Browser sniffing, resolution sniffing - same difference to me. It leads to fractured site design and multiple pages / scripts doing one thing. I'm on 1280 x 1024 and so wondered whay I got the 800 x 600 page. Turns out my browser fired up at just under 1024 x 768 and I was lumped into the "less than 1024 x 768" bracket.
I can understand this as it would be a challenge to fit 4 columns across an 800 x 600 screen and still have things readable. What would be a little nicer is if the browser was served a slightly amended stylesheet rather than needing a redirect to a 'special' page (thus giving developers another home page version to maintain.) Ironically, with JavaScript disabled an 800x600 viewport is served the 1024x768 homepage, thus destroying the whole 'lowest common denominator' thing. Terrence, I would reconcile it with a PDA (mobile browser) by understanding that that browser will either strip out all semblance of style and layout from my page (as in the majority of version 1 mobile browsers), or that I MAY be able to serve it a mobile stylesheet (support is not great). What I WOULD NOT do is sniff for mobile devices and create YET ANOTHER home page for them. Standards people, standards - leave the rendering to the device, PLEASE don't go back to the bad old days of creating special pages for this resolution, that resolution, this device, that device. This site has done a good job of that by using standards compliant code, and the seperate homepage is simply a nod to the fact that some users are still using that resolution. Yes, it could have been done better but so could a lot of things I do every day.... -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Terrence Wood Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 12:22 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Cc: Terrence Wood Subject: Re: [WSG] New front page for http://abc.net.au/ it's not browser sniffing it's resolution sniffing, and it it browser independent. Browser sniffing is bad becuase it breaks stuff. Enhancing things based on browser capabilities (in this case how much content fits in the viewport) is OK, most scripting relies on it. The important thing is that the site site works without scripting. Does it matter if it looks the exactly the same in a particular browser compared with another? And if so, how do you reconcile that with say, a pda? kind regards Terrence Wood. On 4 Aug 2005, at 11:53 AM, Paul Bennett wrote: > not to me - want screenshots? IN IE the homepage actually defaults to > http://abc.net.au/default_800.htm and in FF to http://abc.net.au/ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ****************************************************** ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
