To All MIE Designers
30th December, 2000
Hear our pleas, oh those who deign to install that which has been made by the enterprising hand of Microsoft Corporation (which must die, if the bumper stickers are to be believed), from the crying minority (a rather big minority too) of Netscape users.
Sounds a bit like the opening to a Bible-belt Beatles burning hey?
Yes, I have chosen the perceived evils of Netscape over the perceived evils of MIE, and quite glad of it too, if only for the fact that it's what I'm used to and it gives me a welcomed opportunity to rant against one of the major global corporations that are currently destroying modern society and sending us on a one-way course straight to the Apocalypse – but that's another story in itself. For now, I'll stick to the small area of web-design.
Think of this not as an evangelist quest for conversion or your standard annoyed rant, but more as suggestions on how to go about resolving problems many MIE designers probably aren't even aware of.
Contention A – Frames
Browser bias is rampant online, anyone will patriotically agree. Rarely are attempts made to cater for both camps (this is how wars are started). What I've observed, concerning frames, is that MIE is a lot more lenient than Netscape. MIE can digest missing "s and misplaced or open-ended tags fairly well, Netscape vomits up the lot as unreadable gibberish and presents nothing but a blank screen. As a result, a huge number of sites that are likely wonderful in both content and design are being skipped over; MIE designers, you may be losing upto 50% of possible hits. So we pose. . . .
Sugestions as to rectify this problem
1 – ensure all [FRAMESET] tags are closed with the [/FRAMESET] tag. Putting only one at the end does not work in Netscape, and can be considered as just lazy or sloppy coding. Surprisingly, this is the main hiccup I've encountered with most Netscape-allergic sites I've come across.
2 – remember to ditch [BODY] tags when coding frames, unless they're inside the [NOFRAMES] [/NOFRAMES] tags. For Netscape to read a simple [FRAMESET] code, there must be no [BODY] tags.
3 – check that you've accounted for all the frames specified in the COLS="##,##" and/or ROWS="##,##" commands. If you've specified that you want three columns, make sure you have three [FRAME SRC] tags inside your [FRAMESET] [/FRAMESET] tags.
4 – check that all HTML commands have "s in the appropriate places, and when you've done that, check again. A single misplaced or missing " can render your entire frame code unreadable to Netscape users, resulting in the very annoying blank screen or confusing ugly mess of frames.
5 – this is a personal thing for me, but please with thin frames that are just there to make the whole look nicer, throw a SCROLLING="no" command in the [FRAME SRC] tag. Netscape has a lamentable habit of putting in scrolling bars where they're inappropriate, and just make things look ugly (does MIE do the same thing?)
6 – again, a personal thing, but if you don't want people moving your frames round to suit themselves, or you want to understandably lose those ugly grey bars, put a BORDER="0" command in every tag of your frame code, except the [/FRAMESET] tag.
Contention B – CSS scripts
CSS script users, I'm begging you, please use scripts that are compatible to both MIE and Netscape. A script that only one browser can read will likely screw up your site entirely on the other ("Netscape has performed an illegal operation" and otherwise unexplainable freezes are common in my case), and frankly it's unreasonable to demand that visitors download a specific browser in order to view your site. What's most likely is they'll pass straight by and go somewhere else rather than wait hours for a full package browser to download.
Suggestions as to rectify this problem
1 – I know next to nothing about CSS, but I can make a suggestion to those designers who do that may make things easier. Download your 'opponent's browser (if you can avoid downloading the full package with it, go for it, as all you want is the browser itself) and do a little investigating into scripts that both browsers can view. And before you call me a hypocrite, yes I do have a copy of MIE on my hard drive, but it can only read files on my hard drive thanks to a certain proxy that shall remain mercifully nameless. It's best and only use is in regards to my own web-designing, for weeding out any unreadable HTML that works perfectly fine in Netscape. It's one of the best fail-safe measures I've come across yet.
Contention C – Menus
I don't know how many sites I've come across where gorgeous design has been fatally flawed by a javascript or dropdown menu that Netscape is virulently allergic to. So whilst MIE users can sit back and wander where they will, those of us with Netscape have to open up source files and try to interpret endless javascript or complex HTML to find links which must then be copied and pasted into a location bar – a very tedious and frustrating process if I do say so myself, and I don't particularly mind perusing source files.
Suggestions as to rectify this problem
1 – obey the golden rule of D&T, keep it simple stupid. Use more basic HTML and position text with [DIV] tags or tables. Consider it a challenge, experiment to find more friendly ways of getting the effects you want.
2 – rather than copying and pasting from other people's source files (hardly a crime), explore places like Website Abstraction or HTML Goodies to find what you're after. The codes are almost always bi-browser compatible, and if not will usually indicate which browser a particular code works on.
Hopefully this will help other Netscape users to view your site. If any other Netscape users have problems with MIE-oriented design, or vice-versa, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with.
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