Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Last time I set up an html mail (2 weeks ago), I had to redo it because people couldn't read it using their NS 4.5 mail client. Go figure. - Original Message - From: Steve Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 5:24 AM Subject: RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? It's an assumption on my part, looks like everyone else thinks differently. I guess there could be a few people out there running NS 4.7 on a 75mhz computer, not worrying about upgrading anything because it does what they need. __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
hi, i dont like the argument used my some people that if netscape has 5% of the market, and your site doesnt work for them you will have a 5% drop in sales. That assumes that 100% of people that go to your site are buying - so you would be getting 95% sale rate which is pretty great! i hear this all the time - and it drives me nuts. my 2 cents - i make the site viewable in netscape - accepting some weirdo table problems etc - as long as it can be viewed. c Even if the percentage of users for all wacko browsers is just ... say .. 5%. Are you willing to take a 5% drop in sales for an unknown duration? Like others I not only still see NN3 users... I'm still seeing AOL 3 on a site where about 10% of users are on AO-Hell - the typical site demographic is an affluent, college-educated, married male in his mid-forties. 5-8% is about right for *all* NN users on that site right now. Bah. --Matt Robertson-- MSB Designs, Inc. http://mysecretbase.com __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
CSS is by far the simplest obstacle to overcome. Detect the browser and use the appropriate sub/superset of CSS that makes the site palatable. JavaScript and simple HTML, on the other hand can be a freaking nightmare. I balance it on development costs vs. the cost of telling N% of visitors that I could care less if the site looks good to them. Usually, I opt for the least expensive solution. Take a wild guess which one that usually is... Jim - Original Message - From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:40 PM Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Hi Howard. The CSS issue was one of the main reasons that I started this post. I was working on a site and implemented some design elements using styles that really enhanced the appearance of the site. I actually did test it out in Netscape 6.2 as well as IE 5.5 and both rendered the site beautifully. The pain came in when I loaded up Netscape 4.7x. The site was just non-functional and it really irritated me. So it prompted me to do some homework to determine what other developers were doing. Based on the feedback so far, its seems prudent to continue to support Netscape. I just wish that a baseline of Netscape 6.0 could be established but such a meaningful percentage of NS 4.7 users still out there, it appears that some workarounds will still be needed. Sigh... Thanks for your input. Rey/// - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 12:17 AM Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
A site for which we develop wanted all kinds of whiz-bang neato DHMTL and all kinds of extraneous crap and enhancements extraordinaire. We gave it to them, only supporting IE 5+. In the last 4 months their traffic is up 40% to 50%. Did the Opera and Netscape and AOL 2 users fall away as a result? Who cares. Everybody is happy. Life is good. Life is simple again. Jim - Original Message - From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 9:22 PM Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Nick, Great points bud. The main reason that I'm asking the development community is because I wanted to gauge what everyone else was doing. This list has such a diverse talent pool that it really gives you a good indication as to new trends in ecommerce development. Notice that we've had varying replies that go from one extreme to the next. That's why it was so important to me to pose the question here. Thanks again for your feedback. Keep it coming. Rey... - Original Message - From: Nick Texidor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:06 PM Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I'm not sure what the general consensus is, but in my opinion, I would continue to code for Netscape, and also consider Opera too. If everyone gives up coding for the other browsers, then it's game over, MS will not only own your personal machines, but the internet too!The other option of course is those people who don't run IE will simply not return to your sites, and from where I sit, I see a few more people looking at the alternatives to windows than there were just a few months ago. I think you need to put the question to your clients, not the developers. Most of the CF list probably wouldn't care a jot if they only had to develop for IE. But their clients may be a little more caring! The last thing you want to do is go to a client and say 'we'll code it for IE', only to receive a call a week after it goes live saying 'my mate said he can't view the site'... the client isn't going to be too happy. IMHO, code for the biggest market, because people will simply not return to your site if the only way they can see it is to have to download another browser. All our sites are tested under different browsers on several platforms. We still have clients that use Netscape as their main browser. We all use different browsers internally too, I prefer to use Opera, and occasionally Netscape, on Linux, and for the one site that forces me to use IE (Internet Banking), I switch on my NT box (although I'm looking at switching banks because of this very reason). Our designers either use Netscape or IE, but both on the Mac platform. Just my thoughts. N Rey Bango wrote: For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
DDB Lists wrote: Last time I set up an html mail (2 weeks ago), I had to redo it because people couldn't read it using their NS 4.5 mail client. Go figure. I usually store HTML mail in /dev/null. Go figure ;) Jochem __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Ugh. I am fighting this battle right now at work. I hate the fact that instead of being able to code a standards-compliant web site (which would allow me to focus most of my attention on actually building the application), I have to employ hacks and workarounds just so I can support the 8% of our site users that are using a browser whose lineage dates back 4.5+ years (Netscape 4.0 came out in June 1997). CSS standards? Nope. Predictable HTML output? Nope. Yet the situation at my current employer demands nothing less -- too few people to do too much work. By being able to focus on standards rather than workarounds, we can get much more work done in less time. Don't like the way the site looks in Netscape 4.08? Upgrade your browser, plain and simple...much better ones