What the F#$@ is wrong with Netscape?
Martin Konecny
that Netscape doesn't like my pages!
If I specify a color for a table cell such as
<table><tr><td bgcolor="#336699" width="50">
then Internet Explorer 5 displays it correctly, but Netscape Communicator
will completely ignore the color and width of my table cell. Is there a way
around this?
Thanx!
Richard Formby
"Martin Konecny" <m_ko...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:DGN26.132091$J32.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
The very first thing to do is make sure your HTML is correct. You are
missing </td></tr></table> in the above example :-) Petty I know, but in a
big table just missing one </td> can upset Netscape. Remember, IE corrects
your errors, Netscape ignores them and the surrounding HTML.
Netscape often ignores bgcolor for cells. I sometimes resort to constructing
a suitably coloured gif and using that as a background.
IE takes your width suggestions seriously. Netscape pays far more attention
to the content and uses the width suggestions merely as a guideline. Never,
ever mix percentage and pixel width in the same table.
For each thing Netscape mucks up there is a well defined workaround. Its
impossible to list them all here. If you have a specific problem post a URL
and we can supply a fix.
Cheers
Richard.
AztecOne / Chris
It is much easier to help if you post the URL instead of just some of the
code.
For example, I have to ask did you include closing tags? </td></tr></table>
If you did not start there.
Then, just post the URL for us to look at in different browsers if there is
still a problem.
Chris
-
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Auke Reitsma
On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 20:48:35 GMT, "Martin Konecny" <m_ko...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> Hey there, I make HTML pages using Notepad and one thing I've noticed is
> that Netscape doesn't like my pages!
>
> If I specify a color for a table cell such as
> <table><tr><td bgcolor="#336699" width="50">
Anything in that cell? NO? Then put there. And use </td>, </tr>
and </table> at the proper places.
--
Greetings from
_____
/_|__| Auke Reitsma, Delft, The Netherlands.
/ | \ -------------------------------------
Remove SPAMBLOCK from my address ...
Matthew D Thrond
empty cells. let's say you're doing this to create columns in your site; as
long as there's nothing in there, Netscape likes to shrink the cell with
regardless of what width is given. You could try shimming the thing with a
transparent .gif, I suppose.
Or stop designing for that outdated piece of junk!
"Martin Konecny" <m_ko...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:DGN26.132091$J32.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
John Hinson
Thu, 28 Dec 2000 20:48:35 GMT by saying:
Are your cells empty? Try putting something in them, like or a
transparent gif. I think that should fix it.
John Hinson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STUDIO433 Web site design - Web hosting - Domain names
LONDON, UK 08707 420665 http://www.studio433.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jim Hendrickson
longer worth the time and frustration.
"Martin Konecny" <m_ko...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:DGN26.132091$J32.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
Martin Konecny
something ;-)
So i used the transparent GIF suggestion, and it worked.
Thanx to all ;)
"Jim Hendrickson" <j...@distantdontspammegalaxy.com> wrote in message
news:a3b36.9673$R62....@news1.wwck1.ri.home.com...
reptil...@my-deja.com
me NS 6.0 is pretty good. It's supposedly compliant with the W3C
standards, but I haven't tried it yet. But I agree with Martin that we
have to design for it despite the fact that it's retarded; millions of
people are still using it. One last little tip: I've found that NS
USUALLY allocates horizontal space better if you use a percentage value
for your td widths rather than an integer value. IE doesn't mind what
you use, it'll make it look nice, even if you don't specify cell width
at all.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
John Hinson
this group on Sat, 30 Dec 2000 01:41:26 GMT by saying:
>Yes there is a way around it- stop using and supporting Netscape. It is no
>longer worth the time and frustration.
That isn't very helpful, is it?
I really don't know how you can expect anybody who takes their web
site seriously to take such an attitude - it would exclude about 30%
of their potential site visitors, if their stats read similarly to
mine.
It isn't difficult to create code that is compatible with most
browsers. IMO most of the incompatibilties are a result of
non-standard extras having been put into IE by Microsoft - I have lost
count of the number of people that complain <BLINK> doesn't work in
Netscape.
Results in different browsers will always differ (and there is more
than just IE and Netscape out there) but it takes little effort to
create a site that actually works in all.
Little things like not having empty cells may be puzzling at first,
but Martin now knows the answer and won't get caught again.
superrrabbit
but i have to say that i really hate netscape (i affectionately call
"netcrap") too. i admit it's great for catching js errors, it's just too
time consuming to code for two different browsers. ahhh...when will the day
come when all the browsers can just get along? i crave that freedom...
hehe
superrrabbit
John Hinson <email....@web.site.ok> wrote in message
news:3a4df9d5...@news.clara.net...
> "Jim Hendrickson" <j...@distantdontspammegalaxy.com> contributed to
> this group on Sat, 30 Dec 2000 01:41:26 GMT by saying:
...
