We have taken great care to ensure the high quality of our website, including meeting the appropriate Internet standards. By taking such care we can provide the widest support possible for modern browsers, and a number of accessibility related technologies, thus making your visit pleasant and trouble-free, displaying the information as it was intended. This page provides technical and support information about our website.
What do the logos at the bottom of each page mean?
We proudly display a number of logos at the bottom left of every page, but their meaning is perhaps not immediately clear. We shall describe what each of the logos represent and why they are important.
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Browser compatability
This site is best view at 1024x768 or above (1280x1024 is ideal). Our web site has been extensively tested with the following browser/platform combinations (in alphabetical, reverse chronological order):
- Camino 0.8.1 (Mac)
- Camino 1.0.3 (Mac)
- Epiphany 1.0 (Linux)
- Galeon 1.3.7 (Linux)
- Konqueror 3.4.2 (Linux)
- Konqueror 3.1.4 (Linux)
- MS IE 7.0 (Win)
- MS IE 7.0b2 (Win)
- MS IE 6.0 (Win)
- MS IE 5.5 (Win)
- MS IE 5.01 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.7 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 (Win)
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5b1 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla Firefox 0.9 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla Firefox 0.8 (Win, Linux) (previously known as Firebird)
- Mozilla Firebird 0.7 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla Firebird 0.6 (Linux)
- Mozilla 1.7.8 (Win)
- Mozilla 1.7 RC2 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla 1.6 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla 1.5 (Win, Linux)
- Mozilla 1.4 (Linux)
- Netscape 7.1 (Win, Linux)
- Opera 9.10 (Win)
- Opera 7.54 (Win)
- Opera 7.21 (Win)
- Opera 7.11 (Linux)
- Safari 1.2.1 (Mac)
- Safari 1.1 (Mac)
- Safari 3.0.3 (Win)
We recommend Mozilla Firefox.
Known browser issues
Whilst we have taken every care to try to eliminate all inconsistencies amongst browsers, some browser features do not function as expected. These browser specific issues have no work-around, and as a result you may observe their effects - although in most cases these are merely superficial.
- Safari browser on Windows
There is a known bug in Safari that prevents javascript print functions. As a work-around, either print manually (file menu -> print), or use a different browser, such as Firefox.
- Internet Explorer 7
This browser appears to ‘hang’ (stop responding) during uploads. It is in fact still sending data, and will return to normal once the upload completes.
- Internet Explorer 5, 6 and 7
Text that appears at the foot of a list may appear indented initially, then moves to it's correct alignment when hovered over using the mouse. This is a well known bug within Internet Explorer itself which has never been fixed.
- Firefox 2.0.0.1
Text in popup windows may not wrap as expected if the status bar width is wider than window. All popup windows on this site are resizable to ensure that all content can be read.
Printed forms may break irregularly across pages due to poor support for CSS page-break properties.
- Konqueror
Absolutely positioned element may be positioned relative to the page, not the parent when the page is refreshed. This affects a small number of buttons on the online registration and update forms and is a bug in the Konqueror web-browser.
- Konqueror 3.1.4
List items with a no-repeat background image, (such as on our questions pages), will repeat the image. This is a bug in Konqueror that has been fixed in Konqueror 3.4.2.
- Mozilla based browsers
Space intermittently appears between menu elements at different zoom levels. This was raised as a bug with Mozilla - #248802, now closed and fixed in Firefox v1.5(b1) and Mozilla 1.7.8.
- Firefox 0.8
Autocomplete popup box is not below form field: An upgrade to Firefox 0.9 or above will resolve this issue.
- Internet Explorer 5 and 6
Background colour from division elements will ‘bleed’ across the page at certail page widths, this may occur on the forms on this site. This is a well known bug within Internet Explorer itself and appears to be fixed in IE7.
- Internet Explorer 6 (Win)
Left margin text indent may change slightly at random positions (varies according to screen size) even though underlying code is the same. A very minor bug which seems to be IE6 specific.
- Internet Explorer 5.23 (Mac)
Scroll bar appears even though content fits within window. This browser leaves residual room for elements that do not display on screen, (i.e. print only items), this appears to be an issue with this particular browser only.
- Internet Explorer 5 and 6
Forms or tables appear below the navigation bar on short pages when the display area is less than approx 680 pixels wide, (depends on screen size). The background colour of the affected element may also spread across the left hand side of the page. This is due to the way IE displays elements that are larger than the window width. Normally IE displays this under the navigation even though this still requires a scroll bar, (Mozilla based browsers simply introduce a scroll bar, and thus display the page correctly). This issue appears to be fixed in IE7
- Netscape Communicator 4.8
This is a very old browser and our site will not display correctly because it does not support modern standards. We recommend that you upgrade your browser.
Common issues
- The form buttons fail to operate
The buttons on our forms rely on JavaScript. If no action is performed when the buttons are pressed, you may need to enabling JavaScript in your web browser, and then restart the browser.
- Links that say they will open in a new window do not
This again is typically a JavaScript issue.
For other issues, please use the request form to contact our Software Engineering department.