css - onmouseover

[Jonathan N. Little]

If I remember correctly Netscape 4.79 did also support :hover.

I don't think so, NN4.x had very poor CSS support. I have NN4.61 and can
confirm that it does not work in 4.61 so I would doubt any 4.x version
would support it.

 

[C A Upsdell]

Except that IE6 doesn't have anywhere near 34% of the market any more.


IE7 and 8, however, do a *much* better job of implementing the standards than
IE6, so there isn't nearly as much additional work required to be compatible
with them.

I wonder how much of this is a dislike of Microsoft? When Netscape 4
was still a contender -- and even when its market share had dropped
below 5% -- I found myself spending 55% of my time coping with its
defects and incompatibilities. I'm sure other designers had similar
experiences, because NN4 had a LOT of problems. Complaints about NN4
were far fewer than today's complaints about IE, yet with IE 6 and 7, I
only have to spend about 5% of my time coping with its defects and
incompatibilities. Few then considered dropping NN4 support: why now
consider dropping IE6 support?

As for market share, I monitor browser stats, and I have sources in
which IE6 usage varies from 14% (US Geological Survey site), to 45% (a
server at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Browser
usage depends very much on the site, because different sites attract
different types of visitors: just because one site attracts a certain
percentage of IE 6 users does not mean that all do.

Another issue: if you decide not to support IE 6, do you tell your
client that you are making a site that turns away many of the people who
come to their site? If you don't, you are being dishonest; if you do, I
suspect your client will be booting your ass out the door.

 

[dorayme]

And if people stopped coding for IE6 then those who still use it would
be forced to either upgrade or find an alternative, because there'd be
too many broken web pages. Thus reducing that percentage even faster.
Hehe. ;-)

No one has ever disputed this. If more troops go over the top than the
enemy has ammunition or time to fire it, then the attack will succeed.
The difficulty is the number and type of casualties. Whether the attempt
succeeds or not!

 

[Peter]

No one has ever disputed this. If more troops go over the top than the
enemy has ammunition or time to fire it, then the attack will succeed.
The difficulty is the number and type of casualties. Whether the attempt
succeeds or not!

Aah, I see where you're coming from. Make Love Not War!!! I'm all for
that. ;-)

All joking aside, I don't think that allegory is anywhere near
appropriate. What casualties in the browser war will there be exactly?
One useful trait us humans have is the ability to adapt. If we can't do
something one way then we'll find another way to do it, if we really
have to. No casualties. Just change.

As a regular user of IE6 on one of my machines (which still also has
win98 on it, btw), I've just been too lazy to make the change. But, it
will happen some day soon, and I won't be pulling my hair out because I
can no longer do things how I used to. I'll just get on with doing what
I should have done years ago.

 

[dorayme]

...What casualties in the browser war will there be exactly?

One useful trait us humans have is the ability to adapt. If we can't do
something one way then we'll find another way to do it, if we really
have to. No casualties. Just change.

Dear Dr Pangloss,

Thank you for this bright and cheery thought. But I see the bleeding
casualties of web surfers every day and trust me when I say that my
clinic is full and cannot take the extra flood that would result from
any wholesale and sudden loss of support for IE6.

You will be pleased to know that I kick authors who complain about the
three pixel gap *even where they suffer no float drop*, straight out the
door, like ruffians violently thrown out of a night club. But the
hapless surfers in government and business departments (whose IT
departments have inertial interest in keeping IE6) cannot be thrown to
the wolves so brutally...

Regards