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Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't say I didn't warn you
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
on
September 27, 2004 (8:00:00 AM)
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In my 2002 book, The
Online Rules of Successful Companies, I said it was stupid to design
Web sites that would work correctly only with the most popular Web
browser. Yes, I told readers, over 90% of all Internet users today may
use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (MSIE), but not long ago 90% of all
Internet users ran Netscape. Web designers and site owners who made
Netscape-only sites had to scramble madly to redo their work when MSIE
started getting popular. "Learn from this!" I said.
Now it's Mozilla and
Mozilla derivatives that are gaining rapidly in popularity, and MSIE
that's on the downswing. Smart Web designers and site owners work to
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards
and aren't affected by this shift. But there are still plenty of dumb
ones out there who haven't figured out that no program or technology
will always dominate the market; that if they want to remain competitive
on the Internet they had better be ready for things to change radically
at a moment's notice, and to prepare for those changes in advance.
I'm writing this because, while shopping for a mortgage online, I ran into a SunTrust Mortgage page that told me I was using an unsupported browser. The page said:
Two or three years ago SunTrust's Web people might have told themselves, "The extra cost of making a site that works with all browsers is not justified by the extra business we might get by taking that action. MSIE has 96% of the browser market. The only people who don't use it are Apple fanatics and Linux crackpots, and they probably have rotten credit."
Today, depending on whose stats you choose to believe, MSIE has slid to somewhere between 93.7% and 70% of browser usage. Numbers vary wildly by type of site. Tech-oriented sites and those catering to "early adopters" show more movement away from MSIE than sites that cater to mainstream Web users, but the trend is clear. Not only that, many non-MSIE browsers can pretend they're MSIE so their users can view MSIE-only sites, like this one for the Manatee County (Florida) Economic Development Council, and this tends to skew browser-use statistics in favor of MSIE by an unknown amount.
(I find the MSIE-only site example above especially sad because I live in Manatee County. I am not, however, a Chamber of Commerce or Economic Development Council member, nor am I likely to become one as long the group maintains its browser-bigot attitude.)
Preparing for the Internet's future
The point here isn't that MSIE is bad and other browsers are good, but that there are many browsers out there, and it's almost impossible to predict which one will dominate in three or four years -- or whether any of the current ones will dominate. For all we know, someone in China or Brazil is secretly working on a revolutionary Web browser that will be faster, more flexible, and more secure than those that are in common use, today.
In the end, the only "standards" likely to stay with us are those set by worldwide, non-corporate bodies like the W3C and the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Forward-looking Web designers and Internet business people already know this, but not everyone has enough foresight to look at trends like shifts in browser usage patterns, then look beyond the immediate trends and say, "The true lesson here is that I shouldn't be preparing for increased use of one browser or another, but that I should make my work usable through all standards-compliant browsers."
I have had several companies pay me $1,000+ per day to tell them this and give them other basic advice about what does and doesn't work -- in a business sense -- on the Internet. I'm under NDA so I can't say which ones, but I assure you the companies that paid me have taken my advice and have Web sites that work well with all current browsers and are likely to work well with most future ones for at least the next four or five years.
I'm giving you this same advice for free, not because you need it yourself, but because it might help you talk a boss or colleague into making Web sites that are open to all browsers and operating systems -- and, therefore, are more likely to accomplish their missions than those that are only fully usable by people who run a particular browser, whether that browser is MSIE, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, Lynx, Mozilla, Firefox, or one of the many others out there that don't have huge market shares but have their own, devoted followings.
I'm writing this because, while shopping for a mortgage online, I ran into a SunTrust Mortgage page that told me I was using an unsupported browser. The page said:
Your browser is not compatible with www.suntrustmortgage.com at this time.Instead of taking SunTrust's advice, I eliminated them from consideration as a mortgage lender. My income, while not huge, is more than adequate to cover the mortgage I'm seeking, and I pay my bills on time so my credit is pretty good. There are hundreds of lenders who would like my business. If SunTrust doesn't want me, no problem; I'm already pre-approved by several other lenders.
If you are using Netscape 6.x, Netscape has chosen to alter their communication standards resulting in this incompatibility. In the interim, we recommend you use one of the following browsers:If you are using AOL or Internet Explorer 4.5 on a Macintosh, we recommend you download and utilize Internet Explorer 5.0 to optimize your experience on our site.
