To all fellow web developers

AdmiralAK

AdmiralAK

Simply Daemonic
Well,
This week I am cleaning the slate (so-to-speak) on my web page and cleaning out old code, updating the look, and so on. Up to now to make my page I just previewed it in Netscape 4.71, and sometimes in IE. Having OS X now I have a couple more browsers at my disposal. Opera and Omni. I have to say I prefer omni when in OS X.

My comment: I am sick of all the bull shit that I have to go through with browsers :mad: I make something that looks beautiful in netscape, it looks semi-shitty in IE, I fix it in IE, it looks a bit off whack in netscape. Also greek (using the god-awful macgreek script) works in netscape but not on IE, and if I make something in winblows in greek, it looks a bit outta whack on a mac... I will have to settle for OS X's "part" implementetion of greek unicode to solve this (I wish apple would fix this soon :( )

I do not want to cater to IE users because they are the majority, I want my code to be as standard as possible when achieving the UI that I want.

My question:
Which browser is the best (in comparison) in your opinion to check out pages? Meaning which one more closelly resembles what the W3C put forth for HTML/javascript/XHTML/etc specs ?

I know there are 4 browsers for the mac, BeOS has its NetPositive of whatever they call it as well and webTV...well I dont think many people are using that.

What do you think ?


Admiral
PS: If none work I will try to convice people to use the Lynx browser :p

PS2: Any idea where I can learn to do WAP programming so that I can cater to mobile phone users ? (WAP haa haa haa..what a dead technology...but still it would be nice to learn ;) )
 
The newest browsers, IE6 and Mozilla are still in "beta," but they have the best w3c compliance. I am developing a web application for work which is not scheduled to finish for another year, but I am finding that writing cross-browser code is much easier when I only target IE6 and Mozilla. In fact, I have so far used the exact same code for both. But then again, we are talking Windows apps. What do you want to included in your site? HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP/XML??? I really havn't played around much with mac browsers, in terms of what they can handle. If you are using javascript, there are some pretty simple tricks to make your code work well with version 5 browsers.

WAP?

-jdog
 
I actually do work for one of the browsers (nda so I can't say which one, but I can say it is not Microshaft) and they are trying to stay w3c compliant. In my opinion and research, Mozilla is the closest to W3C compliant (which in theory means Netscrape would be too). I happen to also be coding a web app but mine will be released in late september, so I am targeting IE 5.1, and Mozilla, I have found that OmniWeb renders my pages just fine other than the font smoothing problem (I like bitmap verdana, call me strange, but at 10pt verdana rocks as non anti-aliased). That said, I am using PHP (serverside) scripting and NO FLASH and basic rollover javascripts, so I am not pushing the envelope. As far as the greek font problem, that is a problem that thankfully I have not had to deal with so not sure what to tell you there other than K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid):D .
 
My web page is going to be four years old in october so I am starting preps for it now (well this is going to be the bday update since in october I will be busy with classes).

I use HTML, javascript and CSS. In the past for menuing I used flash but for slower access people that was hell so I scalled back with the FLASH and dont use it anymore...maybe when I have the time I will try to find some usefulness for it for my site ;)

I also used (in the past) a couple of java applets which I made, but again they were a bit slow so I axed them (another backburner project).

As for XML & php... I don't know how to do that but I will soon enough ;) ... (yet another back burner project).


Do newer browsers do unicode ? If so I have some ideas on how to accieve my "accented greek chars" goal.

I am trying to keep it simple (three years with this page..I;ve been both on the consumer and developer side and I know that speed is paramount...so I've learned :) ) and I also want some sort of uniformity between browsers.

Mozilla I've tried but it crashes :( .... IE 6 beta I've yet to try ... I will look into it :) Once my site is done I will beta test it on them


Admiral
 
I usually write and test in Winblows IE, then fix the problems in Winblows Netscape, then check everything on the mac version of IE. If a page gets through all that, it will probably look fine in Omni.

My page (http://ncaikido.org/hotani) works fine in all of the above, and is a little wacky in Opera on the peecee (just the table edges, I have no idea why).
 
Better than Lynx: Links!

I've found Netscape to have the worst support for web standards and is the least compatible of the common web browsers. Don't even mention the fact that people are still using Netscape 3 and IE 3.

There's not much we can do about that except not add all the fancy crap that people feel they must have. Anyone see Homer Simpson's first web page?

-Rob
 
Ha ha ha :p
That was pladgiarism :p
I did like the Mr. X page though lol ;)

As far as I am concerned I dont cater to NN 3 or IE3. If we do that why not support 2.0? I am sure people still use em:rolleyes: lol.

I am working with version 4.0 and above.(moving forward)

I also forgot to mention that I do streaming audio :D



Admiral
 
I work fro a big company that makes consumer financial software. Our corporate Web site is meant to be accessable by everyone... That means we are stuck with a very low denominator.

However I've found that the best way to reduce the amount of hair pulled our by our developers is to stick with what our (primarily Windows) customers use.

