>Yuri said:
>afaik, if you stick to standard html, you won't need to try it on every
>browser. Has this changed while I wasn't looking?
Sure has, unless you like very boring plane text sites..
CSS1 has been standard for a while, but IE, Konq. Opera, netscape etc
interpret some of the 'standard' codes differently, subtle differences but
enough to mess up some sites rather well if you're not aware of which tags
to avoid.
Mozilla dosn't recognise some of the HTML4.01 tags as per the wc3 spec, and
IE went further and added extensions to them, instead of using new tags for
it's own whizzy functionality.
Cookies (short term session jobs) are inconsistently handled, and they are
defined by a Standard. Some browsers munge them on the way back to the
server. Opera used to, and I believe Netscape 4.x can do under some
circumstances.
Put and get forms handling is subtly broke in Konqurer 2.1, meaning that
some forms based html don't work, like squirrelmail (The astute will notice
I used Mozilla in my mail demo...)
The pre-defined color tags are incompletely defined in some browsers, not a
biggie, but can catch you out.
Table borders, cellpadding and cellspacing are subtly different between most
browsers, meaning you can't rely on them to give you consistent look.
Font sizing.. Not all browsers accept the standard 10px notation to mean 10
pixels. It just does 10 point, meaning your small forms or captions get
busted, meaning your forms/tables overrun, or can't be read.
Shall I go on?
Ask anyone who has seriously attempted to make a web page work on "Any"
browser that is more than simple text and they will give you some more
examples.
I test my own HTML work on Mozilla, Opera, Netscape and IE, I consider
Konquerer to be broke in 2.1, (not tried 2.2) due to it's odd handling of
forms so I don't bother.
The best you can do is make it look 'sort right'. If you're developing
interactive content with lots of forms, session cookies etc test it on what
you think will get 99% and leave it at that. Run the Wc3 thingy over it,
which will bring up numerous errors, figure out which ones are important and
fix them.
I know some of the folks on this list think that if you can't visit a site
with lynx it's not worth it, which is OK for some people. Reality is that
people like eye-candy, and web designers have to deliver so they make
trade-offs (consciously or not) about view ability and functionality.
</rant>
Cheers, Chris Hellyar.
Selwyn District Council
Phones: X 831 (03)324 5831 (021) 350 603
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