[thelist] Browser Specific CSS

[Charles F. Johnson]

Peter Graber <graberp at bflo.co.erie.ny.us> typed:

> Given the differences in CSS rendering amoung Netscape Communicator and IE, is
> it common practice to develop style sheets for both browsers or just to try to
> find a happy medium between both?  How does evolt do it?

i always try to use one stylesheet for all browsers *if possible*. depending
on what you're trying to achieve with CSS, it's not always possible. for
example, i just discovered this morning that applying a border-width
property to form elements causes n4 to get wacky.

but as long as you stay away from borders, margins, padding, and
positioning, and use pixels for sizing fonts, you can create a stylesheet
that produces very close to the same display in netscape 4.x, ie5+, and
netscape 6/mozilla across all platforms. (of course, this limits you to
using CSS primarily for typography.)

the best place to find out which CSS properties work in which browsers is
Eric Meyer's CSS Master List, at:

http://www.webreview.com/style/css1/charts/mastergrid.shtml

but note that it's not just the stylesheet you need to be concerned about;
netscape 4 also has numerous problems with the cascade (especially with
lists and form elements), and that makes it necessary to re-apply classes
and styles within the HTML code specifically for n4.

charles johnson
lgf web design
http://littlegreenfootballs.com