exist. I am pushing towards only supporting browsers based upon what their standards support is. HTML 4.01 and CSS1 full (OK, 95%) compliance is what I would like, which pretty much includes MSIE 4+, Mozilla, NS 6+, and Opera. Personally, I think all browsers should time bomb after 2 years, so that users are forced to upgrade from time to time. Pete - Original Message - From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:42 PM Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I just had to get in on this one ... While there really isn't much debating that the browser war is over (which is as much Netscape's fault for releasing junk as it is Microsoft's for predatory practices), IMHO anyone that doesn't account for some 4.x version of Netscape when developing sites (intranets aside of course) is just being lazy and not doing their job. Those of us that have been developing for a fair amount of time have been fighting with this since day one. It's called site usability. We as developers I think tend to get tunnel vision. Just because we are technically adept we think that the average person is as well. The reality is that the average joe on the web just wants to read his email, find a good deal on Ebay, do a little research on products, and keep up with his/her favorite hobbies, and read the latest news. And he/she is doing it on a 56k modem. They don't care if they have the latest and greatest browser. What they have is working (as far as they know), and they don't want to wait for 4 hours to download the latest piece of bloatware. I for one am all for standards. It would be great if we didn't have this mess to deal with. But then there's reality. The reality is we have had to deal with this for years, and it isn't going away for awhile. While it is part of our job description to keep up with technology, the average person just doesn't want to deal with the headaches. There are millions of people still using older browsers at 800x600 (and even 640x480) resolution. If developers spent a little more time making their sites usable for the average person, instead of incorporating all this Flash and fancy imagery and DHTML and all this other stuff that people don't want to wait 5 minutes to download, the web would be a better place for everyone. Granted, these things have their place, and their time will come, but not until the average user is using something a little better than a simple dialup connection. And I don't see that happening anytime too soon. People just want to find their information, they don't want to wait all day for it to download, and they want it to be viewable with the browser they are using. not the one the developer tells them they need. The internet worked fine when it was a bunch of geeks writing basic HTML, and just because the world of print and multimedia designers on their Macintosh computers decided that we could do all this fancy design and Flash and all this other wiz bang stuff doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right thing to do. My .02, and sorry for ranting Mike Alberts Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:42:59 -0500 From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Message-ID: 019b01c1b9c0$b18928a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED] For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Yes, I understand the argument is flawed, but the root idea is sound. You can't place barriers to usability without paying some sort of penalty. Mike Alberts post is right on with this, imho. --Matt-- From: list peters [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] hi, i dont like the argument used my some people that if netscape has 5% of the market, and your site doesnt work for them you will have a 5% drop in sales. That assumes that 100% of people that go to your site are buying - so you would be getting 95% sale rate which is pretty great! __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
We get the same thing from our WebTV users... also a small, but vocal percentage. I've also noticed a drop in complaints, though. My impression is that the latest version of WebTV can support Java and whatnot pretty well, but I'm not sure if it's even being sold anymore. The price of regular PC's has come down so low that one wonders why anyone would buy a clumsy device like a webtv. -- jon - jon roig online community services manager epilepsy foundation tel: 215.850.0710 site: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 12:17 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... Nathaniel Horwitz mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: NRHorwitz Fax: 510-573-2298 Web Site: http://www.nathanielhorwitz.com What separates winning from losing is the head. The brain sometimes doesn't believe in the power of the body __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
One more opinion about browsers - Somebody needs to raise the bar. If we all coded using present W3C standards and 5-10% of the population can't view it properly, then that's their fault, not the coder's. Not everybody can always use the latest and greatest features, but they should be forced to at some point, shouldn't they? The way I see it, those viewers using netscape 4.x and lower should be forced to deal with crappy pages, unusable javascript, and non-functioning CSS. It might persuade them to upgrade to a browser which works, AND is free as well. Progress waits for nobody. - Matt Small -Original Message- From: jon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 9:23 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We get the same thing from our WebTV users... also a small, but vocal percentage. I've also noticed a drop in complaints, though. My impression is that the latest version of WebTV can support Java and whatnot pretty well, but I'm not sure if it's even being sold anymore. The price of regular PC's has come down so low that one wonders why anyone would buy a clumsy device like a webtv. -- jon - jon roig online community services manager epilepsy foundation tel: 215.850.0710 site: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 12:17 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Does anyone remember the CF_FIX_NETSCAPE tag that was in the developer's gallery a few years ago? Reported to fix all problems with Netscape, it would check to see what browser you were using and, if it was netscape, it could issue a CF_ABORT tag. I have written Allaire and now Macromedia many times asking for this to become a native feature of the product. Seriously, a Web site should be compliant with various browsers as dictated by their user community. I am responsible for eight sites in three government agencies right now; five of those sites are IE preferred (meaning we design exclusively for IE), because less than 1% of the hits each month come from browsers other than IE. On the other hand, at another unnamed govt agency, the standard Web browser is NS 3. 