Which browsers should I code for?

[richiebman]

Hello all.

I've been doing a website and have got to the testing it in other browsers stage. Was nicely surprised that it displayed perfectly in IE 5, 5.5, 6.0, Mozilla, Opera and Netscape 7.1 after about 10 minutes of tweaking. But Netscape 6.0 and 6.2 are throwing up really irratic behaviour things that has already taken up a bit of my time. So irratic that I don't think it can be fixed even though everything validates.

However, my question is this, should I even bother with these browsers? Does anyone still use these things? I have to say that when viewing my site stats I've never seen that anyone has viewed my sites with these old beasts so should I let it lie? Just like to know what people think :) .

Cheers,
R

[scragar]

I think that most uses of netscape have now moved on to the most recent version or use mozilla by now.

the problem is most likely down to netscapes use of %'s, it often makes grossly disproportional values, so see if writing it with exact values works...

[richiebman]

Nah. Not using %s. Floating my page content block which requires overflow:auto; in everything but IE. Which of course is correct and IE is wrong. If you have Netscape 6.0 or 6.2 check it out test site (http://iteration2.jicer.com/). Totally not finished yet. Some pages work. The home page doesn't in 6.0 until you click another link and then it's fine. 6.2 always gets the homepage wrong. I know how to fix it....by changing some of the css and unfloating the content div, but then that throws up other problems in IE and not sure if I can be @rsed.

Anyone else recommends ditching these browsers?

[richiebman]

Ahhhhh......fixed it. Discovered the fantastic clear:both; statement. Plonked it on the footer and got rid of overflow:auto; All is good. But would still like to hear peoples views on my initial question :D .

[rhsunderground]

personally i think that you should initially design for firefox, opera 7.x, IE 6, and netscape 7. then should come IE 5, 5.5, safari, IE Mac, gecko and the other versions of netscape.

[richiebman]

I was with you all the way up to Safari and IE Mac. Don't have the ability to check on a Mac. Have to rely on iCapture (http://www.danvine.com/icapture/) which isn't the best way to do it.

[ray326]

You should be coding for standards rather than browsers. Knowing your code is correct allows you to then tweak for browsers if necessary, which in most cases it isn't.

[richiebman]

That's very true ray326 and what I actually do. I write correct code (as best I can) and view it in Firefox, and then a lot later on test in other browsers. But even though it was correct Netscape still managed to mess it up. I guess what I am also asking is should I should test and tweak for Netscape 6.0 and 6.2? If no one is using those browsers I could have not bothered and really saved some time in this instance and for the future.

[rhsunderground]

there is one more thing to consider: screen resolution. there is a website with a tester to see your site in different resolutions, yet when i got my new hard drive, i lost my bookmarks. does anybody else have that link?

also, in any opera 7.x browser, you can see what a page looks like to many cell browsers by pushing Shift + F11.
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/smallscreen/

[PeOfEo]

code for all mediums. Code for all of the popular graphical browsers, but make your stuff compaible for everything else.

I preview my sites on the following:
IE6
IE5.5
IE5
MOZILLA
OPERA
NS4
LYNX
KONQUEROR

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by rhsunderground
there is one more thing to consider: screen resolution. there is a website with a tester to see your site in different resolutions, yet when i got my new hard drive, i lost my bookmarks. does anybody else have that link? Why not just use the resize feature of the webdeveloper's toolbar, or change your own resolution?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by Ben R.
Why not just use the resize feature of the webdeveloper's toolbar, or change your own resolution? Or just manually change your resolution when you resolution text on ie.

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by Ben R.
...change your own resolution... Originally posted by PeOfEo
...change your resolution... Er...?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by Ben R.
Er...? rhs was talking about a webbased resolution changer, you were talking about a tool bar, I was talking about just go on your desktop right click -> properties -> settings -> change the res. Its not hard to do that. You have 30 seconds to look at the site in the new res, scroll around a bit, then it is going to go back to the way it was before automatically.

