[thelist] Netscape... why?

[Mark Gallagher]

Erik Mattheis wrote:
> At 4:49 PM -0700 6/7/02, Michael Mell wrote:
>
>> Erik Mattheis wrote:
>>
>>>  And really, there are things that you _have_ to serve different stuff
>>>  ... either with JS or a cookie as you suggest in your fine article.
>>
>>
>> I really disagree -- I do site development all day long for Netscape
>> 4, IE
>> 4,5&6, Opera 5 on Mac, PC for designers who have no concept of working
>> within the constraints of html. I never, ever (except maybe once in a
>> moment
>> of weakness) serve anything different for any platform. Sure, the layout
>> looks a little different on each but so what? Everyone gets a good
>> page. You
>> just have to work at it.
>
> If you had to, how would you use one stylesheet to

Why restrict yourself to one stylesheet?

> - use scroll:

Er, you mean overflow:, right?  If it's not crucial, then just use it
fine.  Opera will simply let the text flow outside its box, which may
look ugly, but is still usable.  If it *is* crucial, well, rethink your
design.

> - style form elements

There's a school of thought that says styleing form elements is bad.  I
don't belong to it, but I just thought I'd point that out anyway.

In the case of Netscape 4 (screws up most styled elements, doesn't show
styled <textarea>s at all), simply call the stylesheet containing these
styles via @import.

In the case of Opera (doesn't want to know about styled elements), well,
TS.  Your design should survive without them.

> - set body margins to a true 0px

You're actually setting body *padding* to 0px, but somewhere along the
line margin: 0; set in as the "norm".

Do this:
   body {
         margin: 0;
         padding: 0;
         }

To get around any inconvenient bouts of correctness from Opera.

> Sure, there's a ton of CSS that will render pretty much the same in
> the majority of browsers ... but some cool stuff that will not.

True.

>> Disclaimer:
>> I do layout using tables and don't plan on changing any time soon.
>
> As do I for the most part.
>
> Back to the subject: of the thread ... I have two clients that insist
> on continuing to use NN 4.x ... both use custom CMSs which are
> stunningly beautiful in IE, Opera and NN 6+ ... I cannot get them to
> switch. They like NN 4.x. Why? WHY? WWHHYYY?

Perhaps they just like the feel of using the browser.  Until recently,
Netscape (4.x and below) was an extremely solid browser, and even the
*look* of the thing seemed to scream "I'm not gonna crash!"  If only IE
could do the same thing :o)


--
Mark Gallagher
http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/



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