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Designing Websites - What Browser to Code For? 182

Posted by Cliff from the when-monopolies-embrace-standards dept.
flyingember asks: "I code up PHP/CSS webpages and recently wondered about who to code for. We know that each browser supports CSS a little bit differently than the others, likening back to the Netscape/Internet Explorer HTML wars. Opera or Mozilla hacks are seen constantly across the net. Looking through two years worth of saved webalizer statistics, 95% of my visits came from IE and the rest from Mozilla, these are the teeming masses of the internet. Even the traffic to my site two years ago resulting from this article sent 50% IE users on Windows XP, and the total was 95% from IE. The numbers have only grown more IE 6-dominant since then. Given the overwhelming Internet Explorer user base, unless your webpage is specifically targeting The *nix or Mac crowd why code for anything except IE 6?" While each browser does support CSS, and even some HTML a bit differently, what functionality seem to be universal across all of the major modern players? Can you design a sharp looking website with such features, without resorting to browser-specific code? If so, how?
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Designing Websites - What Browser to Code For? More

Designing Websites - What Browser to Code For?

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  • Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wang33 ( 531044 ) * on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:06PM (#8244544) Homepage
    How about designing for the existing standards W3.org [w3.org] is a good place to start.

    Anybrowser.org [anybrowser.org] is another good one if you need convincing.

    Nothing irritates me more than having a webpage [msnbc.com] not display properly in opera when I have chosen to let opera identify itself as opera, but renders correctly when I tell opera to identify itself as IE6.

    This Quote probably sums it up best

    "Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."

    -Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996

    wang33

    • Half right... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:52PM (#8244740) Journal
      Code to standards but make sure that your code is happily displayed without any quirks in a range of browsers and on a range of platforms.

      Browsers you should be worried about (in no particular order, so don't start flaming me about ranking): MSIE, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape Navigator, Safari.

      Platforms you should be worried about: Windows, Linux, Mac.

      Of course, if you're intending your content to be viewed on the move, make sure you've got WAP/portable browser friendly pages too. Oh, and remember resolution: you might have a 1600 by 1200 desktop but the average web user doesn't. 800 by 600 is as high as you should design unless you want to alienate the majority of surfers.

      If the various combination of browsers and platforms scares you, don't worry. There are various apps out there (and websites) that will show you what your pages will look like in several browser/platform configurations. Someone more immediately familiar with them them than I am will surely (hint, hint) provide you with some useful URLs.

      • Re:Half right... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        800 by 600 is as high as you should design unless you want to alienate the majority of surfers.

        Similarly, don't code your web page using stuff like fixed widths so that it only looks good at 800x600. Nothing irritates me more than loading up a page and seeing a vast expanse of white or gray and a tiny, five-words-wide column of text because the designer assumed everyone uses 800x600 or less. It's perfectly possible to make a page look good at low and high resolutions.

      • There are various apps out there (and websites) that will show you what your pages will look like in several browser/platform configurations. Someone more immediately familiar with them them than I am will surely (hint, hint) provide you with some useful URLs.

        Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
        • browsersizer - http://www.applythis.com/browsersizer/

          Dreamweaver also has some guides built in.

          Or you can just change your resolution for a few minutes to check, or maybe get a old boat anchor POS PC to use to check low end stuff or other browsers.
      • Someone more immediately familiar with them them than I am will surely (hint, hint) provide you with some useful URLs.

        Browser Cam [browsercam.com] is one. US$39/month for unlimited use or US$10/hr.

    • Re:Umm... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by john_is_war ( 310751 )
      Whenever I see "This page is best viewed with..." I just think they hired a lazy web designer.

  • Mozilla "hacks"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by adamjaskie ( 310474 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:10PM (#8244556) Homepage

    I do not belive I have seen any of these "Mozilla hacks." Most of the "hacks" I have seen are for things that every browser except IE works properly with, such as the so-called "IE Box Model Hack" that I hear talked about a lot. Can you provide an example of one of these nessicary Mozilla hacks please?

    I have found that as long as you code to standards, and test your page a bit in different browsers, you should be able to code up a page that looks the same, or at least acceptable in all browsers. I suggest coding for Mozilla, as it is more standards compliant, then testing for IE, and applying the (very few) IE hacks that are nessicary to get it to look right. You would be suprised at how similarly they work, unless you are doing some very complex CSS.

    • Re:Mozilla "hacks"? (Score:4, Informative)

      by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:02AM (#8245866)
      Can you provide an example of one of these nessicary Mozilla hacks please?

      Try making a file input type for a form, and using CSS to set its width to 100%. It won't size properly under Firebird (I assume FireFox as well; the bug was still open last time I checked). If you want the box to look like it should you have to manually create two seperate controls, a textbox and a button, and use javascript to get the functionality working.
      • That's bug 132565. You'll need to type the bug number in here [mozilla.org], since bugzilla blocks direct slashdot links.

        The point to make is that this is a "known bug" and there's at least the intention to fix it (and, like any OSS project, you could fix it yourself and submit it). With IE's flawed box model, or Safari's sketchy table DOM, or Opera's non-existant XMLHttpRequest object, your only option is to wait.
    • CSS: -moz-border-radius

      http://lab.artlung.com/css/rounded-mozilla/

      It's perfectly harmless to IE, but it makes rounded borders a billion times easier in Mozilla.

