[thelist] Browser Detect with JavaScript

Aylard JA (James) jaylard at equilon.com
Fri Dec 1 15:27:15 CST 2000


aardvark,

> i wouldn't exactly state it like that... Navigator 4.x may not support 
> all the features of HTML4, but it isn't accurate to say it doesn't 
> support it... in fact, it seems to support the core HTML standard 
> from 3.2 better than IE, but lacks the additions to HTML from the 
> 3.2 to 4.0 spec... so, i guess it depends on which features you 
> consider to be most important...

	Perhaps I was a *bit* overstated, especially in light of the fact
that not even IE 5.5 has full support for HTML 4. However, aside from a
relative handful of elements (<span>, <frameset>, <frame>, and <noframes>
are about the only ones that readily come to mind), Netscape 4.x supports
very, very little of the new features introduced in the HTML 4 spec (and
since frames had been a de facto cross-browser standard long before the W3C
issued the HTML 4 spec, that's more or less a gimme anyway.)
	Netscape 4 *doesn't* support new table elements such as <col>,
<colgroup>, <thead>, and <tfoot>; accessibility attributes such as title,
accesskey, and tabindex; form elements such as <button>, <label>, and
<fieldset>; and it doesn't support <iframe> -- and those are ones more or
less OTTOMH. There are also a lot of new internationalization features that
it doesn't support. For all practical purposes, it doesn't support HTML 4.
Granted, an absolutist argument would rule out all versions of IE except IE
5 Mac, but I was intending to make a pragmatic argument, not an absolutist
argument.

> also, it's CSS support is not very good, granted, but since i tend to 
> only use CSS for text styling (given its shaky support in NN and 
> even IE), i'd say its support is adequate... again, depends on what 
> you're relying on CSS to do for you... it's lack of support shouldn't 
> make a page unusable...

	Agreed. But again, the CSS 1 properties unsupported by IE 4+ are a
small handful compared to those unsupported by Netscape 4.x, especially when
bugginess is thrown into the mix. Although here I would say that it would be
wrong to suggest that either IE 4 or IE 5 is CSS 1 compliant, because there
are some sizable holes. IE 5.5 closes some of these, but we all know that
some remain.
	Bottom line: if someone says to me that he or she wants to develop a
site based on HTML 4 and CSS 1, I would still say that with IE 4+ it can be
done, with limitations; but with Netscape 4.x, it really can't be done. The
limitations far exceed the abilities, IMO.

James Aylard




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