Thanks for the input everyone, it looks like old-school tables with inline styles is the way to go, unfortunately. It's not a major problem except obviously it will make the system harder to maintain. At least modern browsers should see the pages pretty much the same.
Ben, an answer to your question: Ben Buchanan asked: I'm quite curious about this - do you genuinely have a client with a large user base on archaic machines, or is this a "whim of the CEO who won't upgrade" scenario? Nope, it's genuine. This is an extranet system that financial services companies will be connecting to. Did you know that Norwich Union has thousands of users still in Win3.1 and NN4.03 (so I've been told)? And some of the other insurance and mortgage companies aren't much better. Then there are many who are using thin clients (Citrix), and a few with more modern systems. It's a real hotch-potch. Ben also said "Good luck, and charge appropriately - meaning charge extra ;)". I would, but this is my day-job so fixed salary ;0) If I was doing it freelance... Thanks for the help chaps. Chris -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Buchanan Sent: 13 June 2007 04:19 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WSG] Back to the Future > I've been asked to write a website that MUST work in Netscape 4.03 and > IE 3 for Windows 3.1. When you've stopped laughing I'm afraid I have to > say I'm serious, and there's no chance at all that the people connecting > to the site will upgrade. I'm quite curious about this - do you genuinely have a client with a large user base on archaic machines, or is this a "whim of the CEO who won't upgrade" scenario? Anyway, the next question is does it need to work as in "be functional" or does it have to work as in "look the same"? If it just needs to be functional, use import filters and give raw content to the old browsers. But I'm guessing this isn't an option or you probably wouldn't be asking :) > So, any tips to do this without reverting all the way back to 1996 > tables and spacer gifs? Or am I doomed to non-standards hell? >From memory NN4 could handle some basic CSS but I wouldn't attempt to do a modern float or fixed layout with it. Your best bet is probably to use a CSS/table hybrid - use the table to set columns etc then CSS for colours, etc. IE3... sorry I simply can't recall. It's probably a little less capable than NN4. > Cheers, and wish me luck. Good luck, and charge appropriately - meaning charge extra ;) -Ben -- --- <http://weblog.200ok.com.au/> --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