      Note: There are still a few bugs. Try putting content in a rounded border when you don't have enough padding. You'll get square corners poking out of the rounded corners.
      • IIRC, many of the moz- things are CSS3 properties. Since CSS3 has not been finalized, though, they are just using moz- for them. IE has some much weirder stuff though. Some "filter" thing that I haven't looked much into.

  • why code for anything else? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tongue ( 30814 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:10PM (#8244559) Homepage
    As late as what, 1998? a web developer might have asked the same question about Netscape. It had such a large percentage of the market share that it was a pointless crusade to code for anything else.

    Look where it got them.

    There's also somethign about the question that's slightly reminiscent of the Y2K problem--I've said this myself on occasion, and know plenty of others who've echoed the sentiment: "Oh, i'll get around to updating that page long before another browser takes over." Yeah, right.

    Bottom-line: code to the standards. IE 6 is fairly decent about most of them, though not as good as the Lizard, so you're probably safe for the future as well that way.

  • Safari (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Michael.Forman ( 169981 ) * on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:25PM (#8244595) Homepage Journal

    I used to code for Mozilla due to its strong adherence to standards and support for transparency in PNGs. However, now that I've added an Apple G5 to my collection of Linux machines, I find myself developing my website [michael-forman.com] content exclusively for Safari. As long as it works perfectly in Safari, I'm satisfied.

    The sole reason is that Safari's output is immaculate. The output (specifically the fonts) is so perfectly rendered that the HTML almost looks like it is typeset in LaTeX. Thus, to answer your question, I recommend Safari over other browsers for the same reason I recommend LaTeX over word processors. It's one step up.

    Michael. [michael-forman.com]

    • Re:Safari (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It looks perfect because Safari uses KHTML, Konqueror's rendering engine (apple just 'borrowed' it). The only reason I use any other browser it to make sure my friends, all use IE (with the exception of few that I have gotten to use Mozilla).

      Also gotta love that spell check built into forms :-)
    • yeah, good idea... design for a browser that has some of the smallest market share... if it doesn't render right, it's the user's fault for not having the right browser... it renders prettiest in this browser, so use it!!!

      guhhh... I get so tired of mac fanboys
      (go ahead, what type of fanboy am I? ha... can't tell, can you?)

      • You are dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by danielsfca2 ( 696792 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:00AM (#8246874) Journal
        > (go ahead, what type of fanboy am I? ha... can't tell, can you?)

        You're not any type of fanboy. You're just dumb.

        His point was that he used to code for Mozilla, because Moz is very standards-compliant. Now he uses Safari to preview things in, since Safari/KHTML pretty much renders things just like Mozilla does (namely, according to standards)--that's why they made Safari User Agent string:
        Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/124 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125
        That's because it's so freaking much like Gecko (Mozilla) when it comes to rendering pages according to standards.

        He's not trying to cater to one browser--he's using standards-compliant browsers like the excellent Mozilla and Safari to make sure all browsers can render his pages. Just because MSIE has the best market share doesn't mean catering toward it would be a good idea.

        Audience that can view a site designed specifically for MSIE 6.0, assuming general public viewership: 95%
        Audience that can view a site designed specifically to follow standards: 100%

        See the benefit now?
        Show me a website that renders properly in Safari that doesn't render useably in MSIE, and I'll consider removing your dunce cap.

        ActiveX, VBScript...random BHO's and hijacking exploits. Oh, yeah. Let's use that browser as the gold standard.

        • Re:You are dumb. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by HokieJP ( 741860 )
          This is not insightful, it's name-calling and pejorative ranting.

          The OP said:
          >The sole reason is that Safari's output is immaculate.

          In your haste, you've imputed motives to him that were not in his post.

          The reply chastised him for using a browser that, while it may be standards compliant and render beautifully, is used by a small minority web users. The Quirks Mode [quirksmode.org] web site details bugs in the implementation of IE and most other browsers. The fact is that no one piece of software perfectly impl

        • You are 100% correct! While I wasn't clear in my original post, you said it better than I could have. First and foremost it is the standards compatibility followed by the high quality of its output.

          Michael [michael-forman.com].

  • PHP is a server side technology, remember? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:35PM (#8244624) Journal

    PHP is a server side technology; it doesn't matter WHICH browser you code to, because the PHP doesn't care. CSS, ok, CSS is different: but here's the problem with coding to IE6's CSS model: you don't know how it's going to change in the future. You have no idea how Microsoft is going to change its support of the CSS features whose behavior is peculiar in IE6. With W3C standards, at least you have a target that stays (relatively) still - the other browsers at least are all going to keep backward compatibility to the W3C recs.

    Unless you're doing a lot of weird CSS hacking, making a standards-based page look good in IE6 is a lot easier than making an IE6 page work in Safari or Mozilla.

    Now, if you said JAVASCRIPT, well, that would make more sense; the object models are significantly different between IE6 and Mozilla and Safari and Opera. There the smart thing is to write separate pages for both browsers and use those PHP programmer skills to serve up the right page for each.

    • Re:PHP is a server side technology, remember? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:30AM (#8246975)
      There the smart thing is to write separate pages for both browsers and use those PHP programmer skills to serve up the right page for each.
      This is NOT a smart thing to do. You will have 4 times as many files to create/maintain (for Mozilla, Safari, Opera, MSIE). The smart thing to do is have one page with a couple of condition statements to deal with any quirks.