> It isn't difficult to create code that is compatible with most
> browsers. IMO most of the incompatibilties are a result of
> non-standard extras having been put into IE by Microsoft - I have lost
> count of the number of people that complain <BLINK> doesn't work in
> Netscape....
Ken
wrote:
>am i wrong? i thought it was IE that the <blink> tag didn't work?
Thanks right. The <blink> tag does not work in IE.
Ken
--
No e-mail replies, please. The opinions expressed are my own.
John Hinson
Sun, 31 Dec 2000 03:51:53 GMT by saying:
>am i wrong? i thought it was IE that the <blink> tag didn't work?
No, you are quite right. That rather nullifies my point!:o(
I was thinking of <MARQUEE> really, which /is/ IE only.
Nevertheless, your point illustrates well that IE and NN both have
non-standard tags which are best avoided.
Regards,
Jim Hendrickson
"John Hinson" <email....@web.site.ok> wrote in message
news:3a4df9d5...@news.clara.net...
> this group on Sat, 30 Dec 2000 01:41:26 GMT by saying:
>
> >Yes there is a way around it- stop using and supporting Netscape. It is
no
> >longer worth the time and frustration.
>
> That isn't very helpful, is it?
>
Tactically, no, but strategically and forward-looking, yes.
> I really don't know how you can expect anybody who takes their web
> site seriously to take such an attitude - it would exclude about 30%
> of their potential site visitors, if their stats read similarly to
> mine.
Stats on our sites generally range around 13%. I take my work very
seriously- it shouldn't be my responsibility to continuously support nearly
4 year old software. I can write code that will work in IE5, Netscape6, and
Opera5 consistently and reliably. And that code is uncluttered with
unneccessary hacks which would be required to make it work the way I would
want it to on Netscape 4.x. For example, Netscape 4.x doesn't support much
of the CSS properties for margins, padding, alignment, and it seriously
botches line-height and font-size. So what's the alternative? Spend 50%
extra development time writing these hacks, which will degrade its
performance in the modern browsers. No CSS properties means you would have
to do it with extra tables. Since Netscape can't display table size
properly and consistently you have to pad those tables with spacer grapihcs,
or embed tables within tables. Then you have to forgo line-height since
displaying inline images usually causes major problems, and forgoeing the
line-height makes the text harder to read by crunching it all together.
Same with font-sizes, have to bump it up a point or 2 because Netscape 4
displays it smaller than the rest of the browsers, so to get it to look
"acceptable" in that 13%, you have to trashify the remaining 87% by placing
bloated, non-compliant code which makes performance much worse.
Not even to mention javascript. Getting DHTML menus to work in less than 10
lines of js code for the modern browsers, whereas if I start using
document.layers (which Netscape themselves has decided to dump support for)
I'll end up wasting more development time hacking together a solution, and
it never works properly anyway since Netscape 4 doesn't have a clue what to
do with onmouseover, onmouseout, and onclick events.
>
> It isn't difficult to create code that is compatible with most
> browsers.
You're right, it is not difficult. It doesn't tax my skills any more than
writing standard DHTML. And anyway, isn't 87% what you would call "most
browsers"?
IMO most of the incompatibilties are a result of
> non-standard extras having been put into IE by Microsoft -
At one point that was the case, but now that current browsers have for the
most part made the mark with supporting standards, I only write for the
standards. I don't like proprietary crap so I avoid it. So if I write 100%
compliant code and it doesn't work in a 1997 browser (BTW, HTML4 is a 1998
spec and CSS1 is a 1996 spec).
I have lost
> count of the number of people that complain <BLINK> doesn't work in
> Netscape.
>
> Results in different browsers will always differ (and there is more
> than just IE and Netscape out there) but it takes little effort to
> create a site that actually works in all.
>
That's very true. Just write some simple, standard HTML/CSS, validate it if
you wish, then open it with IE5, N6, and Op5 side by side- you may be
surprised by what you see. Now go open it with NN4.x....
> Little things like not having empty cells may be puzzling at first,
> but Martin now knows the answer and won't get caught again.
>
Until someone comes across another Netscape problem and asks here. I've
been writing HTML for 5 years so I know most of the little hacks myself- but
my point is, it is time to stop creating webpages by writing hacks. Those
13% are using a webbrowser designed to view webpages of 1997 vintage. 1997
may not seem like a long time ago- but we're talking about the world wide
web at not much more than half its current age, when browsers for the most
part were doing their own thing and standards compliance was still a long
way off. And from some of the articles I have read, it has been widely
accepted in the industry that Netscape 4 was a notoriously buggy product and
their 15 or so "pointless point releases" (as I call them) over the last 3
years haven't added anything of significance to the browser at all. I did
notice they started sneaking in some undocumented CSS features around 4.51
or so.
