[thelist] Old Browsers old Software, cut bait and move on.

[Ben Henick]

Woo-wee!

I've not much to say, but let's try this:

Separation of content and presentation is a wonderful thing.

I've just spent the past six or eight days hammering out a tableless
layout that degrades gracefully, and performs-as-expected in Netscape 4.
Most of my time was spent on getting DHTML and CSS to behave properly
across a wide range of browsers (easy for Netscape 6, but, now, Netscape
4...), but in any event I've proven that it can be done.  It looks like
crap in <3.x, but it will still be comprehensible to users of Netscape 3
who have JavaScript disabled.  I'd expect that the same is true of
Netscape 1.1 and 2.

This approach exterts some style constraints I'd rather not have to deal
with, but at least I know it's possible, and that it will take a
ludicrously small amount of time to effect design changes (as long as they
don't stray into the territory of Stuff That Is Known To Break).

640x480 users on v4+ browsers don't make out well, but that
shortcoming was committed at the client's request.

One more time:  Separation of style and content is a wonderful thing.
Effect this, and you've just won the battle that will ultimately win the
war (as long as M$ doesn't Borg the Web).

The URL of the dev site will be made available in several days, once I've
had the opportunity to conduct some internal testing (blessedly in a
testing context, the level of Net literacy onsite is actually fairly low
onsite).


Regards,
-- 
Ben Henick
Web Author At-Large              Managing Editor
http://www.io.com/persist1/      http://www.digital-web.com/
persist1 at io.com                  bmh at digital-web.com
--
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?"
"I think so, Brain, but... (snort) no, no, it's too stupid."
"We will disguise ourselves as a cow."
"Oh!" (giggles) "That was it exactly!"