I develop in Firefox 1.0 and Internet Explorer 6.0 (on Windows XP Service
Pack 2) side by side, testing every change in both browsers.
I use Firefox because it is largely standards compliant, which means that
other browsers that are largely standards compliant will at least have a
shot of rendering the page in a decent manner. Firefox also provides some
useful development tools. Even without these two factors, Firefox's
increasing market share (combined with that of other Gecko based browsers)
necessitates developing for Firefox.
However, Firefox has its fair share of bugs and rendering peculiarities. I
find that the Internet Explorer family, though less standards compliant, is
a bit more predictable in its behavior. Besides, the shear market share of
Internet Explore 5 and up require attention.
I like both of these browsers very much, though for different reasons. Even
so, I find that both browsers have enough bugs, standards issues, and just
odd behavior that it's easiest to develop for both simultaneously. That way,
you catch issues as they happen. You know exactly what element or style
property caused the problem.
I start out with the following doctype:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
The doctype switching behavior in most browsers is an often overlooked and
misunderstood behavior. You can get radically different renderings from most
modern browsers by changing the doctype. Most developers still seem to
choose whatever doctype the default template their editor happens to supply.
The wrong doctype can lead hours upon hours of frustration.
As I develop, I place as many style properties in external style sheets as
is feasible. If I need to override something to make it work in Internet
Explorer, I place that code in a separate style sheet and use the following
code to reference it:
<!--[if IE]>
<link href="styleSheets/internetExplorer.css"
rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen">
<![endif]-->
By the time I've finished, my Internet Explorer specific style sheet usually
contains 3 or 4 classes with one or two properties each. There are more
comments in these files than actual code.
Once I have everything working in these two browsers, I fire up a Virtual PC
instance of Windows 2000 where I have several different versions of Internet
Explorer running. I use the method described on the following page to
accomplish this:
http://www.quirksmode.org/browsers/multipleie.html
I check the site in Internet Explorer 5 and 5.5 to make sure everything
renders correctly. I don't usually worry about it being pixel perfect. I
just worry about functionality, readability, and glaring mistakes. The last
two sites I designed from scratch required absolutely no changes for 5 and
5.5.
Finally, I'll usually have a friend with a Mac give the site a spot check in
Safari and Internet Explorer. We don't check functionality, just general
layout.
Ben Rogers
http://www.c4.net
v.508.240.0051
f.508.240.0057
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim McAtee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 9:59 PM
> To: CF-Talk
> Subject: Which browsers do you support for -public- web sites?
>
> I'm guessing that some good comments on my question are buried somewhere
> in that 500 post thread on Browser Stats, but I really don't have the
> energy to sort through all the OT and all the bickering.
>
> My feeling is that you can't test _everything_ so you gauge the use of the
> more popular browsers and then you draw a line somewhere. I also realize
> that like most things, it's a matter of how much time and money you (or a
> client) are willing to spend for testing and development to assure
> cross-browser compatibility.
>
> So, what browsers, versions, (and to a degree, platforms) are you testing
> and supporting for general access public web sites?
>
>
>
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