  • getting real (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:42PM (#8244668)
    Okay, here's what you should do, IMO. Design for HTML 4.01 transitional. Or XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Use tables for layouts, and CSS for font specifications and a _few_ other things that are all commonly supported, _exactly the same_, on all major browsers. This is called "lowest common denominator." Don't use _anything_ that's not standard, mind you, but use that which is _correctly implemented_ from within the standards, and you'll be alright. When XHTML came out, browsers didn't stop supporting the older standards - they still work, and honestly, they work more reliably across the modern browsers than ANY of the newer standards. That's just the way it is until MS decides to actually FIX their LAME-ASS browser.

    Is it your job to push people into installing a decent browser? No.
    Would it work, even if you tried? Hell no!
    Is developing _ONLY_ for the latest standards going to magically make everyone who comes to your site, or even a reasonable percentage, _want_ to upgrade? Another hell no.

    You need to get real - the MS IE browser dominance is going to stick around a while (another few years, most likely), and by that time, hopefully Longhorn will be here, and will bring with it a browser that supports standards. One can only hope.

    So there ya go!

    Oh, another option: develop the whole site in Flash - pixel perfect on every browser that supports Flash! :)

    • Re:getting real (Score:2, Interesting)

      by simon13 ( 121780 )
      Oh, another option: develop the whole site in Flash - pixel perfect on every browser that supports Flash! :)

      Except for when you realise that some browsers allow transparent Flash backgrounds and others don't... And you have to mix object and embed tags to get Flash to display... And you need to watch out for different versions of the Flash player, often needing Javascript to do Flash detection.

      But yes, at least most movies *will* look the same across multiple browsers and platforms.

      Simon.
      • So don't try for a transparent background in Flash, go ahead and mix object & embed tags, and use JavaScript for flash detection.

        These problems are about a zillion times easier to work around than trying to code extensive css & javascript issues across browsers.

      • Re:getting real (Score:5, Informative)

        by sabNetwork ( 416076 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:03AM (#8245379)
        You're obviously not a web designer. Flash is a poor substitute for displaying content and a great method for displaying animations. Here's why:

        1.) You can't print Flash.
        Printing is mucho mucho mucho important, especially in the corporate world. How is someone going to put your product information on file if they can't save your website?
        2.) You can't (usually) copy text from Flash.
        Quoting is as important on the web as it is with printed text, with one important exception: no one will bother quoting you unless you can copy your text. Web users are laaazy.
        3.) Google can't see Flash.
        You want to market your website, right? A large portion of your traffic is going to come from search engines. If search engines can't read anything but a bunch of META keywords and a title, then your page isn't going to be very high on the list.
        4.) People can't link to subpages in Flash.
        How often do you see someone linking you to NYtimes.com when they are pointing you to a specific story? Well, okay, except for slashdot :-). It's possible to do branch pages in Flash, but it's a waste of bandwidth and slow.
        5.) People don't care about your Flash intros.
        Most Flash pages are coupled with flashy animations that prelude the actual content. Who cares to sit and watch all this crap when you're looking for one specific piece of information? Even if you can skip the long intro, you still have to deal with the transitions.

        The list could go on. Flash was never intended to be used for content sites, and is NOT a substitute for HTML/XHTML and CSS/JS.
        --
        • You obviously missed my smiley face at the end of that sentence.

        • Re:getting real (Score:2, Insightful)

          by fean ( 212516 )
          wow... hmm... the grand-grand-parent poster was obviously sarcasic, but seriously... lets take apart your arguements one by one...

          1) yes, you CAN print flash... in fact, flash allows for you to design a seperate page specifically for when people print... thus you can even precisely control how things print..

          2) not being able to copy from flash is a fault of the designers, not flash... there's one little button designers have to check to make their text editable...

          3) anyone designing the page in only flas
          • Your last point sums it up - "when in the hands of a competant programmer". I think that explains why flash has such a bad rap.
            I personally won't use a flash website because it's so rare that it is done right.

          • if I design a flash interface that can pull information and display it in itself without reloading the page, that means no waiting for ANY excess code, only content, plus the page doesn't blink to another page... what could be better for the user experience?

            How about the ability to use my normal keyboard navigation shortcuts without flash intercepting them and generally pissing me off? How about being able to use the forward/back buttons as I can with any other page on the web? How about being able to res

    • Re:getting real (Score:3, Informative)

      by jdkincad ( 576359 )
      Oh, another option: develop the whole site in Flash - pixel perfect on every browser that supports Flash! :)

      Yeah, the visually impaired probably didn't want to be able to use your site anyway.
    • Exactly. Although slice-and-dice table layouts are shunned by the XHTML elitists such as Zeldman, they are still the best way to go for many small sites.

      So, HTML for layout (tables and images), and CSS for fonts and type positioning. Most browsers will get it right. If you want a good WYSIWYG tool, check out Adobe GoLive. It's table layout engine makes it easy to generate flawless code that works in every browser.
      --
    • Oh, another option: develop the whole site in Flash - pixel perfect on every browser that supports Flash! :)

      Yes, you too can have a website rendered unreadable to anyone not running the same screen resolution as you !

      • It's vector based so it scales perfectly, fonts and all. All you have to do is plan for some dipshit running 640x480.
        • It's vector based so it scales perfectly, fonts and all. All you have to do is plan for some dipshit running 640x480.

          Then why doesn't anyone write their Flash web pages using this technology ?