95% of users have it and use it daily. Mike -Original Message- From: Mike Alberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 7:46 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I just had to get in on this one ... While there really isn't much debating that the browser war is over (which is as much Netscape's fault for releasing junk as it is Microsoft's for predatory practices), IMHO anyone that doesn't account for some 4.x version of Netscape when developing sites (intranets aside of course) is just being lazy and not doing their job. Those of us that have been developing for a fair amount of time have been fighting with this since day one. It's called site usability. We as developers I think tend to get tunnel vision. Just because we are technically adept we think that the average person is as well. The reality is that the average joe on the web just wants to read his email, find a good deal on Ebay, do a little research on products, and keep up with his/her favorite hobbies, and read the latest news. And he/she is doing it on a 56k modem. They don't care if they have the latest and greatest browser. What they have is working (as far as they know), and they don't want to wait for 4 hours to download the latest piece of bloatware. I for one am all for standards. It would be great if we didn't have this mess to deal with. But then there's reality. The reality is we have had to deal with this for years, and it isn't going away for awhile. While it is part of our job description to keep up with technology, the average person just doesn't want to deal with the headaches. There are millions of people still using older browsers at 800x600 (and even 640x480) resolution. If developers spent a little more time making their sites usable for the average person, instead of incorporating all this Flash and fancy imagery and DHTML and all this other stuff that people don't want to wait 5 minutes to download, the web would be a better place for everyone. Granted, these things have their place, and their time will come, but not until the average user is using something a little better than a simple dialup connection. And I don't see that happening anytime too soon. People just want to find their information, they don't want to wait all day for it to download, and they want it to be viewable with the browser they are using. not the one the developer tells them they need. The internet worked fine when it was a bunch of geeks writing basic HTML, and just because the world of print and multimedia designers on their Macintosh computers decided that we could do all this fancy design and Flash and all this other wiz bang stuff doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right thing to do. My .02, and sorry for ranting Mike Alberts Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:42:59 -0500 From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Message-ID: 019b01c1b9c0$b18928a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED] For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
People just want to find their information, they don't want to wait all day for it to download, and they want it to be viewable with the browser they are using. not the one the developer tells them they need. Most of the time it's not up to the developer anyways. We go by what the client wants on their site. If they say they want a flash intro, so be it. Anyways, I couldn't imagine a web without pictures and flash and dhtml, it would be like a magazine with nothing but text inside. __ steve oliver atnet solutions, inc. http://www.atnetsolutions.com -Original Message- From: Mike Alberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 7:46 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I just had to get in on this one ... While there really isn't much debating that the browser war is over (which is as much Netscape's fault for releasing junk as it is Microsoft's for predatory practices), IMHO anyone that doesn't account for some 4.x version of Netscape when developing sites (intranets aside of course) is just being lazy and not doing their job. Those of us that have been developing for a fair amount of time have been fighting with this since day one. It's called site usability. We as developers I think tend to get tunnel vision. Just because we are technically adept we think that the average person is as well. The reality is that the average joe on the web just wants to read his email, find a good deal on Ebay, do a little research on products, and keep up with his/her favorite hobbies, and read the latest news. And he/she is doing it on a 56k modem. They don't care if they have the latest and greatest browser. What they have is working (as far as they know), and they don't want to wait for 4 hours to download the latest piece of bloatware. I for one am all for standards. It would be great if we didn't have this mess to deal with. But then there's reality. The reality is we have had to deal with this for years, and it isn't going away for awhile. While it is part of our job description to keep up with technology, the average person just doesn't want to deal with the headaches. There are millions of people still using older browsers at 800x600 (and even 640x480) resolution. If developers spent a little more time making their sites usable for the average person, instead of incorporating all this Flash and fancy imagery and DHTML and all this other stuff that people don't want to wait 5 minutes to download, the web would be a better place for everyone. Granted, these things have their place, and their time will come, but not until the average user is using something a little better than a simple dialup connection. And I don't see that happening anytime too soon. People just want to find their information, they don't want to wait all day for it to download, and they want it to be viewable with the browser they are using. not the one the developer tells them they need. The internet worked fine when it was a bunch of geeks writing basic HTML, and just because the world of print and multimedia designers on their Macintosh computers decided that we could do all this fancy design and Flash and all this other wiz bang stuff doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right thing to do. My .02, and sorry for ranting Mike Alberts Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:42:59 -0500 From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Message-ID: 019b01c1b9c0$b18928a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED] For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Here are some stats from a very large site, that appeals to a the general population for this month so far. Took forever to genereate this report in LiveStats... The numbers should speak for themselves. These are Livestat session numbers, not hits or page views. Analysis for the Month of Feb, 2002. Total sessions served