Possibly a dumb question

I know nothing whatsoevera about Macs except that you have to pry them out
of their cold dead hands before they'd switch to a Windows machine.

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.

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to accommodate
Mac users??... Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had to ask!

Jenna wrote:

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to accommodate
Mac users??...

No.

--
James M. Shook
http://www.jshook.com

Good coding methods?

Seriously, no. Any website built with standards compliant code will be
equally visible on Macs and PCs. Be aware that it's possible to build a
completely broken site that looks vastly different on the two platforms, and
still have valid code, however.

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
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http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
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"Jenna" <jennaw707 (AT) NOSPAMhotmail (DOT) com> wrote

I know nothing whatsoevera about Macs except that you have to pry them out
of their cold dead hands before they'd switch to a Windows machine.

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.

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to
accommodate
Mac users??... Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had to ask!

If you are going to be developing websites on a professional basis, then get
a Mac as well just to check. You can pick up an old Blue iMac for about
$200. Plus you'll get to learn a bit about "the other side" which is A Good
Thing.

--
James Loudon
www.fatgraphics.com
websites:hotography::video


All outgoing (and incoming) mail
is scanned by Norton AV and is as
guaranteed to be as bug-free as possible.
"Jenna" <jennaw707 (AT) NOSPAMhotmail (DOT) com> wrote

I know nothing whatsoevera about Macs except that you have to pry them out
of their cold dead hands before they'd switch to a Windows machine.

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.

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to
accommodate
Mac users??... Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had to ask!

Not sure I agree with buying a Mac just for site viewing. Considering that
most stats show Mac users between 1%-5% of users out there. And most of
those are web developers.


"James Loudon" <james (AT) blahblahfatgraphics (DOT) com> wrote

If you are going to be developing websites on a professional basis, then
get
a Mac as well just to check. You can pick up an old Blue iMac for about
$200. Plus you'll get to learn a bit about "the other side" which is A
Good
Thing.

--
James Loudon
www.fatgraphics.com
websites:hotography::video


All outgoing (and incoming) mail
is scanned by Norton AV and is as
guaranteed to be as bug-free as possible.
"Jenna" <jennaw707 (AT) NOSPAMhotmail (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:cdmcut$3ul$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...
I know nothing whatsoevera about Macs except that you have to pry them
out
of their cold dead hands before they'd switch to a Windows machine.

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.

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to
accommodate
Mac users??... Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had to ask!

"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. Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with
less enormous consequences (no upside-down stuff, mostly alignment
variations).
Also, there are big differences in javascript support. 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.
Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with less enormous
consequencies than for CSS layout and javascript.


Murray *TMM* wrote:

Good coding methods?

Seriously, no. Any website built with standards compliant code will be
equally visible on Macs and PCs. Be aware that it's possible to build a
completely broken site that looks vastly different on the two platforms, and
still have valid code, however.

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

"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.

Also, there are big differences in javascript support.

Really? Like what?

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?

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com - Template Triage!
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/ - Macromedia (MM) Technotes
==================

"seb" <sebnewyork (AT) earhlink (DOT) netTakeThisOut> 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. Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with
less enormous consequences (no upside-down stuff, mostly alignment
variations).
Also, there are big differences in javascript support. 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.
Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with less enormous
consequencies than for CSS layout and javascript.


Murray *TMM* wrote:
Good coding methods?

Seriously, no. Any website built with standards compliant code will be
equally visible on Macs and PCs. Be aware that it's possible to build a
completely broken site that looks vastly different on the two platforms,
and
still have valid code, however.

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?

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).

IE5 is pretty old. It's rendering engine hasn't been updated in years. While
it certainly has problems, and is still used by a lot of mac folks, I don't
know if I'd group it with Murray's group of "CONTEMPORARY browsers".

I agree, though. Sometimes simple tables is better than complex CSS hacks.

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.

I'm guessing that is due more to poorly written scripts than poor javascript
support. NN4 and IE both have custom/proprietary ways to call objects in the
DOM and I'd bet the script is using those proprietary ways instead of more
universal methods.

-Darrel