- Netscape (4.08 ? 4.77)
- Internet Explorer (4.0 or higher)
- AOL (4.0 or higher)
Two or three years ago SunTrust's Web people might have told themselves, "The extra cost of making a site that works with all browsers is not justified by the extra business we might get by taking that action. MSIE has 96% of the browser market. The only people who don't use it are Apple fanatics and Linux crackpots, and they probably have rotten credit."
Today, depending on whose stats you choose to believe, MSIE has slid to somewhere between 93.7% and 70% of browser usage. Numbers vary wildly by type of site. Tech-oriented sites and those catering to "early adopters" show more movement away from MSIE than sites that cater to mainstream Web users, but the trend is clear. Not only that, many non-MSIE browsers can pretend they're MSIE so their users can view MSIE-only sites, like this one for the Manatee County (Florida) Economic Development Council, and this tends to skew browser-use statistics in favor of MSIE by an unknown amount.
(I find the MSIE-only site example above especially sad because I live in Manatee County. I am not, however, a Chamber of Commerce or Economic Development Council member, nor am I likely to become one as long the group maintains its browser-bigot attitude.)
Preparing for the Internet's future
The point here isn't that MSIE is bad and other browsers are good, but that there are many browsers out there, and it's almost impossible to predict which one will dominate in three or four years -- or whether any of the current ones will dominate. For all we know, someone in China or Brazil is secretly working on a revolutionary Web browser that will be faster, more flexible, and more secure than those that are in common use, today.
In the end, the only "standards" likely to stay with us are those set by worldwide, non-corporate bodies like the W3C and the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Forward-looking Web designers and Internet business people already know this, but not everyone has enough foresight to look at trends like shifts in browser usage patterns, then look beyond the immediate trends and say, "The true lesson here is that I shouldn't be preparing for increased use of one browser or another, but that I should make my work usable through all standards-compliant browsers."
I have had several companies pay me $1,000+ per day to tell them this and give them other basic advice about what does and doesn't work -- in a business sense -- on the Internet. I'm under NDA so I can't say which ones, but I assure you the companies that paid me have taken my advice and have Web sites that work well with all current browsers and are likely to work well with most future ones for at least the next four or five years.
I'm giving you this same advice for free, not because you need it yourself, but because it might help you talk a boss or colleague into making Web sites that are open to all browsers and operating systems -- and, therefore, are more likely to accomplish their missions than those that are only fully usable by people who run a particular browser, whether that browser is MSIE, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, Lynx, Mozilla, Firefox, or one of the many others out there that don't have huge market shares but have their own, devoted followings.
Comments
on Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't say I didn't warn youNote: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
I think you missed the real point he was making.
[Quote]"The true lesson here is that I shouldn't be preparing for increased use of one browser or another, but that I should make my work usable through all standards-compliant browsers."
That doesn't just mean Mozilla.
As long as mobile browsers are standards complient, which they really should be, they will be able to view standards-compliant websites, which capable web designers should be making. Possibly a mobile/pda option on the site which uses only the basic w3c standards which can be viewed properly on small screens.
[Quote]"The true lesson here is that I shouldn't be preparing for increased use of one browser or another, but that I should make my work usable through all standards-compliant browsers."
That doesn't just mean Mozilla.
As long as mobile browsers are standards complient, which they really should be, they will be able to view standards-compliant websites, which capable web designers should be making. Possibly a mobile/pda option on the site which uses only the basic w3c standards which can be viewed properly on small screens.
"...you just go on Mozilla-only...."
Did you bother to RTFA, or are you just trolling? Your second paragraph---in complete contrast to your first---makes the author's point. Are you dissociative?
The author is specifically NOT tryng to get folk to abandon MSIE for Firefox/Moz, or whatever. He is trying to get content providers to write to standards, which includes stylesheets to render sites not only for browsers, but cels, PDA's and what-have-you. Even Braille and audible output.
Check out the HTML and CSS standards sonmetime. You might learn something, fan-bot.
Best,
Mal the Elder
This page optimized for arguing with customers
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2004 04:25 PM
If you want to drive the point home further, then take another look at Jahn Rentmeister's commentary from 8 years ago, "<A HREF="http://www.jahns-home.de/rentmei/html/opti.html" title="jahns-home.de">This page optimized for<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..."