About 1/4 of traffic is from Netscape 4.7 users and the other 3/4 is from IE 5.0. Consequently these are my two baseline QA browsers... We do spot checks on Netscape 4.0 and IE 5.5 as well as on the Mac.

When the traffic to move towards NN 6 and IE 5.5, so will we...

(The worst part about our traffic is that we get more hits from "OTHER" than we do from all of the Mac browsers. :( )
 
Well my page is all done (all I have to do is the streaming audio & upload all).

There is one thing though.

I use the < H1 class="xyz" > TEXT THERE < /H1 > tag in several files. I have defined xyz in an external stylesheet and linked it to all my pages. In NN there is no prob, I can view all tet withing this tag.

In Ie and omni my main page it shows up flawlessly[/] but in two other pages where I use the exact same format, it doesn't show at all! ((if you highlight the area you can see it though).... I find this weird as hell!


Admiral
 
To further prove my point, check out this chart of CSS compatibility [which is a W3C standard]:
http://www.webreview.com/style/css1/charts/mastergrid.shtml

AdmiralAK, I noticed that you are advocating Netscape, though I'm not sure why. If you're looking for a browser that conforms to standards, Netscape is one of the farthest things from it. To prove this point, visit www.glish.com/css in both IE and Netscape 4.X. Notice it complies perfectly with W3C standards...

Netscape 6 is better in that respect, but as a program it just plain SUCKS. Personally, I prefer Omni because it renders HTML so nicely. Opera is faster though.
 
I prefer to use Netscape because of it's look.
Also on my web site it is listed as a prefered browser because way back when, when I started to code for the web NN was the browser where I got the look I wanted, the way I coded something was the way I got it (before CSS, javascript & all the extras). Now things have changed. Amazingly the CSS H2 tag works in NEtscape but not in omni & IE... weird... I have moved my dev from netscape now to omni since i am on OS X.



Admiral
 
my last job was developing and maintaining a corporate intranet, so that made it easy: everyone in the company was using IE and Netscape. . I really wanted to send out a local e-mail virus that would delete Netscape from everyone's computers - it was such a pain to support!!
 
First of all a big LOL @ killing netscape ;)

I am done with my site, and I will upload and work on it tomorrow.

I fired up winME in VPC and took a look at the pages in that.
THey all look like I expected them to look like.... the disappearing text between H1 class="xyq" tags does not disapper in the windows version of IE :eek: !!!!! How weird. In omni and mac IE they do but not in netscape ....

As for the menus ... all menus look uniform in netscape, in omni & IE (mac) one menu droops down a little over the others, and in IE (win) that droop-down menu (LOL) is just a smidgin' up above the other menus.

Greek works flawlessly (thank God!)

All in all... it works! There are a few "errors" that are attributed to implementations of CSS & HTML in browsers but I am willing to compromise just a smidgin' lol droop or pullup it's going to be a good site update :)


Next update when it's up


Admiral
 
CSS and Javascript only invite headaches for now-- Netscrape and Internet Exploder have messed everything up. IE in particular, when they came out with version 5 for windows, broke almost every javascript we had running on our site.

Yes, you can code cross browser doms till your blue in the face. It will work until the next browser update/release.

But we must have our roll-overs and CSS font control is soo nice. Just gotta test in as many browsers as you can, and don't be surprised when one blows up in your face. Netscape 6 is supposed to be W3c compliant, but IE seems to be more consistent even if wrong. Keep looking for the things that work in both and stick to that.


Basically, as a graphic artist you have to just accept that some where someone is lookin at your hours of beautiful design work in their Mosaic browser and it looks like crap.
 
Actually I was red in the face ;)
I think it really is time for me to invest in a nice punching bag :)
You know...get rid of the stress lol :p

I do agree that CSS is a pain .... I could always use the FONT tag like I did way back when I started HTMLing.

As for javascript...dont goooo there... some work in netscape...some in IE, some in both ... My last menu system was a bit more complex. I thought it worked with both but in IE it looked outta whack lol .... maybe when I can make a small lightweight flash menu again ;)


I have tested in 4 browsers thus far, and later on today I will in opera preview before I upload. As I said some minor inconsistansies but it is an acceptable level of error :) (I just hope I haven't butchered the german site :eek: !!!!! )



back in a few

Admiral
 
It's not officially supposed to be up till july 1st but I wasn't sute if I would be able to get it up next week. ( lets just call this release version 4K78 ;) )

I've looked at it and everything seems to work (new guestbook was a pain in the @$$ .... had to copy over all my previous signees)


take a look
http://come.to/AdmiralAK
or
http://come.to/club-admiralty


German, french and italian speakers...grammar corrections and mistake corrections are greatly appreciated :)

general error reports are also appreciated :)


Admiral
 
This javascript is givingme a headache :p
I only ran into the javascript error once, when yahoo gave me the "I dont know where that file is" BS... now I run have checked my site in several browsers and it all looks normal.

Will fire up OS X to see whazzup.

Strobe: Advice taken under serious consideration
 
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