  • mezzoblue has good advice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GeorgeH ( 5469 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:50PM (#8244714) Homepage Journal
    From mezzoblue's css crib sheet [mezzoblue.com]:
    Build and test your CSS in the most advanced browser available before testing in others, not after.
    If you build a site testing in a broken browser, your code begins relying on the broken rendering of that browser. When it comes time to test in a more standards-compliant browser, you will be frustrated when that browser renders it improperly. Instead, start from perfection and then hack for the less able browsers. Your code will be more standards-compliant from the start, and you won't have to hack as much to support other browsers. Today, this means Mozilla, Safari, or Opera.

    The fact of the matter is that you will need to do browser workarounds, even if you only design for IE. The IE 5 box model is wrong and there are a lot of people using that browser. So just get the standard right and then go back and compensate for broken browsers.

    And yes, I know that I'm not stnading on very solid ground with the way SongBuddy looks in IE. I'm more interested in getting the features going than in supporting a browser I haven't used in quite some time.

    • Yeah, that's good advice! Mod parent up.

      As I just posted, I design in Opera and then perform fixes for IE. Mozilla usually renders very close to Opera.
    • Hear, hear.

      Recently, the internal web application I built I built exclusively for Mozilla, then I tweaked the CSS and some tables and some images to make it work in both Mozilla and IE. The end result is clean and flawless, using mostly divs and tables only for tabular data. (Hint: "float: right" does wonders! But both browsers have problems if it's taller than the content that is to the left.)
  • I design for Opera (just cos that's what I use and it's pretty standards compliant) and then perform any necessary fixes to get IE to work, which isn't usually too much hard work. It usually looks fine in Mozilla as is.

    But yeah I agree about the whole frustration of the thing. Darn IE's box model and font sizes...

  • Use Valid HTML (Score:4, Insightful)

    by a.koepke ( 688359 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:51PM (#8244726)
    If you want to make sure your page looks the same in each browser use valid HTML. It is when you start doing things that are not valid and incorrectly nesting tags that things go wrong.

    Decide which standard to code your page in (HTML 4.01 Transitional or XHTML 1.0 Transitional are good), put the right doctype on the page and then code according to the standard. Check your page using the W3C validator and fix any errors. Check your CSS document for errors too.

    I do not use CSS for layouts since they never render the same in each browser, I still use tables. Just us CSS for fonts, sizes and general formatting that is accepted by all browsers.

  • Keep it simple (Score:3, Informative)

    by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `cificap_4k'> on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:57PM (#8244773) Homepage Journal
    I would suggest designing for the minimum browser, as many people may be connecting using modems, carrier pigeons [ietf.org], or other low bandwidth connections. The FSF homepage [gnu.org] is a good example.

  • Some recommendations (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alpha27 ( 211269 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @10:58PM (#8244781)
    Code to the standards, but also look at your target audience and the nature of the site....

    If you are coding for general site that will attract all kinds of people, code for software that will be up to 12-18 months old. The reason is that it takes a majority of users to catch up to the latest versions and 18 months is the usual timeframe it takes for users. Can you use just CSS for all things, no. CSS-P (for positioning) still isn't exact on all browsers who can do it, so you do run into a few issues here, so a few tables might be necessary to get the desired affect. Should you compensate for all users? That depends on who the site is for. If it's public access/govt site then more acceptance is needed, if it's just a particular niche, then you can get away with being more selective.

    If you are coding for an intranet, the answer might be easier to find. Large companies usually set a browser standard so you can code for a particular browser, if you absolutely need to. So for example, if a company standardizes on IE 6, then you can take advantage of all the particulars of that browser.

    Now, to put it into more perspective, what's the percentage of users who might be in the odd-ball category... about 5%. Should you care about supporting them, depends on your willingness and cost of doing so.

  • simple (Score:2, Insightful)

    by n.o.d.y.n.e ( 747945 )
    ever thought about about designing to them all? No brainer really.

  • Ack! Work to standards, not browsers (Score:5, Informative)

    by legLess ( 127550 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:05PM (#8244861) Journal
    Why code for anything other than IE6? Because you care about the future. From now until the end of time, users accessing your web site from standard desktop machines will be a smaller and smaller part of your audience. What if you make an IE-only design and want to retool later for PDAs? If you've done it the right way your life will be easier.

    If you write to IE6 then your markup will be hosed as soon as Microsoft updates. They have a history of changing rendering even in minor updates, and IE7 will certainly be different. Want to retool your entire site when IE7 comes out? Do you really want to play whack-a-mole with Microsoft?

    What if you do ever want to make a site that's aimed at Mac or *nix users? You'll be screwed since you only know how to write for IE. If you write to standards, you have a known good base knowledge.

    Here's another reason: writing to the standards is easier. They're published, and several good validators exist. You'll need to do very little to get a standards-compliant site to do what you want in IE. Also, any in-depth CSS design help you're likely to find online is targeted to the standards, not how they're broken by $proprietary_corp.

    In practice, here's my advice:
    • Make your markup as clean and semantic as possible. Avoid all presentation (font tags and the like); put distinct sections in div tags with ids; use the markup the way it was designed.
    • Do a first style pass in your browser of choice. I use Safari. It's not the most standards-compliant, but it's easy for me to use. Every browser has quirks, but that's the next step.
    • Preview in Mozilla, Opera, IE, Safari and Konqueror. Most of these can be had for any platform. IE is hard on Mac, but I use Virtual PC. Safari is hard if you're on Windows, but you can use Konqeror, which is similar.
    Ignore Netscape 4 entirely. It's a broken piece of shit, always has been, and getting something to look good in it is a total waste of time. By ignore it I mean import your styles:
    @import "style.css";
    If you're desperate, make a simple style sheet using no tricks or positioning and link that, then have your fancier imported style sheet override it.