- arguing with customers</a jahns-home.de>"
- arguing with customers</a jahns-home.de>"
Myself, I've made my sites conform to HTML4 + CSS since 1997 and they still look good, most have improved since browsers provide better CSS support these days.
Another way to look at the problem is to ask these fools, "how would you like to increase your potential market by 5 - 20 % ?" Yes? Then support standards (i.e. <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401" title="w3.org">HTML</a w3.org> for structure and <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2" title="w3.org">CSS</a w3.org> for layout/formatting) and <A HREF="http://validator.w3.org/" title="w3.org">validate your pages</a w3.org>. Not only will they reach more people now, but will continue to do so for longer into the future.
One Trick Pony wannabe-webmasters, graphic nuts & I-Frame fanatics
who ass-ume
everybody has a braodband pipe are usually "Best Viewed With".....a
headset on saying "Thank You for eating at Taco Bell may I take
your
order?"
it is very important to follow standards when developing web sites. the company I work for is so into IE it is a joke - when things change they are going to waste so much money switching over it isn't funny - and yet the execs wonder why our stock is so bad and they just want everyone just to sell our product. Just do things right the first time!!
Now - one problem I have is that I have developed web sites that are beautiful and do exactly what I want and are html 4.01 compliant and CSS compliant and they show up fine in mozila/firefox but IE makes it look like crap and breaks them.
what the hell is up with that - I just tell people to download firefox and put a link to it in my website until I figure this one out.
Umm maybe I won't figure it out and force people to change to a standards compliant browser.
Now - one problem I have is that I have developed web sites that are beautiful and do exactly what I want and are html 4.01 compliant and CSS compliant and they show up fine in mozila/firefox but IE makes it look like crap and breaks them.
what the hell is up with that - I just tell people to download firefox and put a link to it in my website until I figure this one out.
Umm maybe I won't figure it out and force people to change to a standards compliant browser.
Optimized for Mozilla only is as bad as Optimized for IE only. You are building sites for people to view not browsers to parse. All browsers have their quirks and will allways have.
I was just trying to be humurous -
I am working on it - I just have that as a temp fix.
And I thought of promoting Mozilla/Firefox to maybe get people to at least try them.
In developing web sites though I have to say that IE is the only browser that I really have these quirks on - I try to make all my pages standards compliant and IE is the only one that breaks them.
At least that has been my experience - I am not trying to be anit-microsoft I am just saying this out of experience and facts.
I am working on it - I just have that as a temp fix.
And I thought of promoting Mozilla/Firefox to maybe get people to at least try them.
In developing web sites though I have to say that IE is the only browser that I really have these quirks on - I try to make all my pages standards compliant and IE is the only one that breaks them.
At least that has been my experience - I am not trying to be anit-microsoft I am just saying this out of experience and facts.
I've noticed that with IE as well. The Moz team has tried to fully implement CSS 2.1, but IE only implements a subset. For example, positioning an element absolutely from the left or bottom of the display window works in Moz based browsers, but is completely broken in IE.
As a web developer i don't really care about which browser is better. I just want to get the same output from an html in all of them. And that is really hard.
I had lots of problems with javascript. The uglyiest workaround was one where i had to deploy two different versions detecting the browser on serverside, because - mozilla displays it in a wrong way and the workaround that makes mozilla work segfaults IE.
I had lots of problems with javascript. The uglyiest workaround was one where i had to deploy two different versions detecting the browser on serverside, because - mozilla displays it in a wrong way and the workaround that makes mozilla work segfaults IE.
How many % of them actually reads Newsforge?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2004 08:29 PM
What do you think? As estimate? The % of web developers developing such websites decreased i for one think. I also think the % who reads this is very low near to zero. Those who are web developers are already using Linux and know about the problem. What is the point again?
Re:How many % of them actually reads Newsforge?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2004 08:41 PM
I'm sure newsforge occasionally gets new readers who aren't familiar with this stuff, and some of the current web-designers were once new to the biz and didn't know all the reasons for or perhaps the existance of standards. Spreading the memes where you can is never a bad thing.
Re:How many % of them actually reads Newsforge?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2004 11:36 PM
I'm not exactly against 'spreading the memes' i'm rather against 'spreading the memes where it doesn't make sense'.