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
rhs was talking about a webbased resolution changer, you were talking about a tool bar, I was talking about just go on your desktop right click -> properties -> settings -> change the res. Its not hard to do that. You have 30 seconds to look at the site in the new res, scroll around a bit, then it is going to go back to the way it was before automatically. I was as well; I had referred to both. Guess I wasn't very clear, ah well. *Drops the subject.*

[ray326]

Originally posted by richiebman
That's very true ray326 and what I actually do. I write correct code (as best I can) and view it in Firefox, and then a lot later on test in other browsers. But even though it was correct Netscape still managed to mess it up. I guess what I am also asking is should I should test and tweak for Netscape 6.0 and 6.2? If no one is using those browsers I could have not bothered and really saved some time in this instance and for the future. The bottom line is that it will never look the same on every browser so coding to standards in a way that you know will gracefully degrade on the older browsers is the most efficient strategy. The more the site emphasizes presentation over content (more HTML/CSS layout tricks) the more you'll wind up having to restrict the range of browsers that view it as the designer intends. Each non-standard browser added to the supported list could easily redouble the per-page effort.

[ray326]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
code for all mediums. Code for all of the popular graphical browsers, but make your stuff compaible for everything else.

I preview my sites on the following:
IE6
IE5.5
IE5
MOZILLA
OPERA
NS4
LYNX
KONQUEROR Yes but you don't expect the pages to look the same on all of them, just to deliver all their content and navigation.

[richiebman]

Cheers guys. Clarifys it that I should carry on with how I'm doing it now. And let's just hope that AOL's upcoming browser is standards compliant. Oh dear....how deluded am I!!!!!! :eek:

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by ray326
Yes but you don't expect the pages to look the same on all of them, just to deliver all their content and navigation. I try to get the content to look relatively good in all of them. I am willing to go out of my way for it to look good in all of those versions of ie and mozilla (because the gecko platform is what mozilla, netscape, and some isp browsers are using, and it is what I use ;)). I will let some images be slightly off In browsers like konqueror, ns4 etc. But yes, the main idea is that the site is navicable and the content is accessible. My constant tweaking to make it look pretty on other platofmrs is my perfectionism. I am a procrastinater and a perfectionist!

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
I am a procrastinater and a perfectionist! So isn't everyone. I'll make it PERFECT!!! ...in a bit.

[PeOfEo]

I just seem to be so bad though :(

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
I just seem to be so bad though :( Well, I think it's the avatar that's really giving you that appearance. ;) (Kidding, not asking for another political ANYTHING). I know what you mean- you want to make it perfect, even if you have to lead older browsers by the hand (because not doing so would seem so lazy) but you don't want to do it just this second- but you don't want to do it later, either. Right?

[PeOfEo]

I just drag my feet so much for anything. I had a major physics exam right, I started studying for it not a week in advance, not the night before, heck not even first period. I started studing the class before and lunch.

[russell]

BrowserSizer (http://www.download.com/BrowserSizer/3000-2068_4-10226309.html?tag=lst-0-1) is a decent tool for checking your pages in various resolutions. It is lightweight and unobtrusive. What it does is resizes your browser window to various sizes so you can see how your page looks in smaller resolutions. The advantage of using this over changing your screen resolution is that your other windows are still in your preferred resolution and your desktop icons don't get moved around. It isn't perfect, but it is decent. Worth a look.

[Ben Rogers]

It'd probably be preferable to change screen resolution, so that you get the "stretch effect", if you know what I mean.

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by Ben R.
It'd probably be preferable to change screen resolution, so that you get the "stretch effect", if you know what I mean. Yes.

[Stephen Philbin]

I certainly prefer to swing my browser window about to give my designs a hard time and make sure they "play nice" in various and unusual situations. I also use another trick to aid my designing too. I purposefully have my maxed browser window to be an unusual size as a persistent reminder that pages should easily fit standard screens and stuff like mine. As you can see here (http://www.dootdootdoodydoodydootdoodoooo.com/snapshot7.png) I slap my task bar to the right of the screen rather than along the bottom. Firstly because I prefer it there and secondly it gives that unusual width for maxed browser windows. Probably seem like a stupid idea to most, but I find it handy. :D

[Ben Rogers]

Is that a Mac? Ooh, I hate you...

[PeOfEo]

I got 404'd when I clicked the link.

[richiebman]

I purposefully have my maxed browser window to be an unusual size as a persistent reminder that pages should easily fit standard screens and stuff like mine. As you can see here I slap my task bar to the right of the screen rather than along the bottom.

BrowserSizer resizes the window for you depending on where you tell it the taskbar is positioned. Nifty :D . Probably isn't a mac version though.