PNG graphics with alpha channels are not an exotic luxury. For a broad spectrum of site design approaches - basically anything involving interesting backgrounds or varying page components over which dynamic content may be rendered - not having PNG support means scrapping the design or going to an enormous amount of trouble to do appropriate GIF versions of border/frame images.
I applaud anybody that decides to make the effort and live within tight 9-year-old design constraints in order to support IE. (I think mobile browsers are a totally separate issue - it's a matter of opinion, but I definitely feel that for a host of usability reasons far beyond this or that CSS feature, a good application design for mobile use is likely to be much different than that for a desktop/laptop. Note that I said "application" design, because that's what I do; content-oriented websites may be different, but I admit ignorance.) I also understand the frustration and the pragmatics. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:48 PM, RobG <robg...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Sep 22, 1:30 am, Mike McNally <emmecin...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Advice to "never" use browser detection is good advice, but in my >> experience it's simply impossible to follow. The bad behaviors of old >> IE browsers - behaviors that are, in effect, bugs, and therefore not >> "features" that obey any particular logic - are numerous and >> pervasive. Facile advice like "avoid troublesome features" >> constitutes a grim curse on site design: "don't do anything that >> doesn't work reliably in IE6" is what that amounts to, and I think >> that's terrible. > > There are, and will always be, features that are available in some > browsers but not others. An evaluation must be made whether a > particular feature supported by certain browsers is worth having so > badly that it is OK to offer a lesser experience, or even deny access, > to users of other browsers. Are transparent PNG images *that* > important? Is there *no* other option? Is javascript the only, or > best, solution? > > A common fix for the PNG issue is to use conditional comments to sniff > for IE and insert a different stylesheet that replaces the PNG images > with others. > > That solution suits some (I guess it suits IE users at least), but if > the replacement images are OK for IE users, they are probably fine for > others too. And at the same time life has been made better for every > browser that doesn't support transparent PNG images (there are likely > a number of mobile browsers that don't support them either). > > There are always those who wish to push the boundaries of what can be > done on the web, good for them. However, for everyday business web > sites, simpler is better and flashiness just distracts from the job at > hand. In a few years time, well look back at accordions, carousels, > show/hide effects and such much the same way as we look at blink and > marquee elements now. They are annoying distractions that rarely add > to the functionality or usefulness of a site. > > For example, here's the home page of my ISP: > > <URL: http://www.iinet.net.au/customers/ > > > The primary purpose of this page is to allow their customers to login > to the site. > > You'll note that the focus is automatically put in the login field. A > username can be entered, tab pressed, then a password, but it is > impossible to navigate to the toolbox button without using a mouse. > Whoever designed it was clever enough to create those wonderful > buttons (which always leave me wondering which is on and which is off) > but was incapable of maintaining keyboard navigation supported > natively by every desktop browser since Netscape 1.0. > > So you can see that I have a slight bias when functionality is > restricted just because someone decided to poorly implement a pretty > UI component. :-) > > Similarly, the second set of login links at the top are impossible to > use without a pointing device - they can't be selected with a tab key. > The page is spectacularly bad at the one function it is supposed to > perform. And they don't use transparent PNGs anywhere! ;-p > > The point here is not necessarily to build every site to the lowest > common denominator, but to not deliberately do things that break > functionality that has been available in just about every browser for > a very long time. Javascript and CSS should enhance the user > experience, not break it. > > > -- > Rob -- Turtle, turtle, on the ground, Pink and shiny, turn around.