In a discussion about cooking you wouldn't bring up this thing called 'Linux' to people interested into cooking either, would you? That just doesn't make sense. You might get a discussion, but don't expect the people who read to be interested. For 'Linux' advocacy, its better to target the people you intent to target specific.
How about posting this to a website where it actually MATTERS such as a (more) webdeveloper-related website? Makes much more SENSE.
In a discussion about cooking you wouldn't bring up this thing called 'Linux' to people interested into cooking either, would you? That just doesn't make sense. You might get a discussion, but don't expect the people who read to be interested. For 'Linux' advocacy, its better to target the people you intent to target specific.
How about posting this to a website where it actually MATTERS such as a (more) webdeveloper-related website? Makes much more SENSE.
Re:How many % of them actually reads Newsforge?
Posted by: llanitedave on September 28, 2004 01:41 AM
It's not an either-or thing. The joy is that you can publish in more than one forum. And NewsForge readers who see this may get reminded that there really are still sites out there that need to pay more attention to standards -- and NF readers are then proded to go out and remind their fellow developers of the need to develop for ALL browsers.
I don't think this was a waste, not at all.
I don't think this was a waste, not at all.
I suggest you start by reading the article. RTFA as we affectionately say.
For you convenience, however, I will quote below the first sentence of the last paragraph, which answers fully your concern:
"I'm giving you this same advice for free, not because you need it yourself, but because it might help you talk a boss or colleague into making Web sites that are open to all browsers and operating systems".
There you go.
For you convenience, however, I will quote below the first sentence of the last paragraph, which answers fully your concern:
"I'm giving you this same advice for free, not because you need it yourself, but because it might help you talk a boss or colleague into making Web sites that are open to all browsers and operating systems".
There you go.
Using firefox 1.0-pre i am getting that i am using a old browser & try to upgrade to IE or netscape.
now that's i consider funny.
now that's i consider funny.
<A HREF="http://www.lightdarkness42.com/firefox/" title="lightdarkness42.com">Here</a lightdarkness42.com> you can post sites, that don't "Support" firefox.
Take <A HREF="http://www.powergen.co.uk/" title="powergen.co.uk"> www.powergen.co.uk </a powergen.co.uk>. The site supports Netscape 7, and claims to work with Opera and Konqueror, yet it doesn't recognize Firefox. Firefox is seens as Netscape 1.0.
Pathetic.
The site would support Firefox, but the developer either hasn't kept up to date with technology, or is inept.
Another point, would you trust a company that doesn't keep up to date with Web technology with your personal details? It's not just the developer to blame, but the company that hired the developer. If the company doing the hiring hasn't got a clue, doesn't it make you wonder what condition its servers are in?
Pathetic.
The site would support Firefox, but the developer either hasn't kept up to date with technology, or is inept.
Another point, would you trust a company that doesn't keep up to date with Web technology with your personal details? It's not just the developer to blame, but the company that hired the developer. If the company doing the hiring hasn't got a clue, doesn't it make you wonder what condition its servers are in?
Many of the sites that are "IE only" check the user agent string, and don't care that the site is actually compatible with other browsers. If using Firefox, try the user agent switcher extension and change to the IE user agent. www.manateeedc.com and www.activision.com now are compatible with Firefox (with the user agent switcher), even though the site claims otherwise. I'm sure you've heard this before, though. But this is still no excuse not to make sites compatible with all browsers, it just shows the ignorance of these web designers.
Interesting thing... I run a little Web site on my box here. Not a lot of stuff, but lots of pictures I've collected over the years. I started running an interesting stats program on my server a while ago, and noticed some interesting things. Of significance here is that IE does not have 90% of the market any more. Obviously, one site does not a trend make, but I'm seeing more like 80% from IE, and falling. The next browser, by a good margin, is Firefox.
The trend is already underway and growing.
<A HREF="http://shire.homeip.net/cgi-bin/awstats.pl?config=shire.homeip.net" title="homeip.net">AWStats at Shire</a homeip.net>
Those are the stats I'd really like to see. A lot of people who use IE at work because it is the only browser their workplace allows do not use it at home.
Is there any way to break down the stats, even roughly, between working hours and non-working hours?
Is there any way to break down the stats, even roughly, between working hours and non-working hours?
This is darn stupid!
