I have a coding question

[ajfmrf]

At this time,what would be the best way to write a webpage .

By that I am asking should we be codingfor current browsers or is there still a lot of old browsers out there that we really should be taking in to account.

Like some people are asking-the rounded corners are not supported by ie 8 and before ( I think) but is in ie 9

Should we do it both ways to cover our bases or will it be just as good to do it for the newer browsers and let it go at that.

Bud

[bluewalrus]

You should test for IE7+, FF3+, safari, and chrome. I'm not familiar with the different versions of safari and chrome but I haven't noticed much of a difference with them.

The rounder corners isn't really a big issue since it is only for the visual ascetics and in IE7, 6 (I believe), and 8 it doesn't break functionality. You can put a note on your site saying something like we recommend these browsers for an optimal performance.... Then you'd just need to check the browser they are using which you could do from the user agent either client (JS) or server side (PHP).

I wouldn't right additional code for other browsers if the functionality is still there.

[ajfmrf]

Thanks,bluewalrus.

We are neighbors,I live in southeastern ct(Groton)


Bud

[jscheuer1]

I personally favor going for modern browsers in such a way as degrades acceptably for older browsers. I don't like testing for browsers. I do grudgingly use IE conditionals in scripts and style to make up for that browser's older version's idiosyncrasies. The rest should follow css standards and/or their own proprietary css methods, degrading gracefully with any unsupported css methods.

For javascript, jQuery is good because it takes most of the work out of cross browser javascript.

[djr33]

As John said, the key is to make everything degrade acceptably. Make every feature that might possibly go wrong (even CSS and images-- what about text only browsers?) have a backup if it is crucial to your site. For example, in addition to the fancy Javascript navigation menu, add some small text links at the bottom of the page. Or make sure that if Javascript is unavailable, even if CSS is unavailable, etc., that the menu will load in a functional (if boring) way for everyone.

In terms of design, there's no need to worry about old browsers. It also depends on what you mean by old. IE6 is still around, but not very common. That's certainly as far back as you should go, and despite its problems, it will generally do most things in a functional way-- it won't have the rounded corners, but it won't actually disable your site either. That's probably enough.


On the other hand, it's not just old browsers that matter. The new concern is mobile devices. Some, like the iPhone, have "complete" browsers that can handle almost (or exactly) as much as a computer. Others are still much more basic-- any black and white text only phones still out there? Probably. Phones that are somewhere in between? Certainly.

[ajfmrf]

I appreciate your thoughts,John and Daniel.

Being a novice of sorts,I quite often spend a lot of times "testing" to get things to work.I do learn from looking at other peoples work but I have not ever written a script that I can call my own.

Most of my webpages go unnoticed by anyone but me but I make my pages as a hobby.

I recently redid my web-user.net web site and hope to get some visitors and hope it may help someone along the way ( I have a couple of links to the forum and scripts site on my revamped web page)

But I always wondered if what I see using firefox, verses other browsers, is different enough to be of concern.

If anyone ever has a minute,please let me know if it is okay in ie,safari, chrome, or any other browser I may have missed.

Thanks, Walrus,Daniel and John for you insight-

Bud