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Part 1: Cross-Browser Compatibility Part 2: Development Part 3: Debugging Part 4: References |
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Part
1: Cross-Browser Compatibility A major issue in HTML development is how to get a web page to look consistent amongst different browsers and on different platforms. Here are a few tips, tricks, and hints for dealing with this issue. Validate to the XHTML Standard The best way to make markup work across browsers is to stick to the recognized standard, avoiding proprietary tags. Currently, the transitional XHTML 1.0 standard is in effect. It is backwards compatible, is designed to allow web pages to work in micro-browsers (think cell phones), and requires that code be validated against the standard. WebMonkey has a good article introducing XHTML. Do Not Use the <font> Tag The <font> tag is now officially deprecated, and for good reason. Cascading Style Sheets are a much better way of designing a page. They allow for changes to be made globally with little effort, they allow content to be presented differently to different output devices, and they give you more control over your pages' presentation. WebMonkey has an overview on cascading style sheets. Do Not Use the Underscore Character In Style Names Styles that include the underscore character are not recognized by Netscape's 4.x series of browsers and will be ignored. Allow Extra Time Although writing XHTML code that adheres to standard and using style sheets will help you with making pages display as desired in many modern browsers, you will still have to deal with bugs in older browsers. If you elect to support any of the Netscape 4.x series of browsers, you can anticipate adding at least 30% to your development time. Start With the Most Troublesome Browser If you design with the more buggy browser to start, getting the other browsers to display your pages properly will be significantly easier. Doing this the other way around can lead to unexpected surprises and time-wasting rewriting of markup. In general, start with Netscape 4.x*, assuming that you have elected to support this browser, otherwise start with the Netscape 6.x series. Simplify Your Tables Planning your tables in advance to provide the simplest solution is generally the best solution. Part of this includes knowing the limitations of HTML/XHTML development when designing your site and accomodating this in your design. Minimize table nesting where possible. Relying on precise complicated table layouts to achieve your design can lead to a nightmare getting everything to display as desired across different browsers. * My view on Netscape 4.x is that it is one of the most difficult, buggy, and unstable browsers around. My sources in the development world concur in stating that Netscape 4.x is a very bad example of software engineering, and is likely why the Mozilla project elected to rewrite it from scratch to give us the Netscape 6.0/Mozilla 1.0 and later browsers. I personally check to ensure that my pages degrade gracefully in Netscape 4.x (are still readable and navigable), but leave it at that.
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