It's as if they said: "Hey....if you want to use a television screen at work, it has to respond properly to only this one format, because that's the one *we* picked. Too bad if you, and everyone else in the world, wants to go to the stor and buy whatever TV you like!
If you ask me, this is an indication of (possibly planetwide) collapse of civilization.
One of many, many others.
It's as if they said: "Hey....if you want to use a television screen at work, it has to respond properly to only this one format, because that's the one *we* picked. Too bad if you, and everyone else in the world, wants to go to the stor and buy whatever TV you like!
If you ask me, this is an indication of (possibly planetwide) collapse of civilization.
One of many, many others.
Over 92% of Yahoo traffic in August was from IE. Mozilla: 3.5% Netscape 1.8%.
Still a ways to go before hitting critical mass.
Still a ways to go before hitting critical mass.
$1,000 per day?
You must like overcharging your clients. At least, they won't retain your services for very long!
It's better to be a bit cheaper than to be more expensive. You don't need to be cheapest, just a bit on the cheaper side.
I could easily ask for around $150/hour as a consultant, which on an 8 hour day, is $1,200 per day. However, I find that it's better to ask about half that, perform more meaningful work, and develop long-term relationships.
Hunting for new customers is very expensive. I'm very forward about my pricing strategy. I tell them "If I charge any less than $100/hour, I'm well under market value. And, I'm charging $75 because I'd rather do more work with you at $75 than go hunting for more $150/hour work"
The customers really appreciate paying less and getting more, and the end result is that you end up working *alot* more and making *alot* more money! You get positive referrals (I haven't had to hunt down a customer since 2001 - it's all been word of mouth!) and great, positive acclaim from anybody who works with you.
When's the last time YOU made $1,000/day? I routinely have 3-4 $600 days each work week, and that does not include hosting, residual, and maintenance contracts, on which I also make good money.
Run the numbers - it's a good life!
PS: I develop with Moz on Linux, and test with IE on Win2000. (in a VMWare session) I stick to VERY standard stuff, usually I still use tables for layout!
My stuff works *EVERYWHERE* including Win/Mac/*nix/palm. Why would anybody do different?
You must like overcharging your clients. At least, they won't retain your services for very long!
It's better to be a bit cheaper than to be more expensive. You don't need to be cheapest, just a bit on the cheaper side.
I could easily ask for around $150/hour as a consultant, which on an 8 hour day, is $1,200 per day. However, I find that it's better to ask about half that, perform more meaningful work, and develop long-term relationships.
Hunting for new customers is very expensive. I'm very forward about my pricing strategy. I tell them "If I charge any less than $100/hour, I'm well under market value. And, I'm charging $75 because I'd rather do more work with you at $75 than go hunting for more $150/hour work"
The customers really appreciate paying less and getting more, and the end result is that you end up working *alot* more and making *alot* more money! You get positive referrals (I haven't had to hunt down a customer since 2001 - it's all been word of mouth!) and great, positive acclaim from anybody who works with you.
When's the last time YOU made $1,000/day? I routinely have 3-4 $600 days each work week, and that does not include hosting, residual, and maintenance contracts, on which I also make good money.
Run the numbers - it's a good life!
PS: I develop with Moz on Linux, and test with IE on Win2000. (in a VMWare session) I stick to VERY standard stuff, usually I still use tables for layout!
My stuff works *EVERYWHERE* including Win/Mac/*nix/palm. Why would anybody do different?
I think you have this wrong.
Some (often larger) business will simply
not respect "low value" advice.
I remember a story in the IT press some 14
years ago about a radiology consultant
who wanted the hospital to move to some
(then) new fangled computerised radiology
system that would save the hospital around 1/2
million a year.
He prepared a report and it was rejected annualy
for around five years. He quit and joined a consultancy.
The consultancy was called in and the hospital
paid mega bucks to get hold of the same report
and advice they have bene getting for the best part of a decade for free.
Now that they were paying 1K or more per day
for it they finally acted on it.
Personally I think 1K$ per day is mid range.
I know people who charge 1650UKP/day and do
well.
Jacqui
Some (often larger) business will simply
not respect "low value" advice.
I remember a story in the IT press some 14
years ago about a radiology consultant
who wanted the hospital to move to some
(then) new fangled computerised radiology
system that would save the hospital around 1/2
million a year.
He prepared a report and it was rejected annualy
for around five years. He quit and joined a consultancy.