during period : 801025 Most active browsers by type and version: MSIE 5.x with 296141 sessions (37.11% of all sessions) Netscape 4.x with 290926 sessions (36.45% of all sessions) AOL 4.x with 98844 sessions (12.39% of all sessions) Netscape 3.x with 35885 sessions (4.50% of all sessions) AOL 5.x with 20564 sessions (2.58% of all sessions) Netscape 5.x with 16109 sessions (2.02% of all sessions) Unknown with 11594 sessions (1.45% of all sessions) MSProxy 2.x with 9699 sessions (1.22% of all sessions) Opera 3.x with 8388 sessions (1.05% of all sessions) MSIE 4.x with 7699 sessions (0.96% of all sessions) WebTV 2.x with 1321 sessions (0.17% of all sessions) Netscape 2.x with 326 sessions (0.04% of all sessions) WebTV 1.x with 242 sessions (0.03% of all sessions) AOL 3.x with 145 sessions (0.02% of all sessions) MSIE 3.x with 142 sessions (0.02% of all sessions) Lotus-Notes with 18 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) MSIE 2.x with 13 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) Netscape 1.x with 12 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) MSProxy 1.x with 8 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) Opera 4.x with 3 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) MSIE 1.x with 1 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) View Browsers by Agent Type Report Most browsers by brand preference: MSIE with 537034 sessions (67.21% of all sessions) AOL with 119672 sessions (14.98% of all sessions) Netscape with 46 sessions (13.91% of all sessions) Other with 11524 sessions (1.44% of all sessions) MSProxy with 9716 sessions (1.22% of all sessions) Opera with 8410 sessions (1.05% of all sessions) WebTV with 1563 sessions (0.20% of all sessions) Lotus-Notes with 18 sessions (0.00% of all sessions) Notice Netscape 6 (listed as 5) is more popular than WebTV, Opera, or IE4... jon - Original Message - From: Rey Bango [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:42 PM Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I would like to chime in on this topic...I have several sites that I have to maintain (I do government work) that I did not write. They were written using layers and HEAVY on javascript. When Netscape 6 was loaded on many of the new machines, the sites stopped working. I visited many javascript sites asking about Netscape 6 and they all told me that NS 6 is awfull. Based on what all of you are saying, you love it. I am part of a team that sets standards for web development (for my organization). We are looking at NS6 and what we should do about it. I value this lists opinion and would like to hear from you. Do any of you have problems using NS6 and javascript? Thanks, Brian Yager President - North AL Cold Fusion Users Group Sr. Systems Analyst NCCIM/CIC [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
You are opening a can of worms here I believe, but Netscape has no problem with Javascript. Especially since Netscape invented Javascript, I imagine they can do whatever they want with it. It's web site authors that write code for proprietary DOM's (read: IE) that are the reason some sites do not work. I view Netscape 6 compatibility as forwards compatibility, as do many others. We are finally moving towards standards and Netscape 6.x is on the forefront of the standards movement. I'd also just like to mention that Netscape 6.0 or 6.2 are really not representative of what Netscape 6.x will be by April. Whatever the next version will be numbered, it's going to knock the socks off of a lot of people... jon - Original Message - From: Yager, Brian T Contractor/NCCIM [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 10:10 AM Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I would like to chime in on this topic...I have several sites that I have to maintain (I do government work) that I did not write. They were written using layers and HEAVY on javascript. When Netscape 6 was loaded on many of the new machines, the sites stopped working. I visited many javascript sites asking about Netscape 6 and they all told me that NS 6 is awfull. Based on what all of you are saying, you love it. I am part of a team that sets standards for web development (for my organization). We are looking at NS6 and what we should do about it. I value this lists opinion and would like to hear from you. Do any of you have problems using NS6 and javascript? Thanks, __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
This gets discussed every couple of months. Everyone will decide to do what they want to do. My little tidbit I mention every couple months is this. Aol bought Netscape for a reason. It's not becuase it had a cool name. They plan on doing something with it one day, and if the Microsoft AOL battle keeps up the way you do and us developers are not ready, the people who plan to be cross browser compatible will be the ones with the leg up. It can't hurt to fix your code now, and it will give you more experience. Some jobs say hey screw netscape users, others say we need to keep it up. No one will win until it's too late. If all of a sudden 30 million internet users who once used IE5 with thier packaged software started using Netscape 6, how would your site work? Robert Everland III Dixon Ticonderoga Web Developer Extraordinaire -Original Message- From: Jon Hall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 10:27 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? You are opening a can of worms here I believe, but Netscape has no problem with Javascript. Especially since Netscape invented Javascript, I imagine they can do whatever they want with it. It's web site authors that write code for proprietary DOM's (read: IE) that are the reason some sites do not work. I view Netscape 6 compatibility as forwards compatibility, as do many others. We are finally moving towards standards and Netscape 6.x is on the forefront of the standards movement. I'd also just like to mention that Netscape 6.0 or 6.2 are really not representative of what Netscape 6.x will be by April. Whatever the next version will be numbered, it's going to knock the socks off of a lot of people... jon - Original Message - From: Yager, Brian T Contractor/NCCIM [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 10:10 AM Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I would like to chime in on this topic...I have several sites that I have to maintain (I do government work) that I did not write. They were written using layers and HEAVY on javascript. When Netscape 6 was loaded on many of the new machines, the sites stopped working. I visited many javascript sites asking about Netscape 6 and they all told me that NS 6 is awfull. Based on what all of you are saying, you love it. I am part of a team that sets standards for web development (for my organization). We are looking at NS6 and what we should do about it. I value this lists opinion and would like to hear from you. Do any of you