    Visit CSS Zen Garden [csszengarden.com] for inspiration; ALA [alistapart.com] and the WASP [webstandards.org] for information.

    Use the standards. It's better for you in the future, more flexible, better for your users, and just plain easier.

  • Simple, isnt' it? (Score:2, Informative)

    by emmetropia ( 527623 )
    If you're using PHP, the issue can be easily solved. I started doing this lately with some of my own work. I design a site, write all the CSS for Mozilla/Netscape, and make sure it all works. Then I make clone of the stylesheet, and customize it to Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5. After I have both, sometimes there's another one for Opera and Safari, if you're feelin craaaazy, I write a simple script to parse what browser they're using from the HTTP_USER_AGENT and import the correct stylesheet. It elimi
  • I develope all my pages in Mozilla first, one because that's the browser I use all day, two because it has the best css support. Third is beacuse it comes with tools that allow me to diagnose a page much better than anything from MS. The DOM inspector, JavaScript Console, and the JavaScript Debugger are indispensible when building any kind of DHTML site that relies on CSS for display. After I bulid the site in Mozilla I make some corrections for IE and that's pretty much it. I don't bother with testing on Opera or Safari because it's just not worth the time for the few people that come to my site and use those browsers. So, that's my $.02 with about 10 years of development and real-world experience.
    • I concur on that.

      moz first, then tweak for IE 6.
      That way, one html base, on css.

      By the way, I do xhtml 1.1 strict, no tables.

      Arguably the sites aren't eye candy, but google, linx and modem users love them. Plus, everyone in the corporate world has a modern browser, and that's my target audience.

      Also, use templating with asp or php. It saves a bunch of time.

      • By the way, I do xhtml 1.1 strict, no tables.

        Then either you're serving your pages with the wrong MIME type, or they can't be seen in IE at all.

        You're not supposed to serve XHTML 1.1 as text/html: you should use application/xhtml+xml. See the W3C's XHTML Media Types [w3.org]. If you're labelling your XHTML 1.1 as text/html, then your browser isn't treating it as XML (note that Mozilla is using Quirks mode, for instance).

        Snag is, Internet Exploder (to IE6SP1) doesn't know what to do with application/xhtm

        • I appreciate your taking the time to point out the thing about the mime type.

          However, since it is a hosted site, how can I control the mime type except by changing the extension? For example, I use .html, and all is well.
          If I use .xml, then IE goes bezerk, whereas moz does fine.

          Oh well, more fine tuning ont he way.

          Thanks for the two referenced sites, i'll check them out.
  • That way you can pop up a ECMAScript alert:

    "Your browser does not fully support the current web page standards (links here) and it may cause trouble on this or any other website. You can obtain one of the following browsers to fully enjoy pages everywhere, or continue with your current one (more links here). Thank you."

    Make sure to pop it up on the main page only, and preferrably track it with a cookie. No-one wants to see it every time.
    • And if a site does this, I'll hit the back button, go back to my search results and move on to the next page. Its not that difficult to code for various browsers AND stick to the standards, without detecting which browser everyone is using.
  • Build and test your CSS in the most advanced browser available before testing in others, not after.
    If you build a site testing in a broken browser, your code begins relying on the broken rendering of that browser. When it comes time to test in a more standards-compliant browser, you will be frustrated when that browser renders it improperly. Instead, start from perfection and then hack for the less able browsers. Your code will be more standards-compliant from the start, and you won't have to hack as mu

  • standards not browsers. (Score:5, Informative)

    by nazh ( 604234 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:40PM (#8245188) Homepage Journal

    Code after the standards not browsers, try to make the code as semantic [webaim.org] as and always use a proper doctype, i usually recommend a sctrict-dtd.

    but when choosing a doctype, you choose you should choose one that triggers the standard compliance rendering mode in the diffrent browsers. see here for a list http://www.hut.fi/~hsivonen/doctype.html [www.hut.fi]

    Quirksmode.org [quirksmode.org] is a nice place to check out which javascript and css properties that is supported in the diffrent browsers. this css overview has been very helpfull http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html [quirksmode.org]

    • apart from spellchecking i forgot to paste this link Welcome to The HTML Hell Page. [catb.org]
      for what you should not do ;)

    • i usually recommend a sctrict-dtd.

      I moved my site back to Transitional when I found a bug in the W3C's Strict DTDs, namely that the value attribute of the li element was removed on a mistaken notion that value was presentational rather than semantic. Thus, HTML 4 Strict and XHTML 1 Strict make it impossible to start a list anywhere other than 1, a, or i. No, "use CSS instead" is not an option because the list will start on the wrong number in UAs such as Lynx that don't support CSS in general or that pa

  • Standards, plus an additional comment about "95%" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:52PM (#8245290)

    Several people here have already said "code to standards, not to a specific browser," a comment with which I agree completely.

    But I also want to add this. Many people with whom I've had this conversation reply with "yeah, but I like the MS-specific extensions; and given that IE users comprise 95% of the visitors to the site I'm working on, why not use them?" This response has always amazed me, and I wonder if it works with the executives at the firms for whom they design sites: "We're gonna deny access to 5% of your potential customers, and thus cut your web-generated revenues by 5%; but your site will have this cool funky-looking formatting! OK?" More likely, they don't tell the web design customer that they're throwing away 5% of their revenues.

