Browser Compatibility??

P

pairbrother

New member
Do people out here design there sites keeping in mind broswer compatibility.
Online when you look for css, they have css hacks for IE4,5,6 NS4,5,6 and FF.

Do we have to take so much care that we have to design our sites to be compatible with IE4!! I wonder how many people use it anyways

IMO, I'd create my design to be compatible to only 2 browsers, IE6 and FF.
Is there something wrong with that?
 
Browser compatibility is a dead subject. More than %80 percent of all Internet traffic are using IExplorer. Maybe 2 or 3 years later we will need to add other versions of our websites like ... click for Opera version, ... click for Netscape version etc.
 
I only code my sites to work on FF1.0 above and IE5.0 above... they are really the only ones that matter.
 
Visually impaired users tend to select larger fonts, and some users may turn off backgrounds, use fewer colors, or use font overrides. The designer should find out what settings most users are using, and specify on the website exactly what assumptions were made about the browser settings.
 
Most challenging were the new types of devices that were now accessing the Web, such as mobile phones, PDAs and set top boxes, because the screens could be very different from desktop PCs (not just slightly larger or with a bit better resolution).
 
Depending on the web browser used and the version of that web browser, a web page can be interpreted very differently. This is because different web browsers are compatible with different technologies and some have different syntax for the same technologies. Therefore it is important that your website is cross-browser compatible. We do keep in mind the browser compatibility factor while designing a site, major browsers on which we check are IE, Netscape and FF.
 
Start with 100% compliant (X)HTML, CSS, etc by checking at http://www.w3.org and check with different browsers (or emulators) to see how it renders. Fix if necessary. Anything else means either you don't have the browser to test with or an emulator to do so (fair enough, I fall into this category on certain browsers), or you are lazy thinking that the browsers that your site doesn't render in "don't matter". If a potential customer using Safari has a problem with my site, I might lose their sale. Their browser matters. Even if only 2% of the people out there use it.
 
Firefox has jumbled a number of designs. Since popularity is growing for this widely used tool testing is important between IE and Firefox. I hope one of these days IE can be scrapped for a better browser.
 
PlexiHosting has some good information. On top of that, just keep in mind that you have only 3 real browsers to develop for, if your target audience is the general public:

Firefox
IE6+
Opera

You should be good to go if your site looks right in those three browsers.

hth
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Supporters

Back
Top