have problems using NS6 and javascript? Thanks, __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Most of the time it's not up to the developer anyways. We go by what the client wants on their site. If they say they want a flash intro, so be it. Anyways, I couldn't imagine a web without pictures and flash and dhtml, it would be like a magazine with nothing but text inside. It sounds like heaven.. I surfed on a VMS Vax system using the lynx browser in my college years. It didn't support in-line images. It was wicked fast. I used to surf in Navigator 3 with images off. Then people started using things like graphical navigation ( with no alt tags ) and... well, it makes sites impossible to navigate. -- Jeffry Houser | mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Need a Web Developer? Contact me! AIM: Reboog711 | Fax / Phone: 860-223-7946 -- My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Why not bring in some users and do some usability testing? The previous solution of creating a stripped down site for NS 4.x browsers seemed viable so long as the customer (who paid for the development after all) still uses the site. My father doesn't like bells and whistles and he loved when I showed him how to turn off all the 'fluff'. --JW Who, btw, uses 4.78 as my mail client and primary web client, with IE 6 as the back up. Can't beat that IMAP implementation. Rey Bango wrote: Hi Howard. The CSS issue was one of the main reasons that I started this post. I was working on a site and implemented some design elements using styles that really enhanced the appearance of the site. I actually did test it out in Netscape 6.2 as well as IE 5.5 and both rendered the site beautifully. The pain came in when I loaded up Netscape 4.7x. The site was just non-functional and it really irritated me. So it prompted me to do some homework to determine what other developers were doing. Based on the feedback so far, its seems prudent to continue to support Netscape. I just wish that a baseline of Netscape 6.0 could be established but such a meaningful percentage of NS 4.7 users still out there, it appears that some workarounds will still be needed. Sigh... Thanks for your input. Rey/// - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 12:17 AM Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape
SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
My take: I do make an attempt to make sure that my HTML coding standards present themselves in Netscape so that the content is readable and navigatable. I do NOT make sure that netscape renders with the same quality as IE - the amount of effort it takes to do both is just too demanding and not cost effective (there's little return on the investment and it impacts our bottom line). Mark -Original Message- From: Rey Bango [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 7:43 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
People still use netscape? :) I think it depends on what your app is geared for. Like, if you develop a web portal with tech news, chances are you'll get a few NS hits, since there a still a few hardcore NS fans out there that are still using NS from when it was the best thing since sliced bread. But, if it's a web portal for gardening, or something of that nature, chances are you'll get the non-tech savvy crowd, and most of them would be on AOL (which uses IE), or a local ISP, running the default browser (IE) When I make a site though, I do open it in NS6 to see if it's viewable. The majority of the people who do run NS (the fans) would certainly of upgraded to the latest version, which is pretty W3C compliant. __ steve oliver atnet solutions, inc. http://www.atnetsolutions.com -Original Message- From: Rey Bango [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:43 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... Nathaniel Horwitz mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: NRHorwitz Fax: 510-573-2298 Web Site: http://www.nathanielhorwitz.com What separates winning from losing is the head. The brain sometimes doesn't believe in the power of the body __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I'm not sure what the general consensus is, but in my opinion, I would continue to code for Netscape, and also consider Opera too. If everyone gives up coding for the other browsers, then it's game over, MS will not only own your personal machines, but the internet too!The other option of course is those people who don't run IE will simply not return to your sites, and from where I sit, I see a few more people looking at the alternatives to windows than there were just a few months ago. I think you need to put the question to your clients, not the developers. Most of the CF list probably wouldn't care a jot if they only had to develop for IE. But their clients may be a little more caring! The last thing you want to do is go to a client and say 'we'll code it for IE', only to receive a call a week after it goes live saying 'my mate said he can't view the site'... the client isn't going to be too happy. IMHO, code for the biggest market, because people will simply not return to your site if the only way they can see it is to have to download another browser. All our sites are tested under different browsers on several platforms. We still have clients that use Netscape as their main browser. We all use different browsers internally too, I prefer to use Opera, and occasionally Netscape, on Linux, and for the one site that forces me to use IE (Internet Banking), I switch on my NT box (although I'm looking at switching banks because of this very reason). Our designers either use Netscape or IE, but both on the Mac platform. Just my thoughts. N Rey Bango wrote: For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... Nathaniel Horwitz mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: NRHorwitz Fax: 510-573-2298 Web Site: http://www.nathanielhorwitz.com What separates winning from losing is the head. The brain sometimes doesn't believe in the power of the body __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
We have seen a dramtic increase in Netscape users over the last few months, (with over 2million uniques per month) ..our numbers have jumped from 3-4% to over 15% ... I would keep the coding going for Netscape! Paul Giesenhagen QuillDesign http://www.quilldesign.com SiteDirector - Commerce Builder __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
