xbolt

Ok, so I'm trying to revamp my website to be W3C standards-compliant.

Here's what I have currently: http://www.xboltz.net/index-new2.html

I have a sidebar in a separate HTML document, that I bring in with an object tag, in order to make it easier to add new pages since I don't have to change every other page to add a link.

I thought that by setting the object height at 100%, it would scale according to the height of what was inside the box, but it scales to the browser window instead. At 1024x768 and with all three collapsible elements open, a scrollbar appears in the object. Is there a way to make it so the whole page can be lengthened according to what's inside the box?

And another thing that's really more important; the links do not work in IE. I tried 7 and 8, and the links all open inside the object, as opposed to the full window. It does that with both target="_parent" and target="_top". The links work in Firefox just fine.

MattBrox

Instead of using the object tag I recommend using SSI (server side includes) to include things like footers / side bars.
But since you're using <object> you might as well try this:

Get the ID of the sidebar in your CSS and set a min-height:; in pixels. This will give the box a set height, and also the ability to re-size.

I don't work with the object tag so I'm not too sure it it'll work.