2000 was a big year for the web- it has finally grown up to the point where
we can write code that works in all lthe current browsers. The ancient
browsers must go, and web developers have the power to make this happen more
quickly by abandoning support for them. Not only is it frustration, but it
also wastes a lot of time and money. If it wastes 50% of my time to hack
standard code down to make it work in Netscape4.x, multiply that by how many
other developers, by the going rate for web development these days- well,
I'd make a rough guess that it may be in the 100s of millions of $ per year.
I was really hoping to see someone file class-action suit against Netscape
for this- but it probably wouldn't hold up now since Netscape has recognized
that 4.x is obsolete by releasing 6- even though 6 was released too early
with too many bugs and too much bloatware attached.
Jim Hendrickson
"Ken" <kro...@NOhomeSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3a4eb354.45542268@news...
> On Sun, 31 Dec 2000 03:51:53 GMT, "superrrabbit" <bunn...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >am i wrong? i thought it was IE that the <blink> tag didn't work?
>
> Thanks right. The <blink> tag does not work in IE.
if you can believe it, CSS1 had a text-decoration property called blink.
Why they thought it was necessary who will ever know-
John Hinson
>Stats on our sites generally range around 13%. I take my work very
>seriously- it shouldn't be my responsibility to continuously support nearly
>4 year old software. I can write code that will work in IE5, Netscape6, and
>Opera5 consistently and reliably. And that code is uncluttered with
>unneccessary hacks which would be required to make it work the way I would
>want it to on Netscape 4.x. For example, Netscape 4.x doesn't support much
>of the CSS properties for margins, padding, alignment, and it seriously
>botches line-height and font-size. So what's the alternative? Spend 50%
>extra development time writing these hacks, which will degrade its
>performance in the modern browsers. No CSS properties means you would have
>to do it with extra tables. Since Netscape can't display table size
>properly and consistently you have to pad those tables with spacer grapihcs,
>or embed tables within tables. Then you have to forgo line-height since
>displaying inline images usually causes major problems, and forgoeing the
>line-height makes the text harder to read by crunching it all together.
>Same with font-sizes, have to bump it up a point or 2 because Netscape 4
>displays it smaller than the rest of the browsers, so to get it to look
>"acceptable" in that 13%, you have to trashify the remaining 87% by placing
>bloated, non-compliant code which makes performance much worse.
<remainder snipped for economy>
Jim, I fully understand what you are saying, but isn't even 13% a
large number of users to exclude from your sites? I don't believe we
will ever get 100% compatibilty from all browsers and the differences
between them will always be the bane of the web designer.
But that's all part of the great challenge of web design. You aren't
writing code for yourself so you can admire how uncluttered it is. You
are writing it for the benefit of the people that choose to visit your
sites. It is their choice what browser they use - they may be limited
by computer power or just lack of confidence to upgrade. Not every
user is computer-savvy.
Kind regards,
Jennifer Mullen
> Or stop designing for that outdated piece of junk!
Netscape, "that outdated piece of junk", is the dominant browser among
linux/unix users as MSIE has only been ported to Solaris and HP-UX. To not
design for an entire set of operating systems is a poor idea. It's a
better idea to design pages that will degrade nicely into any browser, no
matter how old.
-J.
Joel Shepherd
> It's a better idea to design pages that will degrade nicely into any
> browser, no matter how old.
Or, for that matter, how new.
-- Joel.
Jim Hendrickson
> Jim, I fully understand what you are saying, but isn't even 13% a
> large number of users to exclude from your sites? I don't believe we
> will ever get 100% compatibilty from all browsers and the differences
> between them will always be the bane of the web designer.
>
You make good points, but I never did clarify that I was fully excluding
Netscape 4 users. Excluding DHTML menu systems (which are redundant in the
way of giving the user the sub menu links before they click on that main
section link) is one of my examples of "not supporting Netscape". The user
can still read/navigate the site, they just don't have the convenience of
seeing the sitemap on the main page via DHTML. Also, choosing to use CSS
even though Netscape doesn't do anything with margins and padding means that
Netscape users will just see the uglier version of the page, but it is still
readable/navigable. Its not as if we're putting javascript detects to
divert Netscape users away (even though I would gladly do this on my
personal sites since I really don't care that much about it). Netscape 4.xx
is no longer worth the extra trouble of getting layouts and visual elements
to appear exactly the way we want them to, since Netscape4.x will never be
happy with CSS- but at least the content will still be there and nothing
will degrade violently. Eventually, Netscape 4.x will no longer bother us
(do you still develop pages for Netscape 2.x?).
> But that's all part of the great challenge of web design. You aren't
> writing code for yourself so you can admire how uncluttered it is. You
> are writing it for the benefit of the people that choose to visit your
> sites. It is their choice what browser they use - they may be limited
> by computer power or just lack of confidence to upgrade. Not every
> user is computer-savvy.