The consultancy was called in and the hospital
paid mega bucks to get hold of the same report
and advice they have bene getting for the best part of a decade for free.
Now that they were paying 1K or more per day
for it they finally acted on it.
Personally I think 1K$ per day is mid range.
I know people who charge 1650UKP/day and do
well.
Jacqui
Curiously, when I tried the <A HREF="http://www.manateeedc.com/" title="manateeedc.com"> http://www.manateeedc.com </a manateeedc.com>
web site with Mozilla (1.7.2 for FreeBSD), I got the
"sorry" page you describe. But when I tried using
KDE's Konqueror, I was able to open it just fine without adding the site to Konqueror's masquerade list.
web site with Mozilla (1.7.2 for FreeBSD), I got the
"sorry" page you describe. But when I tried using
KDE's Konqueror, I was able to open it just fine without adding the site to Konqueror's masquerade list.
This seems to be a case of deliberate bad design
(targeting Mozilla for a denial) rather than
favoring one particular browser.
B.T.W.: A "perl" script I have that uses "curl" to
extract the web server identification reports that
http://www.manateeedc.com is:
www.manateeedc.com -> HTTP/1.1 : Microsoft-IIS/6.0
Personally I'm all for being browser agnositc....
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 29, 2004 04:34 AM
...however one small note. For the most part the largest barrier to this and the largest fustration as a site programmer comes from differing javascript support across browsers. Writing sites which display the same in most any broswer using consistent standards driven markup (HTML,XHTML,CSS1,CSS2,CSS3 I prefer XHTML 1.0/CSS2 in my coding at this point) is easy. The support issues come when you want to do dynamic things. The javascript implimentations and their methods of addressing the DOM vary greatly between browsers creating the biggest compatibiliy problems. Sometimes this goes to such an extreme that to do some simple things one has to write two entirely different scripts to do the same thing. Or what is simple in one broswer to the point of being a single command, takes a lengthy script in the other.
You want browser independance tell the people making the browsers to start implimenting the same things in the same ways. Or better yet update the javascript specs to make the standards include both implimentations.
The biggest reason sites end up locked to a particular browser is becuase programmers of those sites don't have the cycles or the desire to do the same work twice.
Moral of the story: Fix javascript, and you will fix the problem.
You want browser independance tell the people making the browsers to start implimenting the same things in the same ways. Or better yet update the javascript specs to make the standards include both implimentations.
The biggest reason sites end up locked to a particular browser is becuase programmers of those sites don't have the cycles or the desire to do the same work twice.
Moral of the story: Fix javascript, and you will fix the problem.
IIRC, there are only two bugs in IE's DOM Level-1 Core support:
1.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.getAttribute("class") fails so use<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.className when available.
2. tag names are shown upper case regardless so lower case all tag names manually.
I personally have two small functions to deal with these problems once and for all.
As for the rest of the W3C DOM:
DOM Level-1 XML is not supported in IE, but is never necesarry in client side scripts anyway.
DOM Level-1 HTML is fairly well supported, but is almost entirely redundant anyway since most everything it does can be achieved just as easily with DOM Level-1 Core. Keep it simple and use DOM Level-1 Core except where you truly need the HTML module (e.g. submitting a form).
DOM Level-2 CSS has patchy support (can be made to work with enough effort) but is a waste of time anyway since dynamic styling by swithching class attributes is far easier, and allows you to do what you want 99% of the time.
DOM Level-2 Traversal & Range is a stupid paradigm anyway, and buys you nothing over what DOM Level-1 Core provides.
DOM Level-2 Events has patchy support and is an important module. This is a shame but you will get used to the differences and learn to write code that is W3C and IE compatible quite quickly.
DOM Level-3 XPath is an abortion of an API, and for once I would much prefer to do things the IE way anyway. Add a method to the Node object that provides the IE methods selectNodes() and selectSingleNode() using DOM Level-3 XPath. This will make your code far easier to read and works in Moz and IE.
The one place where the W3C-DOM is really lacking is not providing a substitute for the innerHTML method from IE. Since all the browser makers recognise this, it is supported in every browser I know of anyway. Consider it a defacto standard and just use it when you need it.
1.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.getAttribute("class") fails so use<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.className when available.
2. tag names are shown upper case regardless so lower case all tag names manually.
