last several months, I've been working with a brilliant programmer who managed to write html/java script/CSS code that created mouse-over menus on my iWeb site. With the help of two additional programs - mass-replace-it and key-maestro, with one stroke, iweb properly exported to a local folder, mass-replace-it introduced my mouse-over code into all html files which were then uploaded to Go-Daddy via an ftp program.
The result: a 95% near-hit––however, due to our inability to achieve 100% fully functional mouse-over/pull-down menu code, we both finally gave up.
No joke, this has been one of the deepest disappointments of my adult years.
Here's the link:
www.petersolon.com
I plan to keep up my crippled site for the nest 24 - 72 hours, hoping someone out there can convey why, when any one of a number of pages (for instance, go to "mission" which is one of the Intro pages) - in fact, when most pages, are refreshed, once, twice, 3 or 4 times (particularly in Firefox) - suddenly, entire navigation strings jumps down and beneath the line they should be straddling. In other words, for some unknown reason, again primarily (but not entirely) in Firefox (yes, we're using the latest version) refereshing page several times, at some point, pushes the primary navig. menus to a spot they should not move to.
We tried every trick in the book, introducing older programming gimmicks like fixed tables, lengthening the "place-holder" iWeb entities that welcome/introduce the appropriate code for each page, getting the iWeb header out of the way, etc, etc - and yet, refresh 1, 2, 3 or 4 times whop/wham: primary nav menus jump down 100 pixels or so, below the very line they should be over - as if some "onload" or java script command or some unfathomable interaction between firefox and iWeb won't allow it to work.
If anyone can help.....please––we came so close. Finally, programmer gave up due to sheer exhaustion, lack of options, as did I...
Thanks so much in advance, Peter
MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  
MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

It's a font rendering problem, and it's a repeat-able
problem in firefox, and to some degree in other
browser also. I see it in firefox and safari on vista
machine.
Try to set monospace font size to something big like
16-point, and minimum font size to none; play with
font settings. You will see the problem.
Cyclosaurus, I really appreciate your taking time to see if it reproduces.
But it's not a font rendering problem--that much I know.
In iWeb generated sites - probably sites generated by other software as well - upon refresh, there's often a slight bounce or movement and then movement back--this is for text, graphics, whatever. ("onload" command (??).
On my site, in the code - only upon refresh (which is the really weird part) - there's something about the positioning of the primary nav string and its relationship to the pink graphic. At one point, each indiv primary navigation menu would "jump over" the pink graphic. However, we "tied" the indiv. primary nav menus to each other using a fixed table, (I'm not a programmer but from what I've heard, I guess this was a programming strategy that was common prior to css.) Anyway, now the whole string either jumps over the pink line - or doesn't - and - again, upon refresh - it also jumps back to its proper position. When it jumps back to its proper position (relative to pink graphic), mouse-over menus work fine.
It seems to be related to primary nave string's position vis a vis pink graphic - and (weirdly) refresh.
We tried removing the "on-load" command from iWeb's code but that didn't work. Tried removing height commands - but that didn't work. Tried removing all elements from a typical page, one by one - but that didn't work.
Any further help would be appreciated...thank you much again....
Peter
Peter
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)