The majority of the people who do run NS (the fans) would certainly of upgraded to the latest version, which is pretty W3C compliant. Is this a fact or an assumption? :) I would tend to guess just the opposite based on my own experience and from the stats I've seen in the past. It has been several months since I hunted for reasonably reliable looking stats from other than tech-oriented sites, though, so things might well have evolved. Ken __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Nick, Great points bud. The main reason that I'm asking the development community is because I wanted to gauge what everyone else was doing. This list has such a diverse talent pool that it really gives you a good indication as to new trends in ecommerce development. Notice that we've had varying replies that go from one extreme to the next. That's why it was so important to me to pose the question here. Thanks again for your feedback. Keep it coming. Rey... - Original Message - From: Nick Texidor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:06 PM Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I'm not sure what the general consensus is, but in my opinion, I would continue to code for Netscape, and also consider Opera too. If everyone gives up coding for the other browsers, then it's game over, MS will not only own your personal machines, but the internet too!The other option of course is those people who don't run IE will simply not return to your sites, and from where I sit, I see a few more people looking at the alternatives to windows than there were just a few months ago. I think you need to put the question to your clients, not the developers. Most of the CF list probably wouldn't care a jot if they only had to develop for IE. But their clients may be a little more caring! The last thing you want to do is go to a client and say 'we'll code it for IE', only to receive a call a week after it goes live saying 'my mate said he can't view the site'... the client isn't going to be too happy. IMHO, code for the biggest market, because people will simply not return to your site if the only way they can see it is to have to download another browser. All our sites are tested under different browsers on several platforms. We still have clients that use Netscape as their main browser. We all use different browsers internally too, I prefer to use Opera, and occasionally Netscape, on Linux, and for the one site that forces me to use IE (Internet Banking), I switch on my NT box (although I'm looking at switching banks because of this very reason). Our designers either use Netscape or IE, but both on the Mac platform. Just my thoughts. N Rey Bango wrote: For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Watch your logs.. ( Or the logs of the site you are developing for, rather ) . That is the biggest tell-tale sign as to what you should be developing for ( or not ). The server administrator of one site I developed, a long time ago, told me that on weekdays, 98% of the hits were from Netscape, but on weekends it evened out 50-50. ( It turned out that the corporate browser was Netscape and all employees had their home page set to the corporate web site, so most of the hits were coming from the employees of the company ). Other than that, I use Netscape about half the time and nothing peeves me off more than not being able to see a page because someone missed an end-table tag. At 10:42 PM 02/19/2002 -0500, you wrote: For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
It's an assumption on my part, looks like everyone else thinks differently. I guess there could be a few people out there running NS 4.7 on a 75mhz computer, not worrying about upgrading anything because it does what they need. __ steve oliver atnet solutions, inc. http://www.atnetsolutions.com -Original Message- From: Ken Wilson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:25 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The majority of the people who do run NS (the fans) would certainly of upgraded to the latest version, which is pretty W3C compliant. Is this a fact or an assumption? :) I would tend to guess just the opposite based on my own experience and from the stats I've seen in the past. It has been several months since I hunted for reasonably reliable looking stats from other than tech-oriented sites, though, so things might well have evolved. Ken __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I use Netscape 4.78 on Linux because it's faster than Mozilla and Netscape 6. Simple as that. And I still use Netscape as my email client, because it has (IMHO) the best IMAP client out there. I have to say that on Linux, Opera is looking damn fine though! And even on our Macs Opera is almost looking like being the best browser option. :^) Steve Oliver wrote: It's an assumption on my part, looks like everyone else thinks differently. I guess there could be a few people out there running NS 4.7 on a 75mhz computer, not worrying about upgrading anything because it does what they need. __ steve oliver atnet solutions, inc. http://www.atnetsolutions.com -Original Message- From: Ken Wilson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:25 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The majority of the people who do run NS (the fans) would certainly of upgraded to the latest version, which is pretty W3C compliant. Is this a fact or an assumption? :) I would tend to guess just the opposite based on my own experience and from the stats I've seen in the past. It has been several months since I hunted for reasonably reliable looking stats from other than tech-oriented sites, though, so things might well have evolved. Ken __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I guess there could be a few people out there running NS 4.7 on a 75mhz Keep in mind that some IT departments build an image and only update the browser when the user absolutely demands it or requires it for a project thay work on. In one of my cases, NS is the primary mail client so asking users to launch a second browser to use the site has been a fight. Gentle nudging seems to be working slowly and the inclusion of a few desirable features that for some mysterious reason only seem to work in IE hasn't hurt. :) Ken __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I would most definitely continue to develop for Netscape 4.x browsers. I feel that it is very short-sighted to make any assumptions about what your users are viewing your web site with unless you run some extensive logging that captures browser info (i.e., BrowserHawk, etc.) and do some analysis. I have to be honest, whenever I've seen code (and there are exceptions to this) that works well in IE and bombs in Netscape, a lot of the time it's because of shoddy coding (missing closing table tags, etc.), where IE is much more forgiving. If you stick with W3C compliant code, most of the time you will be fine in both major browsers. Obviously there are exceptions such as IFrames, various elements of the DOM, and other nuances that Microsoft has extended beyond W3C standards or Netscape just chose not to implement. But I would wager that a majority of web sites out there don't use those exclusive elements if they generate a lot of traffic. As mentioned in a previous reply, most customers would just leave and never come back to your site. And if you do use these exclusive elements, there's probably a workaround if you think hard about the problem. I think that coders (myself included at times) love to take the easy way out. