PRIVILEGED ONES
Phantom of Opera
Another crazy title, and another crazy subject. Correction! Let's call it a discovery and positive identification of a "prehistorical" creature that hides in the deep shadows of the crumbling house of Opera 7.54 - whose existence may have been suspected of, but yet, never positively demonstrated!
In our investigation in the Browser given privileges of the body element, we have encountered the Bottom Band Syndrome in Opera 7.54. However, the most revealing results came from the experiments conducted and documented in Scrollin' Along..., which clearly, and beyond the the shadow of doubt, demonstrate the existence of the Phantom of Opera, in Opera 7.54.
It should be noted that the same set of experiment using Opera 9.1, indicate that the Phantom of Opera has disappeared by this version! I am not sure exactly which version marked this "eviction", since I have not conducted the same tests with any versions in between. On the flip side of the coin, I am also not sure exactly when (or which version) the Phantom of Opera took residence in the rafters of Opera. My sneaking suspicion is that it has been from day one.
Furthermore, the Phantom of Opera is a hidden element that appears to sit at the top of the hiearchy of elements - above the html element in Opera 7.54. Also, I am not sure if another hidden "layer", not yet identified, does not exist.
To demonstrate this fact, let's start with a model used in Scrollin' Along...:
| C S S |
html
body
#test
p |
H T M L |
<body> <div id="test"> <p> This is some text.... </p> </div><!-- test --> </body> |
It should be noted that, the above styling in CSS forces both of the Scrollbars of the body and html elements by setting their overflow property to scroll, which, in turn clearly identifies the existence of the Phantom of Opera.
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Its is very obvious that, there exists 3 Vertical Scrollbars. They belong to (from left to right):
- body element
- html element
- Phantom of Opera
Let's also show that the Phantom of Opera does not have a Horizontal Scrollbar, instead a Bottom Band, by scrolling down using the Vertical Scrollbar of Phantom:
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The Vertical Scrollbar of the Phantom of Opera is activated, due to the 100% setting of the height property of the html element. Let's demonstrate this, by setting the height to 95%:
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Voila! The Vertical Scrollbar of the Phantom of Opera is gone! However, the Bottom Band still remains!
Please Note That...
The proportional values (%) of the height of the html is a function of the Peep-Hole (aka Screen). However, the height of the Bottom Band is an absolute
value (px). There is some evidence indicating that the height of the Bottom Band is 18px, even though the Thickness of both of the Scrollbars of Opera has been established to be 17px.
» Reference: 100% ≠ 100% ?
www.web-zonez/screen/100/index/html
Bottom Line
The bizzare observations made in investigating the behavior of the html element in Opera, as presented in Root Alchemy makes a bit more sense if if we look at it from the angle that the html element is not the root element in the make-beleive reality of Opera!
To repeat myself, the Phantom of Opera, at least for the time being, appears to sit at the top pf the hiearchy of elements in Opera. However, I am not sure if another "layer" (i.e. element), not yet identified, does not exist.
Why do I say that? It is based on the fact that, the results of the sets of comprehensive and exhaustive experiments of Scrollin" Along..., showed very clearly that the Phantom of Opera has its own Vertical Scrollbar - which is the Default Vertical Scrollbar of Opera, but does not have a Horizontal Scrollbar! However, the same set of experiments did not even give a clue as to which element the Default Horizontal Scrollbar of Opera belongs to. Therefore, any inquisitive mind would immediately put a "Question Mark" on that!
Time to Give Up
Since the <phantom> is not an offical html tag, at this point, I run out of possibilities - or more frankly out of patience with Opera, in trying to formulate further experiments to continue this investigation.
Perhaps, someone else coming from a different angle, (and, also who has the time and interest in this absurdity) may be able find ways to shed more light on this puzzle. However, I would also appreciate to be informed of what your findings are, even if they contradict the material and/or intrepretations presented here.
Final Note
When I repeated the same tests with Opera 9.01, to my surpise I found some interesting data!... It appears that Opera finally decided to to "loose" the Phantom of Opera. Good Riddance!
I could not say exactly which release got rid of the Phanthom, all I can say that it happened somewhere betweeen 7.54 and 9.01.
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