Netscape 4 tips.

[spaghetti]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
setup a decent looking page that isn't cluttered and doesn't use too much
table-bloat. But I'm still having quite a few problems in general with
Netscape 4. I guess I just don't understand all it's quirks and failures. At
this point I'm wondering how the hell Netscape 4 ever happened. It's like
raping my mind of pure layout and CSS skills!

So I'm just looking for some tips that might help me along the way. I know
already I pretty much can't use CSS unless it's for insanely simple things.
And I have to set rules specifically since it can't understand all the
shortcuts. And it doesn't do ems. And it is the only browser that can cause
a page to look a bit different on every refresh.

But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
screwy browser?

Thanks guys.

-spag

(And I deny the accusation of having blow-up dolls of all my favorite
alt.html celebrities.)

 

[Blorn Hauser]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
setup a decent looking page that isn't cluttered and doesn't use too much
table-bloat. But I'm still having quite a few problems in general with
Netscape 4. I guess I just don't understand all it's quirks and failures. At
this point I'm wondering how the hell Netscape 4 ever happened. It's like
raping my mind of pure layout and CSS skills!

So I'm just looking for some tips that might help me along the way. I know
already I pretty much can't use CSS unless it's for insanely simple things.
And I have to set rules specifically since it can't understand all the
shortcuts. And it doesn't do ems. And it is the only browser that can cause
a page to look a bit different on every refresh.

But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
screwy browser?

Thanks guys.

-spag

(And I deny the accusation of having blow-up dolls of all my favorite
alt.html celebrities.)

I feel your pain and await group responses. i've recently sunk my claws into
css. i don't know how i built table-based sites for so long. well i'm
testing all my css in netscape 4.7 (css1 stuff) and it is disgraceful. it
has little respect of simple box elements such as margin. also nesting spans
/ divs is a crap-shoot.

as a developer i've dealt with cross-browser / platform issues since '96. I
think i am going to do my best to write off netscape completely. now we have
safari which i don't know much about. the bottomline is that the internet
audience is primarily IE based. I can't imagine how many web dev man hours
could have been saved if netscape had just complied with MS standards

carl

 

[kchayka]

I can't imagine how many web dev man hours
could have been saved if netscape had just complied with MS standards

That's funny, I was just thinking how many hours I could have saved if
MSIE had just complied with W3C standards.

 

[spaghetti]

That's funny, I was just thinking how many hours I could have saved if
MSIE had just complied with W3C standards.

The thing is Netscape 4 focks up the basic stuff so badly in the first
place. I mean I understand nobody was really following standards at that
time, but this thing isn't even in the same ballpark as anyone else. It's
like they assumed everyone would build pages with <img> and <font> tags
alone.

 

[Kevin Scholl]

Amen.

The thing is Netscape 4 focks up the basic stuff so badly in the first
place. I mean I understand nobody was really following standards at that
time, but this thing isn't even in the same ballpark as anyone else. It's
like they assumed everyone would build pages with <img> and <font> tags
alone.

Well, Netscape 4 was released in 1996. At that time, it wasn't so much
that "nobody was really following standards" -- the standards,
particularly as we know them today, didn't really even exist. Can you
really fault a 7 year old browser?

Heck, Netscape 4 was reasonably cutting edge when it was released.

--

*** Remove the DELETE from my address to reply ***

======================================================
Kevin Scholl http://www.ksscholl.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Barefoot Kid]

| Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
| Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
| setup a decent looking page that isn't cluttered and doesn't use too much
| table-bloat. But I'm still having quite a few problems in general with
| Netscape 4. I guess I just don't understand all it's quirks and failures. At
| this point I'm wondering how the hell Netscape 4 ever happened. It's like
| raping my mind of pure layout and CSS skills!
|
| So I'm just looking for some tips that might help me along the way. I know
| already I pretty much can't use CSS unless it's for insanely simple things.
| And I have to set rules specifically since it can't understand all the
| shortcuts. And it doesn't do ems. And it is the only browser that can cause
| a page to look a bit different on every refresh.
|
| But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
| screwy browser?
|
| Thanks guys.

beware of bg images of table tiling within the tables cells!!!

http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/tips/html/14.php3

 

[Andrew Tang]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
setup a decent looking page that isn't cluttered and doesn't use too much
table-bloat. But I'm still having quite a few problems in general with
Netscape 4. I guess I just don't understand all it's quirks and failures. At
this point I'm wondering how the hell Netscape 4 ever happened. It's like
raping my mind of pure layout and CSS skills!