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the wrong solutions get applied to certain problems just because it's quicker. Up-and-coming browsers (Opera, Mozilla, etc.) are fully W3C compliant, and that's where your focus should be. I always make sure to test my code in IE, Netscape 4.7, and Opera, and do so on different OSes. Remember that IE on a Mac renders different than IE on a Windows platform at times. Also think about XHTML, which is just a re-named version of the W3C's HTML 4.01 spec. Some things take getting used to, but you'll find that you code cleaner and more efficiently, and, most importantly, make your code scalable for potential XML integration down the road. Sorry to ramble, but Rey, I think you brought up a very good point. I, too, look forward to what other people's thoughts are on this subject. Regards, __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I just checked the stats on a site I run for an older, non-savvy type of user -- 7.2 percent use Netscape, and more than half of those are running NS 4.x. It's worth noting that my site pretty much looks like crap, though is still useable, in NS 4.x, so who knows -- maybe with a better site, I'd get more NS users. I'm thinking a lot of people who use NS arrived at an earlier version they like and because of the mergers, sales, cutbacks, slow delivery on new product, bad reviews of new product -- a lot of NS users are sticking with 4.x. H. -Original Message- From: Ken Wilson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:25 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The majority of the people who do run NS (the fans) would certainly of upgraded to the latest version, which is pretty W3C compliant. Is this a fact or an assumption? :) I would tend to guess just the opposite based on my own experience and from the stats I've seen in the past. It has been several months since I hunted for reasonably reliable looking stats from other than tech-oriented sites, though, so things might well have evolved. Ken __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... Nathaniel Horwitz mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: NRHorwitz Fax: 510-573-2298 Web Site: http://www.nathanielhorwitz.com What separates winning from losing is the head. The brain sometimes doesn't believe in the power of the body __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Hi Howard. The CSS issue was one of the main reasons that I started this post. I was working on a site and implemented some design elements using styles that really enhanced the appearance of the site. I actually did test it out in Netscape 6.2 as well as IE 5.5 and both rendered the site beautifully. The pain came in when I loaded up Netscape 4.7x. The site was just non-functional and it really irritated me. So it prompted me to do some homework to determine what other developers were doing. Based on the feedback so far, its seems prudent to continue to support Netscape. I just wish that a baseline of Netscape 6.0 could be established but such a meaningful percentage of NS 4.7 users still out there, it appears that some workarounds will still be needed. Sigh... Thanks for your input. Rey/// - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 12:17 AM Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? The site I mentioned in my previous e-mail is also an RV site. About the same traffic. Average age of registered users is 56. My biggest problem isn't NS users, it's WebTV users. Currently, we only get about 1.5 percent WebTV, but I get complaints from them all of the time. Not so much design, but a lot of functionality (javascripts, form submissions, picture uploads) don't work or don't work as well or work inconsistently with WebTV (thought I haven't received a complaint in several months, so maybe WebTV has improved). The redesign I'm working on right now looked great in IE. It totally falls apart in NS 4.7. It's totally useless in 4.7. And my code is W3 validated. But CSS is a huge problem. My solution will probably be to do a browser redirect and send NS users to a totally stripped down version of the site. It will pretty much be just black text, white background and links and forms. No design. I want to have a site that useable for those 7 percent, but with such a small audience, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. As far as I'm concerned (and this is just a personal opinion and how I approach site building), IE's won. H. -Original Message- From: Tom Nunamaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:09 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? We run an RV Classified site with about 40,000 visitors per month. The average age of Rver's is in their early 60's. Believe it or not, about 1.5% of our visitors use Netscape 3.0. We've had to code in FONT tags with the CSS classes so it didn't look horrible in NS 3.0 Tom Nunamaker -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 10:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? Here's my .02 cents I'm leaning towards giving more consideration to the Netscape 6.0 above but I'm not ready to declare Netscape 4.75 dead. I think there's still about 10 percent of the internet users that are using Netscape 4.75. Netscape 6.0 is coming along real nicely and I've seen some users jumping over from IE to Netscape 6.0. It would make sense if someone would overlook some of the small design differences between Netscape 4.75 and 6.0 +. However, I wouldn't go too far in ignoring some of the glaring layout differences. The clients we work with generally have no understanding why there's a browser war, why netscape 4.75 doesn't support some of the HTML tags as well as IE does and etc. It would hurt the contractors' reputation if they were to ignore 4.75 as of now. If anyone wants to work with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0+ exclusively then there are almost zero differences between those versions. It'll make your job much easier. I have a small site tracking system on my site and every one user in about 10 or 15 users are showing up with a 4.75 version. So I have no choice but to design sites for 3 different versions. Thus, I'd recommend you do the same thing. For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... Nathaniel Horwitz
Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Dave, Excellent post. I've always taken what I called the Amazon litmus test. It was a known fact that Amazon coded all portions of their site in a manner that was viewable in very early verisons of Netscape. This ensured that they never lost a customer because of a browser compatibility issue. That was something that really appealed to my business side and still does to a great extent. This process though does restrain your ability to truly leverage some of the amazing advances in browser technologies. Recently, I was working on a site where I used some styles to enhance the look and feel of inputs, textareas and buttons. The effect was very modern and clean. The pages rendered beautifully under IE 5.5 and NS 6.2 but failed miserably when brought up under NS 4.7. It was extremely frustrating to say the least especially since the code was W3C compliant. I verified this thinking that perhaps I had used some IE-centric approach. I think we're all in agreement, to some extent, that maintaining some level of backward compatibility is in everyone's best interest but I'd like your feedback on something else. What do you use as your baseline for browser compatibility? Is it NS 4.7? In other words, when you decide your minimum browser requirements, which browser versions do you choose as the starting point? Thanks again, Rey... - Original Message - From: Dave Carabetta [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: CF-Talk [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 11:55 PM Subject: Re: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration? I would most definitely continue to develop for Netscape 4.x browsers. I feel that it is very short-sighted to make any assumptions about what your users are viewing your web site with unless you run some extensive logging that captures browser info (i.e., BrowserHawk, etc.) and do some analysis. I have to be honest, whenever I've seen code (and there are exceptions to this) that works well in IE and bombs in Netscape, a lot of the time it's because of shoddy coding (missing closing table tags, etc.), where IE is much more forgiving. If you stick with W3C compliant code, most of the time you will be fine in both major browsers. Obviously there are exceptions such as IFrames, various elements of the DOM, and other nuances that Microsoft has extended beyond W3C standards or Netscape just chose not to implement. But I would wager that a majority of web sites out there don't use those exclusive elements if they generate a lot of traffic. As mentioned in a previous reply, most customers would just leave and never come back to your site. And if you do use these exclusive elements, there's probably a workaround if you think hard about the problem. I think that coders (myself included at times) love to take the easy way out. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the wrong solutions get applied to certain problems just because it's quicker. Up-and-coming browsers (Opera, Mozilla, etc.) are fully W3C compliant, and that's where your focus should be. I always make sure to test my code in IE, Netscape 4.7, and Opera, and do so on different OSes. Remember that IE on a Mac renders different than IE on a Windows platform at times. Also think about XHTML, which is just a re-named version of the W3C's HTML 4.01 spec. Some things take getting used to, but you'll find that you code cleaner and more efficiently, and, most importantly, make your code scalable for potential XML integration down the road. Sorry to ramble, but Rey, I think you brought up a very good point. I, too, look forward to what other people's thoughts are on this subject. Regards, __ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I am one of those hard core Netscape users. Really I use it because I don't trust the security of IE/Outlook. I still use Netscape and Eudora for that reason. The threat of the next big hole that MS has not yet released a patch for, and me going to some obscure website that somebody from cf-community posts keep me using netscape. You will also find in a lot of large corporation and schools, that computers have particular browsers loaded on to all of the computers in the lab and that is just what you get. They have been using them for years and there is no reason to change. I would recommend coding your sites for the current (6) version of netscape and IE. checking to make sure it is viewable in netscape 4.7+ and Opera, and you should be good. At 10:42 PM 2/19/2002 -0500, you wrote: For the longest time, I've coded my sites to take into account Netscape users but with the ever-dwindling numbers of Navigator afficianados and IE's continued growth, I've been wondering if I should even bother worrying about whether my sites work with Netscape. Since this has been one of my best resources for info and some of the most talented and savvy people that I've met post to CF-Talk, I was hoping that I could get some good feedback. So, if we consider that the apps that I'm developing will be geared towards the Internet consumer at large and I won't have the luxury of developing for a controlled environment like a corporate intranet, I beg the question: Should I continue to worry about Netscape? If so, which version should serve as a baseline? Looking forward to your responses. C-ya, Rey... __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: SOT: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
Even if the percentage of users for all wacko browsers is just ... say .. 5%. Are you willing to take a 5% drop in sales for an unknown duration? Like others I not only still see NN3 users... I'm still seeing AOL 3 on a site where about 10% of users are on AO-Hell - the typical site demographic is an affluent, college-educated, married male in his mid-forties. 5-8% is about right for *all* NN users on that site right now. Bah. --Matt Robertson-- MSB Designs, Inc. http://mysecretbase.com __ Why Share? Dedicated Win 2000 Server · PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionc FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Is the Netscape browser still a consideration?
I use NN 4.78, NN 6.2, IE6 and IE5. I can run both NN's and IE6 on my regular dev server, and keep IE5 on my win2k laptop. Its tough to go back to IE 4 simply because of how MS handles browser upgrades. Its not just your visitors you have to please, and it ain't just Netscape: I just ran into a new client using an early NN4.7(1?). My preliminary design stunk in 4.78. Good thing I looked at it. About 6 months ago I had a client who used professional photography on the site. When we went over the thing during construction over the phone, She always said the photos looked crummy, and I did awful things in Photoshop before she was grudgingly satisfied. When I personally visited for final training, I found *all* of the systems at this very upscale establishment were at the Windows default of 640x480x256, which is how the vendor uncrated them. Last week at another brand-new client (currently getting 50,000 daily visitors as part of a sports team sponsorship): They fired the other guy because they couldn't see his design on their 15'' 640x480 default-out-of-the-box screens. Sound out the client about hardware/screen res right at the get-go. --Matt Robertson-- MSB Designs, Inc. http://mysecretbase.com __ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
