[thelist] web development for Solaris

[Hassan Schroeder]

nate koechley wrote:

> For the current site I'm developing, there is a strict requirement that all
> pages work correctly on Solaris (Sun) platform browsers.

> Can you good people alert me to some of the common pitfalls, things to be
> aware of, or resources/places to learn the same? I'd like to educate myself
> in advance, with the hopes of alleviating a painful QA process.

First - which browsers? Netscape, IE, HotJava, Amaya? I'll assume
you're primarily dealing with the first of those :-)

Most of what you know about Netscape 4.x applies, but:

1) table rendering: slow - avoid nested tables like the plague.

2) CSS font-size: usually fails if you don't specify font-family
       for each class or tag (don't count on inheritance).

3) CSS font-family: generally a much more limited font palette.

4) screen res: usually at least 1152x900; watch font-size settings,
       especially if you're used to using pixels as the unit.
       A lot of commercial Web sites are basically unusable from 
       a Sun workstation, due to nonsense like 9-pixel text; this
       also applies to graphical buttons with text on them. 

5) color: most older Suns have 8-bit frame buffers, and due to the
       interaction with other apps under X, may even have problems
       with the Web-safe color palette ("problems" in the sense of
       your lovely orange color shows up as brown, etc.). 

That's all that occurs to me right now. If you have other specific
questions, feel free to send them to me directly.

HTH!
-- 
H*
Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com 
Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com

    -- creating dynamic Web sites and applications since 1994 --