    For lots of companies, 5% of revenues is the difference between profitable and not.

  • I'm part of a team of people coding a corporate website. I use Mozilla, everyone else uses IE. As a consequence our site works very well in both browsers. Simple.
    • And it's oh so fun as well... I did that on the last site I worked on, and got sick of tweaking designs instead of writing code.

      This time round the coding standards include designing for Mozilla, and then adding any hacks needed to get things right in IE once we're done doing that.
      • This time round the coding standards include designing for Mozilla, and then adding any hacks needed to get things right in IE once we're done doing that.
        That's how I do my pages. Fortunately I've vetoed any browser-detection code, so everything's fairly standard -- just every so often the other coders make a mistake that IE fixes and Mozilla doesn't.
        • Fortunately I've vetoed any browser-detection code

          Good call :P

          I regularly threaten my designers (ok... the designers, but I think of them as mine, since they all rely on my code :P) for suggesting browser detection as the solution to *anything*.

  • Here's the deal. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bitsy Boffin ( 110334 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:53PM (#8245298) Homepage
    Pretty much any recent browser EXCEPT Internet Explorer in any of it's incarnations does CSS sufficiently well, bugless and standard like that you can expect things to more or less work the intended way in any of them - with the notable exception of overflow:scroll or overflow:auto in KHTML (Konq, Safari, maybe it's been added recently though?).

    IE is a whole different ball game. In IE there are 3 big problems...

    * First is no PNG-alpha support without ugly (and not brilliant as they will break things like links over the top of them) hacks.

    * The second is floating, that is, using float:left, and especially float:right - this is simply broken on so many levels, depending on what you are floating where, all sorts of things can happen, from losing all your left margins, losing background colours, losing forground text, losing borders, getting extra space, getting less space. This has got to be the most infuriating problem ever, at least you can work around the PNG issue, but this, forget it - you'll never get it right. Many a time I have made a layout, all fluid for browser size and conforming to standards, degrades brilliantly, only to have a look in IE and find it completely torn to shreds because it decided that a float:right somewhere is far to complicated for it to handle.

    * The third is the box-model, althugh it has to be said, I don't really care most of the time if IE displays a box a couple pixels bigger or smaller.

    There are many other smaller issues in IE that you'll come across when writing good standards compliant CSS that will take you ages to figure out.

    To top it all of, Microsoft doesn't give a sh*t about any of these problems, as far as they are concerned IE does everything it's supposed to, so what if it has bugs people will work around them, because hey, we're Microsoft.

    The long and the short of it is, and I hate to say it, you have to develop using IE as your base-reference because it is the lowest-common-denominator, what you do in IE will work fine in the other browsers, but IE simply can't handle the stuff the other browsers can do.

    I'm waiting for the day that Mozilla comes up with some whizzy bang dohickey for the browsing world that everybody wants - bring back the browser wars ! At least IE might get some much needed patching then.

    • is that you need to put display: inline in the CSS. Of course display: inline makes no sense at all for a float, so sane browsers simply ignore it. When IE sees it, the annoying margin/spacing bug is turned off.

  • What browser? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:54PM (#8245306) Homepage Journal
    What specific browser to code for? Well, since you can't possibly code for all of them, code for NONE of them! I hate going into a store that has a sign saying "whites only", so why should I put up with the equivalent on the web?

    If you can put in stuff for one browser and still have it look good on the others, then do it. At the minimum, the site should be fully functional and not ugly under any browser. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it should be navigable without damaging the users' eyes. If you start querying what browser the client is using, you're heading down the wrong path.

    But you still have to test on all of them. At least IE, Mozilla/Netscape, Safari/Konqueror, and Opera, at the minimum.

  • Dynamic HTML book (Score:3, Informative)

    by alonsoac ( 180192 ) * on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:09AM (#8245423) Homepage Journal
    I bought this great book which explains all about CSS and javascript and the differences between browsers. I keep it near me always.

    Dynamic HTML, The Definitive Reference [amazon.com]

    There are some reader reviews in there so I won't go into detail, check it out and see if that's what you need.
  • Code to the standards. Absolutely. Without Fail. Yes, IE (Windows) is a gawd-awful abomination when it comes to supporting CSS standards. Not that M$ can't do better - that's shown by IE on Mac. Mozilla has some warts, too, but recent versions are far more compliant than IE.

    Sure it's a bit of work (read that as "being a professional") but you can make cross-platform standards-compliant web sites.

    Failing to adhere to standards will bite you in the a**. Just look at what happened to those who assumed (thoug
  • The CSS functionality that works the same between the various recent browsers is sufficient to code up good, modern looking websites. There is no need to code in browser dependencies.

    While each browser does support CSS, and even some HTML a bit differently, what functionality seem to be universal across all of the major modern players? Can you design a sharp looking website with such features, without resorting to browser-specific code? If so, how?

