Possibly a dumb question

I have spent a lot of time creating a site using only CSS positioning,
which looked exactly the same in FireFox, Safari, IE Windows, and Opera.
Unfortunately, all looked wrong in IE5 Mac (really wrong, not slightly).
Since my default browser was IE5 Mac then, as it is for tons of graphic
designers, fashion designers, advertising/marketing companies -i.e. my
clients-, I figured I'd stick to tables layout.
I'd rather deal with simple tricks that make table layout cross-platform
perfect, than "hacks" that give three different styles expressions
according to which browser they target.

As I said, it's quite possible to use good coding techniques to make bad
pages. I can't see your pages or their code so I can't comment. But I
don't think it's a fair generalization to asset what you are asserting here.

persistent layers (JS extension) don't work in Safari (don't remember
about Opera).

But this is not javascript support, it's javascript usages, no? Besides,
who do you know that uses good coding methods that uses such bells and
whistles?

Just so pictures (JS extension) don't work in Safari and Opera.

I don't know about Opera, but the current version of JSPW works just fine in
Safari. Prove it to yourself here -

http://www.therobertshouse.com/r_area.asp (click on the room pictures)

By the way, that site is all CSS-P. Do you see any problems with it?
It is valid HTML4.01....

And I've noticed other disfonctionalities which I didn't investigate
further.

I don't count this as a specific example, however.

In general it seems that Safari and Opera JS support is weak.

Perhaps Opera, but you are completely wrong about Safari.

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"seb" <sebnewyork (AT) earhlink (DOT) netTakeThisOut> wrote

Murray *TMM* wrote:

"Standards compliant" code is not rendered the same way by different
browsers. Actually, if you're going to use "standard compliant" CSS
positioning for your layout, don't even bother publishing your site
without previewing it in as many browsers as possible on both Mac and
PC, because your layout might as well be *upside down* from one browser
to the next.


While it is true that testing sites in many browsers is always a good
idea
no matter what your coding methods are, I think it's not correct to
assert
that using CSS positioning can cause your site to be radically wrong on
different CONTEMPORARY browsers. But I have not seen any of your sites,
so
I can't really judge what you mean by this.

I have spent a lot of time creating a site using only CSS positioning,
which looked exactly the same in FireFox, Safari, IE Windows, and Opera.
Unfortunately, all looked wrong in IE5 Mac (really wrong, not slightly).
Since my default browser was IE5 Mac then, as it is for tons of graphic
designers, fashion designers, advertising/marketing companies -i.e. my
clients-, I figured I'd stick to tables layout.
I'd rather deal with simple tricks that make table layout cross-platform
perfect, than "hacks" that give three different styles expressions
according to which browser they target.



Also, there are big differences in javascript support.


Really? Like what?

persistent layers (JS extension) don't work in Safari (don't remember
about Opera).
Just so pictures (JS extension) don't work in Safari and Opera.
And I've noticed other disfonctionalities which I didn't investigate
further.
In general it seems that Safari and Opera JS support is weak.





If you're going
to use timelines, show-hide layer behaviors or even swap image
behaviors, you better test in both Mac and PC, because same browser
version might not behave the same way on different platforms.


Really? Can you give me specific examples where you see these
differences?

Thanks to everyone for their input!!! I appreciate it.



"darrel" <notreal (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Not sure I agree with buying a Mac just for site viewing.

There's no such thing. Once you buy a Mac, you end up using it for
everything. ;o)

Considering that
most stats show Mac users between 1%-5% of users out there.

Stats like that are fairly meaningless aren't indicitive of actual user
preferences.

And most of
those are web developers.

Not at all.

If you're targetting graphic designers, you'll probably find 50% + use
macs.

If you're targetting lawyers, you'll fine up to 30% use Macs.

Households? Easily 5% - 10%.

Middle managers in banks? Probably .000001%

Fortunately, the common browsers on the Mac these days (firefox, Safari)
are
fairly standards compliant. You still should consider IE/5 mac, which has
major issues, but a suitable solution for that is something like
browsercam:

http://www.browsercam.com

So you don't really need to OWN a mac, but you should try to test in one.

BTW, you can (sort of) run OSX on Windows now:

http://weblogs.asp.net/mikehall/archive/2004/07/03/172677.aspx

;o)

and don't forget linux users!

-Darrel

On 21 Jul 2004 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Jenna wrote:

Recently a Mac owner said that they had to do something "special" to
their company website before she could see the website on her Mac.
She doesn't know anything about computers except how to turn it off
and on, so I wasn't able to get any more information out of her.

Does she have to do it every time, or was it only once? Also, was the
operation performed on her computer or on the server?

If it was only once and on her computer, it could be that the site used
Java (not javascript), Flash or some other such which requires a plugin
which her Mac didn't have.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email: http://makowiec.net/email.php

Thanks, Joe. However, we'll never know the answer to that one because this
poor lady was so clueless that I doubt she'd know what "flash" meant. I
couldn't even get out of her specifically what she wasn't able to see, so
I'm going to chalk it up to something isolated on her end of things and not
worry too much about it.

You know, it's really pretty impossible...and pretty impractical...to try
and develop things so that all these tiny groups of people can see them. I
know a lot of people don't like Microsoft, Windows, and/or Internet
Explorer, but the blunt truth of the matter is that those ARE the
mainstream, and we shouldn't be put in the position of trying to plug holes
in every weird computer configuration and browser oddity as it would take
far too much time and effort and money to buy all the various equpiment and
software just to make that happen.


"Joe Makowiec" <makowiec (AT) invalid (DOT) invalid> wrote

On 21 Jul 2004 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Jenna wrote:

Recently a Mac owner said that they had to do something "special" to
their company website before she could see the website on her Mac.
She doesn't know anything about computers except how to turn it off
and on, so I wasn't able to get any more information out of her.

Does she have to do it every time, or was it only once? Also, was the
operation performed on her computer or on the server?

If it was only once and on her computer, it could be that the site used
Java (not javascript), Flash or some other such which requires a plugin
which her Mac didn't have.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email: http://makowiec.net/email.php