All browsers are beasts that chew up and spit out
your carefully designed web pages in ways that you never imagined
possible. In the best of all worlds it would be possible to have your
pages look the same in both the major players' (Explorer and Netscape) products,
but this happy state has yet to arrive.
Test your pages in different BROWSERS.
Test your pages in different VERSIONS of the different browsers. Test your pages at different
RESOLUTIONS. Unless you want your site to look quite strange to some of your visitors you
need to work out a routine for testing your pages in the different browsers, and
in different versions of the same browser.
With the advent of Netscape 6.2 and Explorer 6 the gap is getting smaller, and
the differences are less irritating, but there are still differences.
Earlier versions of these two browsers will give you even more headaches when
you try to write pages that will "work" with all.
My particular bête noire is Netscape 4.7 - I hate that browser with a
passion that defies description! It doesn't just "slightly
alter" my pages - it "totally destroys" them. (If you're viewing this page
with that beast try changing your text size to see what I mean! It
totally ignores the style sheet and just plops stuff wherever it
wants. You'll have to reload the page to get it back in a readable
form.) The
temptation to put up a warning sign such as "If you are a Netscape 4.7 user
don't even bother looking at these pages - just go away and get a decent
browser." is strong. But, since I am always determined to put up a
good looking site, I grit my teeth, mutter curses and imprecations, tear out
some more hair and write
another set of pages or make a different style sheet for Netscape. The
up-side of this is that my visitors will never know, and no matter what browser
they are using they will usually see a well done site!
If you can't achieve a
"one page does for all" you can always find a java script for your
start page which will detect the user's browser and send him/her to the pages
written specially for that browser. And if you have discovered the wonders
of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) you can often make it even easier by writing one
style sheet for Explorer and another for Netscape - although there are times
when the dreaded N4.7 will ignore everything in your style sheet and you'll
have to pop in an "in line style" to overcome its
inadequacies.
While you're testing your pages in those different browsers make sure that you
see what happens when you change the browser's text size. Many a well put
together page can be made to look absolutely dreadful if the viewer uses a
different text size to the one you used when you set up your page design.
If you want to make sure that viewers can't play with the text size then learn
all you can about the use of the <STYLE> tag or CSS. This seems
to work best with Explorer. If you're using it to view these pages try
changing your text display size while looking at this page and see what
happens...
Another thing to test is different screen resolutions. The most common
resolution seems to be 800x600, but with the advent of larger screen
monitors 1024x768 is being used more and more. Many pages (including
this one) use absolute positioning to arrange page layout and so look very
different in the higher resolutions. If you want an easy work around
to ensure that your pages are always viewed at the size that you designed
them for use this handy bit of code onLoad="resizeTo(800,600);"
inside your pages'
BODY tag. It will force the browser to open in an 800x600 window no
matter how large the visitor's screen resolution!
For useful information on how different browsers perform
check the Links page under the Browser
heading. There is also a link to a
site that will test your pages in all browsers (for a fee).
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