# Bar bars between posts **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [June 20, 2004, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343 "2004-06-20T20:25:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lockz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Lockz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lockz)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/1 "2004-06-20T20:25:48Z")
I’ve been noticing in the last couple days the varying thickness of the blue bars between posts, and I’m wondering why they’re there, and if they actually mean anything! ---
**Author:** ![Lockz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Lockz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lockz)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/2 "2004-06-20T20:26:52Z")
Yes, the title should be BLUE bars … you’d think that I can type the name of a simple colour. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/3 "2004-06-20T22:40:28Z")
Another MB that recently upgraded to vbulletin 3 had the blue bars (but with a much darker colour scheme around them) People started to complain about the blue bars and they were promptly removed by the admins. They are almost certainly nothing more than cosmetic. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/4 "2004-06-20T22:42:35Z")
After posting I went and checked out a thread. I never noticed that before, the bar thickness does seem to be almost random between posts. sometimes it’s not there at all. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/5 "2004-06-20T22:44:18Z")
Another thing I just noticed! If you scroll up and down the thread (without reloading it) the bars change thickness at random! (I mean where there once might have been a thick bar, if you scroll it out of view and then back in, it may become a thin bar or no bar) ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/6 "2004-06-20T22:50:10Z")
You can do the same thing by highlighting them. Dunno why. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/7 "2004-06-20T23:27:21Z")
What browser(s) are you folks using, and what OS? All my blue bars are belong to… uh, sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, they’re all the same size (about 2 mm) and they’re always there. (MacOS X, Shiira at the moment, previously OmniWeb, and iCab before that) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/8 "2004-06-21T04:42:56Z")
In this thread alone, I count three different bar sizes, two posts with no bar at all between them, and no discernable order to the phenom. Win98se, IE6.something ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/9 "2004-06-21T16:36:52Z")
I’ve been wondering about the bars too. In this thread for me they’re all the same size. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/10 "2004-06-21T16:38:14Z")
Okay. So now they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/11 "2004-06-21T19:17:41Z")
So, if the bar bar of SDMB separates all posts that don’t separate themselves, does the missing echo of Opal’s burning duck end in gry? But seriously, this has come up before, and I seem to recall that the bar weirdness occurs iff you’re using Internet Explorer. It’s some sort of glitch in the way that IE turns the HTML into something it can see on the screen. When you scroll off the screen or select a bar, that reminds IE to take another look at it, whereupon it generally gets it right. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/12 "2004-06-21T19:43:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So, if the bar bar of SDMB separates all posts that don’t separate themselves, does the missing echo of Opal’s burning duck end in gry? No, but it does make the baby Jesus use his 1920’s style Death Ray so that when he come back, he bring pie. Hmmm … the Second Coming … pie … ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/13 "2004-06-21T21:04:05Z")
There are a number of effects this bug can produce. [post=4491811]My original post on this bug[/post] [thread=241060]A later thread[/thread] [thread=262202]A recent thread on this subject in GQ[/thread] ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/14 "2004-06-22T02:16:36Z")
WinME IE6.0.2800.1108 I see both thin and thicker lines. And, on rare occasion, when a page loads, the bars get set to 11. I mean, all I see are blue bars, with the printing over it. A refresh solves that problem. I’m not using a mouse wheel. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/15 "2004-06-22T02:53:30Z")
It definitely seems related directly to IE, as **Chronos** mentions. I noticed it back when I was using IE, but not in Firefox (my current browser) - that is, the borders are all uniform width in Firefox. **brachyrhynchos** , I haven’t heard of your specific problem before, but perhaps it has something to do with the known IE glitch combined with the known wonkiness of Me. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/16 "2004-06-22T03:24:20Z")
Heh, this is true. WinME can be “fussy.” I also can’t see font size differences. For some reason, I think this is a recent development (that is, after the board upgrade). For the record, my video card is an ATI XPERT with a wimpy 8MG RAM. I don’t have any of these problems on my work computer (WinXP, IE6). ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/17 "2004-06-22T10:38:16Z")
> [@brachyrhynchos](#): > > WinME IE6.0.2800.1108 > > I see both thin and thicker lines. And, on rare occasion, when a page loads, the bars get set to 11. I mean, all I see are blue bars, with the printing over it. A refresh solves that problem. I’m not using a mouse wheel. > > 😕 I very occasionally get that too. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/18 "2004-06-22T11:41:35Z")
D’oh! I solved my font problem. I have the “Ignore font size” box checked under Internet Tools, Accessibility options. I even told someone who was having this problem on these boards how to resolve it. :smack: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/19 "2004-07-14T23:29:09Z")
I have no idea if this is related. This solved a problem of text that didn’t display, but it could be forced to display after selecting it: [http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/archives/000075.html](http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/archives/000075.html) > [@](#): > > The problem is if you have a div floated over another, and only in IE 6. If the div that is floated over has a background-color, that background color will cover everything in that non-floated div until IE is forced to redraw the screen (such as by covering it with another window or selecting the invisible text). > > The solution is to take the background-color out. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bar-bars-between-posts/251343/20 "2004-07-16T12:59:27Z")
> [@some software wonk](#): > > If the div that is floated over has a background-color, that background color will cover everything in that non-floated div until IE is forced to redraw the screen Who says computer folk go overboard on jargon? :rolleyes: