Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Different Browsers

[.smw]

Can somebody identify the main factors as to why website layouts may appear to be deformed then to a different browser.

[the_pm]

It's a combination of vagueness in portions of the W3C specs (almost all browsers are modeled after W3C documentation) and poor programming on the part of the developers.

There really isn't much more to be said except practically every inconsistency has been documented at great length somewhere, and Internet Explorer strays the most of any browser by far. But that's easy to explain, their latest release was developed nearly four years ago, so it's quickly becoming a dinosaur.

[Rich2k]

Originally posted by the_pm
It's a combination of vagueness in portions of the W3C specs (almost all browsers are modeled after W3C documentation) and poor programming on the part of the developers.

There really isn't much more to be said except practically every inconsistency has been documented at great length somewhere, and Internet Explorer strays the most of any browser by far. But that's easy to explain, their latest release was developed nearly four years ago, so it's quickly becoming a dinosaur.

Yes except of course that the vast majority of users have IE and so you have to code to work in IE (sometimes at expense of the standards)

[the_pm]

Yes except of course that the vast majority of users have IE and so you have to code to work in IE (sometimes at expense of the standards)

Yes and no. You need to test IE just like you test a number of other browsers, but I've not found a case where breaking the "rules" for IE has been necessary. It definitely calls for some technical creativity though!

[Gen-T]

.smw, on a related note: a great way to view your site/page in multiple browsers and OS's ....

http://www.browsercam.com

[Marque]

Internet Explorer strays the most of any browser by far. But that's easy to explain, their latest release was developed nearly four years ago, so it's quickly becoming a dinosaur. [/B]

Well microsoft has stated that they will not be releasing any new versions of IE or making any updates (other than security patches) until windows longhorn comes out.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to ensure browser compatibility is developing in w3c strict on mozilla. Most of the time, you will have to make very little adjustments for other browsers.

CSS has definitly come along way and is basically where browsers are heading towards nowdays. HTML will soon be a thing of the past as CSS will eventually take its place. So using alot of browser independent CSS under w3c strict, will only help with making sure that your site is displayed properly.

If you want to see just what CSS can do, check out http://www.csszengarden.com

[stripeyteapot]

If you program perfect with no errors, it will look fine in standard browsers such as IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari

[Gen-T]

Originally posted by Marque

If you want to see just what CSS can do, check out http://www.csszengarden.com

Odd, but that site is not displaying properly for me. The text at the top of the page runs into (and under) the menu on the right side. Also a couple other smaller problems.

It displayed correctly before though. Hmm....

[Zopester]

Originally Posted by Marque

HTML will soon be a thing of the past as CSS will eventually take its place.

No and no.

HTML will never "be a thing of the past". CSS will never "take its place".

CSS is a presentational language, HTML is the structural language upon which that presentation applies. So one cannot have one without the other. What I assume you meant is presentational HTML will soon be a thing of the past - an important distinction to make.

[Rich2k]

Originally posted by the_pm
Yes and no. You need to test IE just like you test a number of other browsers, but I've not found a case where breaking the "rules" for IE has been necessary. It definitely calls for some technical creativity though!

Have you ever tried pure CSS layouts? For the most part it works but has a nasty habit of generating horizontal scroll bars when it shouldn't if you use a 100% wide div with padding. And god help trying it in IE on a mac... you simply HAVE to break the rules to get CSS layouts working on that!

[Rich2k]

Originally posted by pmoduk2
If you program perfect with no errors, it will look fine in standard browsers such as IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari

If you code perfectly to the standards that statement is simply not true.

[Zopester]

Originally Posted by Gen-T

Odd, but that site is not displaying properly for me.

Maybe Dave was doing a bit of maintenance when you tried? It just displayed perfectly for me (in Firefox and IE6). Either that, or you have more PC problems than you thought, T.

[Zopester]

Originally Posted by Rich2k

If you code perfectly to the standards that statement is simply not true.

How right. You can construct a site that is completely valid HTML and completely valid CSS and it will display totally incorrectly in IE (for example) as compared with other browsers. Broken box-model problem for example. No support for min-width, max-width, min-height and max-height. The list goes on. So good luck with your ideal world there, pmoduk2!

[Zopester]

Originally Posted by Rich2k

Have you ever tried pure CSS layouts?

Yup.

[Rich2k]

Originally posted by Zopester

How right. You can construct a site that is completely valid HTML and completely valid CSS and it will display totally incorrectly in IE (for example) as compared with other browsers. Broken box-model problem for example. No support for min-width, max-width, min-height and max-height. The list goes on. So good luck with your ideal world there, pmoduk2!

Although I would say I wish that Mozilla supported overflow-x and overflow-y CSS rather than just overflow.