Hi,
O.k., my message seems to have stirred up some discussion. :) Some feedback:
Beforehand: whenever I write IE4+, there may actually be a few (sub)versions
that do not work equally well due to bugs, but on a general note the remarks
made for these browsers ought to be valid.
Also: thanks for having given me this feedback, it's useful for me, and if
anyone encounters weird things in the page of which I passed the URL, I'd be
happy to hear about it.
[Albert]
> I actually have beef with most web designer (but since you are on the OM
> list, I don't have beef with you) :-)
No worries, everyone can feel free to (dis)agree with me as they like, no
need to make exceptions just because I'm on the OM list ;)
> But most webpages are WAY TOO FLOWERY. A webpage IMHO is suppose to
provide
> information, be easy to read, and context searchability should be given
some
> priority. Some pages have just way too much flash, I can't stand flash
personally...
Agreed.
> As for IE vs Netscape.... Opera is the better browser!
Regarding _speed_ Opera is good. I haven't tested this browser enough yet to
know a whole lot about it. Unfortunately, the
automatic-proper-background-image-setting code I added to the Second Hand
Cameras site does not seem to work in Opera (nor in NS4). :( More about this
later a bit further down:
> IE is not very standards compliant, but then again, it's MS, they are
their own standard
> and they will shove it down your throat whether you like it or not.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
????????
O.k., I'm very sorry, but on this point I have to disagree heavily with you,
for IE is the ONLY browser I'm aware of that decently supports the W3C
standard. NS6+ Has come a long way too in its W3C support, they were a bit
late though to realise that they needed to support the W3C standard. I just
checked the www.secondhandcameras.nl page again in both Opera 5 and 6, and
while it doesn't look too bad, not all the styles are completely supported
properly. Try the following in Opera 5/6, NS4/6, IE4+
Step 1-Set your screen to a bigger size than 800x600. Set it e.g. to
1024x768 or better yet, to 1268x1024.
Step 2-Go to the "Used camera gear" section at www.secondhandcameras.nl.
Now, a browser that properly supports the W3C standard should display the
text in the two select fields in dark red; exit NS4, Opera 5/6. In Opera it
still looks o.k. though, but in NS4 the select fields simply look terrible
and virtually illegible.
Then on another very frustrating note: the support of the DOM (= Document
Object Model), this is very well supported in IE, but an utter disaster in
NS4. Again, NS6+ seems to work much better already, but it seems that Opera
does not support the DOM as it is currently used by IE4+ and NS6. :(((( A
simple example can be seen when you have indeed done what I mentioned under
step 1, for there is an extremely straightforward bit of DHTML on the pages
to work out the screen size and pick the proper size background image based
on that. It works fine in IE4+ and NS6+, but in NS4 and Opera the background
image stays small. A minor nuisance, yet annoying nonetheless :(
Finally, when a web page finally displays pretty well on all PC browsers,
there's the Mac vs. PC issue. This seems to have been done to either give me
gray hair, or to for some other reason unneccesarily compound matters. :((((
In the end, I spend a LOT of time on making each and every page acceptable
in each browser. I have given up on hoping that they will actually look the
same in all browsers: as this seems to be impossible by definition. :(
In some cases (for Axis internal pages), we decide matters are not worth all
the trouble, and we simply make IE4+ (Mac and PC) pages only. At present I'm
working on a very intricate DHTML (combined with PHP/MySQL) administration
and project management solution. If I may say so myself, it looks really
well in IE4+, NS4 doesn't even properly display the first page and NS6+
gives up after having traversed one hyperlink. Oh well, the story of my life
(as well as of the other web developers that try to use fancy DHTML).
:(((((((((
> The IE bookmark system is crap.
Perhaps, but that is not so interesting for me, it's the pages' lay-out I'm
more concerned about. Actually: I tend to use NS4.7 for bookmarking pages.
:)
> half the pages I see, have a bad .css file, and thus the entire page won't
load and gives
> errors. Also, IE is pretty forgiving, and so when you have invalid HTML
code, it will
> still display it, where as Netscape won't. So IE has helped to produce
subpar, web
> programmers, who have total disregard for whether their code is valid or
not, because IE
> will still display it.
