Firefox and Internet explorer. Make them BOTH WORK.

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by Leah, Feb 8, 2011.

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  1. Leah

    Leah Newcomer

    UGH. That is my small rant right there. Now the reason behind it 8D

    When I code a new forum, my website, or a table or whatever. I ALWAYS check to make sure it both works in firefox and internet explorer. Because for one, all new PC's (to my knowledge) come with internet explorer and for those people who have NO idea what the heck a firefox is (I was one of these until about a year ago) they use IE! But I have seen many people and some of my friends even, who are like I don't care what my website looks like in IE because I use and support only firefox. Well that is all fine and dandy heck I am even pro firefox and soooo do not like IE but if you want your website to look good wouldn't you care to check both of the most popular web browsers? I do. I find it very unappealing to stumble across a website that is all choppy and distorted, boxes waaaay over there and giant blank squares here and there. It's silly and if you happen to use a different type of browser, chances are that is going to deter you from the website.

    I happen to be talking about RPG's in specific right now. But this applies to other websites.

    So I am asking, is it just me? Am I the tard who wastes time checking both browsers? LOL =)
     
    Leah, Feb 8, 2011
    #1
  2. Shriker
    Magical

    Shriker Shadowlack Owner RPGfix Admin Patron Game Owner

    Here's my advice.

    Never code anything for IE6. Unless you are designing an internal corporate web site, or know that your site is going to be accessed regularly by dinosaurs. I charge extra if people want me to bend over backwards to make their site IE6 compatible. It is not worth it unless you're doing a big contract.

    Use pixels to define font sizes. There are still a few minor issues with scrolling/increasing text sizes on some browsers, but for the most part it's been getting better. Defining by the pixel though will give you a lot more control. Ems can also be nice to work with if you know what you're doing. Don't ever use pts. Pts (point sizes) are for printing. Put them into your print.css if you want. 

    Make sure to use a proper CSS font stack. I browse the web using multiple operating systems (Ubuntu, Windows 7, & Mac OS), so I see a lot of web sites turn to... ugly because they didn't include the Linux or Mac equivalent of a particular font.

    If you're daring, put the IE edge meta tag in your code. This will make sure that whenever a user is visiting your site and using IE, it'll use the most recent rendering mode instead of falling into "quirks" mode. Win for everyone. 

    Learn bloody CSS. People mess up so much because they don't know how to properly use floats and assign widths. They keep on copying and pasting other people's bad code, changing parts of it, and ending up with even more bad code.

    As for both browsers... eh. I work primarily in Chrome. Then I'll likely check it in Opera, then Firefox, then Safari, and then the most recent version of IE. Although the order of that changes based on the site's particular statistics. Right now RPGfix is at ~45% Firefox, 25% Chrome, 20% Opera, & ~6% IE and other.

    However I have another site where over 61% of the users are using IE. So it all comes down to knowing your audience. You can't call yourself a web developer or designer of any sort unless you know your audience.
     
    Shriker, Feb 8, 2011
    #2
  3. Leah

    Leah Newcomer

    Thank you that was very informative. Especially the PT part I stopped (for whatever reason some tutorial I suppose) using PX and went to PT now I can safely change back. <<''

    Also, how do you check what browsers your visitors are using. I have a CPANEL to my website and I've fiddled with things here and there but never the cool features I hear about. Is this somewhere in there?
     
    Leah, Feb 8, 2011
    #3
  4. Shriker
    Magical

    Shriker Shadowlack Owner RPGfix Admin Patron Game Owner

    Point sizes are absolutely horrible when trying to view them between browser to browser. They're a real life measurement, and just do not translate well at all to monitors (which have pixel based resolutions).

    As for knowing... I'm not sure about the most recent version of Cpanel. Last I remember, they only gave you raw access and error logs... unless they've expanded on their stat gathering. So you either need to use something that'll parse the browser information out of your logs, or else use a third party service like Google Analytics and put a small chuck of javascript on your pages. There's also an open source, self-hosted one I've been meaning to mess with called Piwik a well. Just haven't had the time yet.
     
    Shriker, Feb 8, 2011
    #4
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