[thelist] Design for netscape 4.x and others?

[rudy]

> Is it commonplace to design separate sites for separate browsers
> or is there a set of rules to cover most browsers in one design?

hi peter

yes, and yes, respectively

judging by people's comments on web development discussion lists, a lot of
clients are still insisting that the site look "the same" in netscape 4

there are basically two sets of rules for the "one design" approach

the first is that you keep everything to a minimum, feature-wise, so that
without any extra effort the site *does* look the same in all browsers --
so for example you could use image rollovers, tables for layout, and font
tags, but not very much css, and as a result, it's a lot harder to maintain
this type of site

the second set of rules is that you design using css, and let the old
browsers fend for themselves as best they can -- and one real good strategy
in this approach is to use the @import hack, er, technique, to hide any
styles from netscape 4 that don't work in netscape 4

as a result, netscape 4 users see a plain site -- the content is there, but
not the layout and maybe not the stylish look either

one notable resource for this second approach is the WaSP (web standards
project)

see http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/tips.html


rudy