Detecting non-css intellegent browsers

kchayka wrote:

C A Upsdell > wrote:

One of the problems with NN4 is that there were a lot of versions, and
each had its own set of problems.


As far as CSS goes, there is virtually no difference between various
versions of NS 4.x beyond 4.08.

Absolutely untrue! I clearly remember that, when Netscape updated NN4
to fix bugs, it often introduced new bugs, or reintroduced old bugs,
which played havoc with existing pages.

ima wrote:

OK.. I'm sensing a uniform impression from this group, that my
inexperience was leading me in the wrong direction for a solution.

I have only a few browsers installed for testing and (to my current
knowledge) my biggest problem is with Netscape 4 (which is also the
oldest of my browser selection). I've done some research and I know
that N4 does have some CSS support (if somewhat limited). I don't a
version of IE prior to 6 so I suspect IE5 and earlier probably have
even more problems but I have no way to see them.

NN4 is the worst single problem - I gave up working too hard on it some
time ago, and just settle for graceful degradation.

1. (html) Make sure table, tr, th, td are always closed (if you use them
at all) - it's not required, but NN4 can fall in a heap if you don't.
2. Use doctype to get standards mode rather than quirks mode.

3. Hide some or all of your CSS from NN4 (see
http://w3development.de/css/hide_css_from_browsers/ for how).
Have an all_browsers.css, and a not_nn4.css or similar - experiment by
initially putting everything in not_nn4, and moving stuff across.

4. Test - initially on Moz, FF, Opera or similar fairly compliant
browser, then when that works move on to ie6,5.5,5,7 and maybe 4.
It's easier to start from fully compliant, and then add workarounds for
IE oddities. There's supposed to be reliable ways to put multiple
versions of IE on one pc nowadays, but I haven't tried them - I test
from work. Ideally try out on Mac too - Mac IE has different bugs from
WinIE.

Chris

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Borris wrote:

David Dorward wrote:
agents for which a table based layout is worse then sensible markup.

When do tables display worse than "sensible" markup?

Try viewing some sites with tables using Lynx especially those
that include <br> in the table cells and center the text.

A Preformatted version of a table:

Features supported by different versions:
Description Versions
Feature 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.5
Cut and paste N N N N N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Colour highlighting N N N N N N N N N Y N Y Y
Etc., etc.

A table with centered data in all but the leftmost column and a <br> after
every cell content for spacing as rendered by Lynx:

Features supported by different versions:
Description Versions
Feature
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
3.0
3.1
3.2
3.5
Cut and paste
N
N
N
N
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Colour highlighting
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
Y
N
Y
Y

Etc., etc.

Then there are the tables that do display horizontally (no "<br>") but
use 'Y' for supported features and an empty cell for unsupported so Lynx
displays something like this:

Features supported by different versions:
Description Versions
Feature 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.5
Cut and paste Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Colour highlighting Y Y Y
Etc., etc.

Sensible markup would list the versions supporting each feature:

Features supported by different versions:
Feature: Versions Supporting it
Cut and paste: Versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.5
Colour highlighting: Versions 3.0, 3.2, 3.5
Etc., etc.

Which would degrade in Lynx to the following understandable output:

Features supported by different versions:
Feature: Versions Supporting it
Cut and paste: Versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.5
Colour highlighting: Versions 3.0, 3.2, 3.5
Etc., etc.

To simulate Lynx rendering of a table:

1. Take a table,
2. Change each <table...>...</table> to <p>...</p>
3. Change each </tr><tr...> to <br>
4. Delete the unchanged <tr...> and </tr> at the start and ends of the
table.
5. Change each <td...> and </td> to a space (not an &nbsp; but an
ordinary space subject to whitespace compression).
Now view it and see what you get.

Or...

Lynx has been ported to Windows. Grab a copy from here:
http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/lynxport.htm

It will also help to give you an idea of how your content is
"seen" by search-engines or by the blind using screen-readers
and speech-synthesizers.

--
``Why don't you find a more appropiate newsgroup to post this tripe into?
This is a meeting place for a totally differnt kind of "vision impairment".
Catch my drift?'' -- "jim" in alt.disability.blind.social regarding an
off-topic religious/political post, March 28, 2005