On this point I agree with you, in a way it's nice that broken HTML still
shows up as intended in IE, but it does help produce erroneous pages. I
often use Netscape as an "HTML debugging tool" to check if everything
displays correctly. :) Also, NS4 has a nice method of debugging Javascript
(using the "javascript:" command in the URL bar when an error has occurred).
> Most use Frontpage POS and can't write a single line of javascript or
write a
> webpage without a GUI editor if their life depended on it. The computer
> industry is flooded with morons dependent on GUI editors that don't give
you
> the tight control that source code programming gives you. There are "web
> programmers" who can't read HTML. That just disgusts me, that's why I got
> out of the web programming business, it's flooded with people who I might
be
> associated with.
Well, I wouldn't call the people you mention web _developers_, I'd rather
call them web _hobbyists_, be they employed as web developer or not. :) I
think it's fair enough for people that do not make web pages for a living to
use tools such as Frontpage (or Dreamweaver!), but for someone who calls
themself a web developer, I think it's at least crucial for them that they
should be able to read HTML, to say the very least. ;)
> Still there is 5% that are great, and I'm sure those are the 5% that live
on
> this list.. I mean, they own OM stuff, they must be smart by default,
right?? ;-)
Oh my, who knows :)
Seriously though: some web "developers" don't know what they're doing, and
others do. This however doesn't bother me too much (as that only affects
them and their clients), for me the really frustrating part of web
development (and which at times makes me want to quit doing web development
altogether), is the apparant necessity each team that develops a browser
sees to not adhere (in the same way) to simple standards, such as the W3C
standard that has been around for a LONG time. Admittedly, IE4+ is not
perfect, but it comes closest to supporting the standard as well as
possible, and the DOM has been implemented well too. NS6+ seems to get close
as well, but for the more intricate DHTML stuff it too falters, unless one
uses a DynAPI that has specific fix-ups for NS' quirks...:(
[Mike]
>I agree wholeheartedly and I also think web page authors should furthermore
be required to
>view their handiwork with an older computer running out of date software at
the end of a
>long phone wire. Not everyone buys a new state of the art computer every
year nor has DSL
>ASDN or whatever.
I, for one, tend to do so as much as possible. I dislike image heavy pages,
at least, where the images are crucial to being able to use the page is
concerned. For this reason I don't even like to use graphics in the
navigation mechanism any longer (in the Wide Angle site I still used
graphics for the navigation, in the Second Hand Cameras one I use straight
textual HREFs). Testing a page on ALL browsers is virtually impossible
(especially cross-platform), IE 3- and NS 3- are so much outdated that
hardly anyone uses them any longer. NS is not used too much any more, and
Opera is not used a whole lot yet. IE is by far the biggest, and therefore
often gets the most attention. I always set out to optimise a page for IE,
while making it look acceptable (at least) in the other browsers. I just
wish that ALL the next browser versions would support W3C, properly, and in
the SAME way...:(((
Regarding testing IE, unfortunately one cannot run IE 4 next to 5 and 6 on a
PC due to MS' kernel integration trick.
[Les]
>Just to give one more data point: I brought up this site in OS/2 using the
IBM version of
>Netscape 4.61, and in Win XP using IE 6.
>I found the displays [on identical Eizo FlexScan monitors] to be virtually
identical.
I haven't tested the page in the former browser you mention. As long as your
screen size was not bigger than 800x600, the results ought to look pretty
similar, but I suspect the differences will be somewhat bigger for big
screens. At what screen size did you test the page?
[Larry]
>Works the same for me using Win 98SE & Netscape 4.77 compared to IE 5 on
same computer.
>Slightly more area shown on Netscape.
Pretty much the same goes as for the reply to Les. The background image will
not be properly resized in NS4 (visible on screens with a resolution higher
than 800x600). Also, the select fields will most likely look rather crappy
in NS4 when compared against IE5, or did these also look rather similar on
your machine?
Cheers!
Olafo
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