    You read the W3 specs and code to them. Then, you test

  • Why code for anything other than IE6? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:45AM (#8245713)
    I think someone doesn't understand what HTML is for. The purpose of writing web pages is not to code for a specific browser, it's to code standards compliant so all browsers (that are also standards compliant) can use it. I don't see any reason why any proprietary extension to HTML should be used on any page.
  • In order of priority (sure flame away)

    1) Latest IE/Latest Mozilla Balance on Windows (needs to be 50% viewable on latest IE and 50% viewable on Mozilla reasonably compromised so right now, IE 6/Windows and Mozilla 1.6/Windows)
    2) One version back of above browsers (IE 5/Windows and Netscape 6/Windows, the Mozillas all render close to the same anyways)
    3) Safari (latest version)
    4) IE/Mac (latest version)
    5) Mozilla/Mac (latest version)

    Beyond that, well I just can't please everyone

    • But for 2 down, you'll need at least two more computers, one PC (possibly $500 new) to install another Windows instance (each Windows instance seems to allow only one IE version to be installed into it) and one Mac (at least $800 new) to run three Mac based web browsers. If you can get a company to pay for it, that's great, but not everybody has that luxury.

  • Oh, God, please lend him some brains! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr. Piddle ( 567882 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:07AM (#8245894)
    ...unless your webpage is specifically targeting The *nix or Mac crowd why code for anything except IE 6?

    This again? Geezus, why is it that in the computer business that history is doomed to repeat itself every freakin' six months?!? You know, I used to work for a company with an all IE all the time policy. First, even they couldn't do it right, then! They fell into the trap of using all sorts of nifty IE scripting novelties, and, guess what, it sucked! Even worse, it wasn't uncommon for people in the company to need to access websites from a Sun workstation, for example, only to be left cussing from here to the moon.

    DON'T CODE ONLY FOR IE, EVER!!!
  • Sorry guys, but as guerilla as it sounds, we're at war with the Corporate "pushers". My website "works" on IE; but nothing more [than just work]. However, visitors that have recent/compliant browsers get a much better experience (alpha PNG transparency, etc.). It's evolution. It gives people a _reason_ to upgrade to Mozilla/Opera/whatever_is_standards_compliant.

    I design my sites to offer the users with most compliant browsers the best/most beautiful experiences. Since I control how my content is deliv
    • My server detects your browser and if it's IE (a KNOWN-non-compliant-pig), I delay the delivery of the content. By doing so, I can provide more server power to the visitors that are using standards-compliant browsers. This might seem trivial, but until you've svelt the slashdot effect firsthand, you probably can't really understand the power of your webserver.

      Uh, let's see if that'll help during a slashdot attack...

      Server stat during slashdotting:
      1264 TCP Connections open waiting on a server side sc
      • I don't know if sleep() is implemented in JavaScript but if it is, moving this conditional statement to JS wouldn't affect the server at all, plus you'll get the perverse pleasure of knowing that their own browsers are working against them.
  • I don't know about Mozilla Hacks... The only time I've ever seen any sort of hack has been to screw around with CSS so that IE displays things properly... Never for Mozilla.

    Having said that, I am in the process of recoding my site to be completely CSS/XHTML 1.0 Transitional instead of coding it to be for any browser. So I guess that means I suggest you code your pages to the W3.org standards. its the only way to be sure that the browser makers get the point.

    I don't like the idea that Opera promotes of all

  • Browser support in 2004 (Score:3, Informative)

    by darkpurpleblob ( 180550 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:18AM (#8246580)
    Mezzoblue has a post [mezzoblue.com] that pretty much answers this question perfectly. Dave Shea outlines which pre-installed and downloadable browsers your website should be supporting.

  • 5% is a lot (Score:4, Informative)

    by jilles ( 20976 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:58AM (#8246693) Homepage
    Very few commercial sites can afford not to support 5% of their users. If you can afford to do so, your site is not important.

    I'm working for a company that has to support mozilla in its web based systems because customers demand it. Right now that is giving us trouble because a few years ago we thought like you (i.e. it is our own fault that we are having some maintenance overhead now).

  • Best first (Score:2, Informative)

    by eric.t.f.bat ( 102290 )
    Code for the best first, then add hacks for the rest. That means: get the site looking perfect in the latest version of Mozilla, then add in all the necessary hacks to make it perfect in IE6/Win. After that, you can (if you wish) get it looking good in IE5 on Win and Mac, and if you're a masochist try to make it work in NN4 and IE4. If you use a couple of CSS filters (notably the * html hack and the underscore hack) you can pass commands to IE only, and the various @import and <link> commands will

  • Misleading statistics. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bazzargh ( 39195 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:55AM (#8247036)
    Just to repeat what everyone else says first: its very important to design to standards. Its the only way to be sure that things will continue to work.

    But a second point: many browser statistics are misleading. As well as it being easier for non-IE users to block webbugs and fake user-agent strings, sites that are designed for IE only suck in other browsers, and arent 'sticky' for non IE users. Non IE users will be consistently under-reported on many sites as a consequence.

    So, if there are 10% of users using non-IE, and you are only getting half of them, should you care? Well, yes. Non-IE users are more likely to be technically savvy - they've got as far as changing their browser!.. and are thus more likely to be educated, employed and able to pay for stuff (especially small shiny expensive stuff). So you lost 50% of one of the best market sectors, while keeping 100% of the deadbeats. Nice move.

    Knowing your market sector is more important than knowing what your browser shares have been. E.g. we work in on sites which are largely browsed by architects, and guess what - they largely use Macs. But we didn't get them until we spent time making the site Mac friendly.

    -Baz

  • Standards, standards, standards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evalhalla ( 581819 ) * <`moc.liamg' `ta' `allahlav.anele'> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @06:09AM (#8247068) Homepage Journal

    As lots of people have said, dont' code for specific browsers, code for standards. HTML is meant to be rendered in different ways on different medias, so try to take advantage from this, not to go against it (and lose).