I personally have two small functions to deal with these problems once and for all.
As for the rest of the W3C DOM:
DOM Level-1 XML is not supported in IE, but is never necesarry in client side scripts anyway.
DOM Level-1 HTML is fairly well supported, but is almost entirely redundant anyway since most everything it does can be achieved just as easily with DOM Level-1 Core. Keep it simple and use DOM Level-1 Core except where you truly need the HTML module (e.g. submitting a form).
DOM Level-2 CSS has patchy support (can be made to work with enough effort) but is a waste of time anyway since dynamic styling by swithching class attributes is far easier, and allows you to do what you want 99% of the time.
DOM Level-2 Traversal & Range is a stupid paradigm anyway, and buys you nothing over what DOM Level-1 Core provides.
DOM Level-2 Events has patchy support and is an important module. This is a shame but you will get used to the differences and learn to write code that is W3C and IE compatible quite quickly.
DOM Level-3 XPath is an abortion of an API, and for once I would much prefer to do things the IE way anyway. Add a method to the Node object that provides the IE methods selectNodes() and selectSingleNode() using DOM Level-3 XPath. This will make your code far easier to read and works in Moz and IE.
The one place where the W3C-DOM is really lacking is not providing a substitute for the innerHTML method from IE. Since all the browser makers recognise this, it is supported in every browser I know of anyway. Consider it a defacto standard and just use it when you need it.
I have problem with a number of sites that only support IE. My local online grocery store www.waitrosedeliver.com is one classic example. If I try accessing their site with Mozilla/Firefox all seems OK at first, then just when you have spent 15/30 minutes placing your shopping order the site fails due to some bogus JavaScript, but if I use IE 6 I get good script and all works fine. I have contacted their technical support a number of times to suggest they make their site cross browser compatible but the answer I keep getting is they only test it on IE and Netscape. It must be and old version of Netscape as this is what is breaking Mozilla, if I swap my user agent to IE 6 I get the correct JavaScript and the site works fine.
So now their logs record me as an XP/IE6 user rather than Linux/Mozilla helping to justify their argument that most users use IE on Windows. What amazes me in this case is that Waitrose used IBM to help them build their online store, and who is it that keeps inging the praises of open source software.
If people code to standards their sites wouldn't need all those crazy hacks which tend to make site maintenance a nightmare.
So now their logs record me as an XP/IE6 user rather than Linux/Mozilla helping to justify their argument that most users use IE on Windows. What amazes me in this case is that Waitrose used IBM to help them build their online store, and who is it that keeps inging the praises of open source software.
If people code to standards their sites wouldn't need all those crazy hacks which tend to make site maintenance a nightmare.
Excellent advice. But, guess what? I thought hmm.., I'll email this to a few offending websites. And I am asked to 'create an account'. So this another bugbear of mine - along with MSIE only websites!
What if those IE-only web-sites and, of course, their mother companies where sent polite letters-signed by consumer organizations attorneys- suggesting a possible lawsuit for endangering privacy and security of data processed on-line by them ?! All based on press-releases of the recent and hystorical IE security-flaws.
If you force me use your favourite browser , mister businessman, please stand behind it<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Daniel
If you force me use your favourite browser , mister businessman, please stand behind it<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Daniel
Once in a while I write those web sites to complain / explain. Most usually, I am 'just another sale lost'<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... I come and I leave and I never bother coming back again except by accident.
The internet is a very big place. It's highly unlikely that one single vendor has a choke hold on anything. I just take my business somewhere else.
The internet is a very big place. It's highly unlikely that one single vendor has a choke hold on anything. I just take my business somewhere else.
A lot of work goes into keeping the site working with NS 4.7. A site like this one probably does work with Mozilla. They are just too lazy to test with a more current browser.
Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't say I didn't warn you
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 125.22.172.249] on August 28, 2007 01:41 PM
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Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't say I didn't warn you
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 125.22.172.249] on August 28, 2007 01:42 PM
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The future is mobile
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2004 04:13 PMBoring.
Capable web designer is the one who can offer comparable browsing experiences on both the No1 browser, but also on browsers on cell phones, PDAs, obscure devices & platforms. Surely, some of these browsers don't support the latest and the greatest. But some times, you don't even need the latest and greatest, and you can always strive to minimize the reader's inconvenience.
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