Designing Websites - What Browser to Code For? 182
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?
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 1996wang33
Half right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Half right... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Half right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Half right... (Score:2)
Re:Half right... (Score:2)
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Re:Half right... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Half right... (Score:2)
Browser Cam [browsercam.com] is one. US$39/month for unlimited use or US$10/hr.
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mozilla "hacks"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Mozilla "hacks"? (Score:2)
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.
Rounded borders (Score:2)
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.
Re:Rounded borders (Score:2)
Re:Mozilla "hacks"? (Score:2)
As one should expect from any program still marked beta, development, unstable and the like. (NN6 does not count as "stable" because of the high number, as it was called so by marketing, not developers)
why code for anything else? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:why code for anything else? (Score:2)
You'd be surprised at the number of people who still think NN4.5 is the latest version of "netscape" as well.
Safari (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Also gotta love that spell check built into forms
Re:Safari (Score:2)
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)
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: 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)
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
Re:You are dumb. (Score:2)
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].
Re:You are dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
Did I attribute motives which were not stated explicitly? Yes.
Was I right? Yes.
Does it bug you? Obviously.
Re:You are dumb. (Score:2, Interesting)
PHP is a server side technology, remember? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
getting real (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:getting real (Score:2)
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)
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
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.
--
Re:getting real (Score:2)
Re:getting real (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:getting real (Score:2)
I personally won't use a flash website because it's so rare that it is done right.
Re:getting real (Score:2)
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)
Yeah, the visually impaired probably didn't want to be able to use your site anyway.
Re:getting real (Score:3, Insightful)
That is basically the whole point of the web: The user can choose her own browser and it renders it to fit the platform and ability of the user, because no designer knows these things.
Unless you can understand the abstract DOM tree which is the real representation of html you are very much disabled and need a renderer/compiler which transforms it in to a presentation which you can enjoy. Some like the visual, alpha-blending, anti-ali
Re:getting real (Score:2)
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.
--
Re:getting real (Score:5, Informative)
Zeldman is certainly not a table-shunning XHTML-elitist. He is very pragmatic in that regard and, for now, recommends a 'transitional' technique with light use of tables for page layouts for cross-browser compatibility.
See his excellent book Designig with web standards [zeldman.com].
JP
Re:getting real (Score:2)
Re:getting real (Score:2)
Yes, you too can have a website rendered unreadable to anyone not running the same screen resolution as you !
Re:getting real (Score:2)
Re:getting real (Score:2)
Then why doesn't anyone write their Flash web pages using this technology ?
Re:getting real (Score:2)
It's not rocket science. You just need a good Flash developer that thinks Globally instead of only focusing on his desktop (or grandma's).
mezzoblue has good advice (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:mezzoblue has good advice (Score:1)
As I just posted, I design in Opera and then perform fixes for IE. Mozilla usually renders very close to Opera.
Re:mezzoblue has good advice (Score:2)
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.)
Design for Opera (Score:1)
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)
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)
Some recommendations (Score:4, Informative)
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)
Ack! Work to standards, not browsers (Score:5, Informative)
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:
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.
Re:Ack! Work to standards, not browsers (Score:3, Informative)
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "res/css/base.css";</style>
Simple, isnt' it? (Score:2, Informative)
Mozilla has the tools to help create good pages (Score:3)
Re:Mozilla has the tools to help create good pages (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Mozilla has the tools to help create good pages (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Mozilla has the tools to help create good pages (Score:2)
However, since it is a hosted site, how can I control the mime type except by changing the extension? For example, I use
If I use
Oh well, more fine tuning ont he way.
Thanks for the two referenced sites, i'll check them out.
Two words: Browser Detection (Score:1)
"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.
Re:Two words: Browser Detection (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got it a bit backwards... (Score:1)
standards not browsers. (Score:5, Informative)
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]
Re:standards not browsers. (Score:1)
for what you should not do
Bug: Strict lacks <li value="..."> (Score:2)
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)
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.
Code for IE and Mozilla, easy. (Score:2)
Re:Code for IE and Mozilla, easy. (Score:2)
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.
Re:Code for IE and Mozilla, easy. (Score:2)
Re:Code for IE and Mozilla, easy. (Score:2)
Good call
I regularly threaten my designers (ok... the designers, but I think of them as mine, since they all rely on my code
Re:Code for IE and Mozilla, easy. (Score:2)
Here's the deal. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
The trick with floats in IE (Score:2)
What browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:What browser? (Score:2)
Are your HTML skills so utterly lacking that you can't even write compliant markup? You're not going to get your site looking absolutely identical on every browser, so don't even try. But you can easily determine the subset of HTML/CSS that is fully supported under all major browsers, and code to that.
Dynamic HTML book (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Standards, Standards, Standards (Score:2)
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
neither (Score:2)
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)
My way... (Score:2)
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 I don't have a Mac, you insensitive clod! (Score:2)
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)
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!!!
This is [browser] war... (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:This is [browser] war... (Score:3)
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
Re:This is [browser] war... (Score:2)
Never Code For A Browser, Use w3.org Standards (Score:2)
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)
5% is a lot (Score:4, Informative)
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)
Misleading statistics. (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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.
Mobile devices (Score:2)
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
Mod Story -1 Troll (Score:2)
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
What answer are you expcting, exactly? (Score:2)
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)
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 (Score:2)
Only one browser matters! (Score:3, Funny)
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
Invest in working more efficiently (Score:2)
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)
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