PRIVILEGED ONES
About this Topic

This topic, again, represents another subset of what I term as my "Chasing-The-Tail Experiments", that eventually led to the real experiments presented in Scrollin' Along... , which investigated behavior of the Browser Default Scrollbars as a function of the overflow property of both the html and the body elements. As a result, I had to go back to square one and try to identify and isolate -as much as possible, these UBO's.

This study is an investigation into the secret privileges and powers given to the Privileged Elements by different Browsers. The starting point in defining the boundaries of this study, we have to identify which elements to be included in these studies. A "Privileged Element" can be defined simply as "any element that can be used only once in a given Web Page." (At least, at this point in time.):

html
body
head

However, some very revealing results coming from the experiments conducted and documented in Scrollin" Along..., which clearly, and beyond the the shadow of doubt, proves the existence of the Phantom of Opera. The Phantom of Opera is a hidden element that appears to sit at the top of the hiearchy of elements in Opera 7.54 - above the html element.

Even though we could not devise any further experiments for the Phantom of Opera, due to the fact the phantom is not a valid html element, we still had to include it in this set of studies.

Studies Conducted

Consequently, we have ended up with three separate studies:

BODY Secrets www.web-zonez/screen/duo/body/index.html
This study focuses on the body element, experimenting with mainly the following CSS propertites:
- Height
- Width
- Margin
- Padding
The goal was to identify these privilages and, find a common denominator among the Browsers tested and try to Normalize them - if at all possible.
ROOT Alchemy www.web-zonez/screen/duo/root/index.html
This study focuses on the html element, experimenting intially with the following CSS propertites:
- Height
- Width
- Margin
- Padding
However, based on the rather bizzare observations made in analyzing the results of the tests presented in Scrollin" Along..., the following CSS propertites were also added, with the hopes of gaining a bit more insight in the behavior of this element:
- Position
- Display
The goal was, again, to identify these privilages and, find a common denominator among the Browsers tested and try to Normalize them - if at all possible.
PHANTOM of Opera www.web-zonez/screen/duo/phantom/index.html
This is just a demonstration - but very decisive one, of the existence of the Phantom of Opera, and related considerations.

Head Element

Even though the head element is considered to be a priveleged element - by our own definition, it does not not displayed in its "natural" (i.e. default) state. Consequently, this element is considered to be beyond the scope of this section, which focuses on the elements and forces that govern the display and rendition of a Web Page.

However, the head element, as well as the elements contained in it (i.e. title, meta tags, etc.) can be forced to display by setting their respective display properties to block. This statemet is valid for Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape and - partially for Opera, but not for Internet Explorer. If any web designer chooses to do so, can still do so at the price of looking "silly"!

Bottom Line

Best we could do, in the efforts try to Normalize the html and body elements - as much as we possibly can, was mainly to strip them of their Browser given privileges:

CSS	html {height: 100%, width: 100%; margin: 0; padding 0;} body {height: 100%, width: 100%; margin: 0; padding 0;}

Important Note:

The above common denominator obviously does not fully normalize the Browsers tested, leaving the Bottom Band Syndrome to deal with in the case of Opera 7.54. The reason for this is that the Bottom Band and the associated Vertical Scrollbar belongs to the Phantom of Opera.

What is Next?

If you have not done so, we invite you to review the other two major topics of this section:

Scrollin' Along.... www.web-zonez/screen/scroll/
An in-depth investigation into how different Browsers control their Default Scrollbars by observing their behavior as a function of the overflow property of both the html and the body elements.
100% ≠ 100% ? www.web-zonez/screen/100/
An investigation into the Control Logic used by different Browsers, when the overflow property is set to auto - based on their height/width calculations, to control (i.e. activate or de-activate) their Scrollbars.

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