Writing clean and efficient code isn't for the purpose of admiring- its for
the purpose of portability, maintainabllity, performance, and modularity (is
there such a term?). Its nice to look at something you did 2 years ago and
not spend more than 20 seconds trying to figure out what and why you wrote
it that way. This saves a lot of time and development costs.
Sure most users are not computer savvy, but those are usually the people who
use AOL or the default stuff that came with their computer, which these days
is usually IE5+. I don't think Netscape 4.x has ever been pre-installed on
mass-market PCs and any company using Netscape 4.xx (however few there are)
probably won't be using it for very long. Just look at some logs and stats,
Netscape 4 userbase is diminishing monthly, And if there are still a few
that never upgrade, well, I wouldn't expect to be able to buy a game
released today and get it to work well (or work at all) with a 4 year old PC
either.
Its unfortunate that Netscape has screwed the web so much, both its
developers and its users, by providing such an inferior product all these
years, hopefully they can work the bugs out of N6 soon enough to make it a
worthwhile upgrade for those last few holdouts that insist on staying with
4.7x for the time being. But even then, there's Opera5, and the Mozilla
browser is due in a couple of months, which will essentially be Netscape 6
without all the bloatware.
Jennifer Mullen
[Netscape 4.x]
> Stats on our sites generally range around 13%. I take my work very
> seriously- it shouldn't be my responsibility to continuously support nearly
> 4 year old software.
But then you're writing off that 13% completely. Yes, there will come a
time when we can all stop writing pages for Netscape 4.x, and most of us
will breathe a big sigh of relief. I have to agree, however, that to dump
support for it now is jumping the gun. Many Netscape users have not
upgraded to Netscape 6 (or Mozilla >M18), and many will not for a few
years. Some people may not know how, some may be on slow connections that
make downloading that huge thing prohibitive, and some may simply not care
to.
Also, keep in mind that MSIE has not been ported to many Un*x operating
systems with the exceptions of Solaris and HP-UX (or AIX, I forget which).
That leaves most of those unix users with Netscape, or Opera if they're
runnng Linux. I see no reason to downgrade my operating system so that I
can upgrade my browser.
As for Netscape not supporting CSS2, that's true. Write pages that will
degrade nicely, and you'll be fine. I visit lots of sites where I notice
Netscape-related problems, such as no body color, and I deal with it.
> I'll end up wasting more development time hacking together a solution, and
> it never works properly anyway since Netscape 4 doesn't have a clue what to
> do with onmouseover, onmouseout, and onclick events.
Those events work fine for me... what problems are you having?
function browsifier(obj) {
if (document.images && document.layers) {
obj1 = eval("document.layers." + obj)
return obj1
}
else if (document.getElementById()) {
obj1 = eval("document.getElementById(obj).style")
return obj1
}
else if (document.all) {
obj1 = eval("document.all." + obj + ".style")
return obj1
}
else { return false }
}
[Any typos in the above are intentional copyright traps.]
Call that whereever you need it. It cuts the code in the rest of your
functions considerably and avoids the need to branch code until your eyes
pop out.
> At one point that was the case, but now that current browsers have for the
> most part made the mark with supporting standards, I only write for the
> standards. I don't like proprietary crap so I avoid it. So if I write 100%
> compliant code and it doesn't work in a 1997 browser (BTW, HTML4 is a 1998
> spec and CSS1 is a 1996 spec).
So, you're now using XHTML1.0 and CSS2?
> Until someone comes across another Netscape problem and asks here. I've
> been writing HTML for 5 years so I know most of the little hacks myself- but
> my point is, it is time to stop creating webpages by writing hacks. Those
> 13% are using a webbrowser designed to view webpages of 1997 vintage. 1997
> may not seem like a long time ago- but we're talking about the world wide
> web at not much more than half its current age, when browsers for the most
> part were doing their own thing and standards compliance was still a long
> way off.
That's true from the perspective of the technically literate. But the
majority of internet browsers are *not* technically literate, don't care
about standards, don't care about having cutting-edge browsing software,
don't care about how long it took you to write your pages, and don't care
to care. All they want is pages that look good in whatever browser they're
using, and they don't care what that browser is as long as it works and
they don't have to mess with it. And if it's Netscape, they probably
aren't going to switch to MSIE anytime soon, and have probably never heard
of Opera (which is a shame).
> If it wastes 50% of my time to hack
> standard code down to make it work in Netscape4.x, multiply that by how many
> other developers, by the going rate for web development these days- well,
> I'd make a rough guess that it may be in the 100s of millions of $ per year.
> I was really hoping to see someone file class-action suit against Netscape
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> for this-
^^^^^^^^
Oh, that made my morning! Thanks for the laugh!
-J.