    When you code try to code html (and php, of course) first, and have it look "readable" in the plain old ugly(?) way, so that everybody will be able to get the informations you're giving. Of course you'll have to think about the future css presentation, by adding classes, etc. but don't add anything visual at this stage. Do not use tables for layout, as they can give a good result on most visual browser, but only do damage when using anything else, or a visual browser in a small window, etc.

    Then you can choose to develop css for a good standard compliant browser such as mozilla or safari, and then fix minor quirks for the most used browser (aka explorer), or if you are tight on time you can try to develop standard css for explorer and test it on standard compliant browser only to check that you're not bringing havoc on them.

    When I'm using a browser that is not mainstream I don't care if something that should take all of my window width only takes 98%, or if there are minimal quirks in the layout, maybe small empty spaces (an em or two) where there shouldn't be any, or similar stuff, as long as I can clearly see the contents; I know it is an issue of browser compatibility and I accept it, people who don't know about it usually use explorer anyway, so it less of an issue.

  • I won't repeat the mantra "code for standards, not for browser", that horn has been tooted enough already. But here's why I think it's true.

    If you stick to the standards, and if you try to create a page that looks decent no matter which browser or platform you use, chances are the page will also work - somehow - on a mobile device. Opera is available for the P800/900, there's the PocketIE and there are several HTML browser for PalmOS devices. They do a good job, and if you stick to the standards, you won
  • Just read it.

    Don't feed the trolls, but briefly, the answer is write it in (X)HTML (and CSS for a range of UA types -- visual, aural &c) -- if you really want lots of people to access it make sure it is still in valid (X)HTML but also is rendered reasonably in a few common randomly-chosen UA's or rendering engines (preferably at different sizes and with different default CSS) -- e.g.: Gecko, KHTML, MSHTML, Lynx, w3m, Opera.

    If you want the latest features of (X)HTML on your page and certain non-forward

  • You're asking a community who largely use Mozilla, here - what are you expecting as an answer?

    More to the point: I'm currently working on a community council website which legally HAS to comply to W3C standards, and they've insisted on CSS for layout. Whilst it has taken me a week to write CSS that works on every major browser currently in use (IE6, IE5 mac&pc, Mozilla, Safari, Konqueror, Opera etc), I have finally got there.

    It seems like an odd sort of question - the subject of the number of users

  • My own experiences. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @09:31AM (#8247797) Journal
    As much as I am a penquin lover and a unix freak if you design a webpage it should almost certainly display and work properly in IE. The only exception is sites specifically showing why IE is such an obsolete piece of crap. Say a site showing how nice proper PNG support is.

    Does that mean your site should only work on IE or use IE specific elements? Well consider this. How many years ago was it when netscape rules the browser market? Not that long ago right? Are you prepared to completly rebuild your site if and when IE looses top place? And don't go that will never happen, when the first IE was out people also said it would never beat netscape.

    There is also something else to consider. Opera may have a tiny share of the desktop browser market but it rules supreme on the phones. Worse if you code for IE desktop then you are in for a horrible suprise when someone tries to access your sites with IE for mobile phones. At least the version I worked with didn't support CSS at all.

    So the answer? Make sure your site looks and works properly on IE and make sure it works and looks okay on everything else. Yes that does mean opera AND mozilla AND lynx/links.

    If you want to know why ask yourselve this. If you build a brick and mortar shop would you put in a door that kicks out even 1% of your potential customers? No? Then why do it with your website?

    Displaying a page telling people to "update" to browser X is also a terrible crime. Imagine if you went to a gas station and they told you to buy a new car. You would pissed off. Especially if you drive a motorcycle.

  • Eric Raymond took this up YEARS ago. Just stick to standards. If you can't do it with the standards, don't do it.

  • Only one browser matters! (Score:3, Funny)

    by stinkydog ( 191778 ) <sd@stCOWrangedog.net minus herbivore> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @10:06AM (#8248105) Homepage
    Code every thing to render in Lynx! You kids and your fancy [blink] tags don't know how good you have it. Back in the day we did not have "pop ups" and "flash". A couple of tags and some actual content was all we had to design pages with. The web went down the toilet when they introduced Mosiac.

    Seriously, however you format your pages, always fire up Lynx and check your work, a text reader usually sees the web as Lynx does.

    SD

  • Code to the standards [w3.org], and make sure your clients realize that even though "everybody" uses IE, it is a relic, essentially unchanged since version 5.0, released in March 1999. More importantly, IE still has poor support for W3C recommendations that existed for years prior to version 5.0. These things make sites harder to implement, take longer, and therefore will cost more. Your clients will understand that.

    Evangelize standards [mozilla.org] compliant [opera.com] browsers [apple.com], both for your clients and for the users on their sites.

  • Turning the question around (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spaceyhackerlady ( 462530 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:41PM (#8250424)

    My response to you: do you want people to access the information on your web pages?

    If the answer is "Yes", then you must take care to make sure that people can, that there are no impediments to people doing so. You must stick to standards, and>you have to test it. I've seen too many web sites that were only "tested" with some version of IE and fell flat on their face with Mozilla or Opera.

    If the answer is "No", then go home.

    My usual baseline is that web pages that look right in Opera will look right in anything. Usability in Lynx is a plus. I'm still unsure if Flash is a disease or a crime.

    ...laura

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