So I'm just looking for some tips that might help me along the way. I know
already I pretty much can't use CSS unless it's for insanely simple things.
And I have to set rules specifically since it can't understand all the
shortcuts. And it doesn't do ems. And it is the only browser that can cause
a page to look a bit different on every refresh.

But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
screwy browser?

Thanks guys.

-spag

(And I deny the accusation of having blow-up dolls of all my favorite
alt.html celebrities.)

Some questions of my own first.

Does it need to look good in NS4? Are a majority of your users going to be
using NS4, or are you just supporting Netscape 4 because a minority are
using it.

Nowadays, sites can be create in pure CSS for design, and HTML for
structure, whilst still working in NS4 by degrading gracefully. The problem
with this approach is that Netscape 4 users will see a very bland page as if
it is not done with any styling whatsoever. The advantages are that it works
in all browsers (they all get the content which is the most important aspect
usually), and people with newer browsers has the ability to see the full
design in full colour.

All that needs to be done is write out the page in HTML first with -no- CSS,
and this will define your sites structure and what NS4 users will see. Then
create an external stylesheet for the page, using the import command.

Andy

PS Some good CSS sites if you don't know already
http://www.csszengarden.com/

 

[Robert Frost-Bridges]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well
in Netscape 4 and worse. [snip]

But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of
this screwy browser?

These might be of some help:

http://realworldstyle.com/
http://pixellated.org/nn4css.php

 

[John C]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
[snip]
But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
screwy browser?

This might help, in addition to pointers in other replies:

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=NetscapeFour

I've done okay without tables using css 3-column fluid layout with header
and footer sections, working fine in NN4 as well as modern browsers.
Instead of hiding css from NN4, I start out with a stylesheet that NN4
understands, and then add second stylesheet with @import to bring in
refinements for modern browsers plus IE5 hacks. And validating 4.01
strict and CSS2. The main thing I found was that rules often don't
inherit in NN4, so things have to be repeated for many elements, bloating
the stylesheet in comparison to what works in today's browsers. I found
it harder to deal with IE5x than with NN4, however.

Good luck! In my case, it was nothing other than personal satisfaction to
see some pages look the same in NN4 as IE5, IE6, Mozilla 1.5, etc. after
people told me it couldn't be done. Don't think I'd want to have to count
on it for my livelihood, though!

 

[charliek]

Necessity has forced me to build a site that works (reasonably) well in
Netscape 4 and worse. I need to rely on tables for positioning and have
setup a decent looking page that isn't cluttered and doesn't use too much
table-bloat. But I'm still having quite a few problems in general with
Netscape 4. I guess I just don't understand all it's quirks and failures. At
this point I'm wondering how the hell Netscape 4 ever happened. It's like
raping my mind of pure layout and CSS skills!

So I'm just looking for some tips that might help me along the way. I know
already I pretty much can't use CSS unless it's for insanely simple things.
And I have to set rules specifically since it can't understand all the
shortcuts. And it doesn't do ems. And it is the only browser that can cause
a page to look a bit different on every refresh.

But anything else I should know before I finish braving the wild of this
screwy browser?

Thanks guys.

-spag

(And I deny the accusation of having blow-up dolls of all my favorite
alt.html celebrities.)

Netscape 4 is old, you can not blame it for not supporting todays
standards. If you want to blame somebody blame whoever is forcing you
to support netscape 4

To make your site look good use tables for layout and lots of font
tags. Don't use CSS. This would suck to hand code, and I would
recommend that you use dreamweaver or something similar. Don't use
images as backgrounds in tables. It should not be that hard but the
page source will become longer.

AND HAVE FUN.

Charlie

 

[Paul Aitch]

To make your site look good use tables for layout and lots of font
tags. Don't use CSS. This would suck to hand code, and I would
recommend that you use dreamweaver or something similar. Don't use
images as backgrounds in tables. It should not be that hard but the
page source will become longer.

AND HAVE FUN.

Charlie

You can use CSS with care. Main problem is that NS4 doesn't always
inherit. If you set, say body {font-size: 24px} and then have a div
governed by a class that sets {font-size: 18px}, when you exit the div
the font-size sometimes doesn't revert to 24. You have to reset it to 24
with a style statement in the new div. A pain in the proverbial. That's
why you'll find a lot of redundant-seeming style statements in many of
my pages - see
http://www.guycroft.clara.net

Paul

 

[rf]

news:[email protected]...

[Netscape 4.x]

You can use CSS with care. Main problem is that NS4 doesn't always
inherit. If you set, say body {font-size: 24px} and then have a div
governed by a class that sets {font-size: 18px}, when you exit the div
the font-size sometimes doesn't revert to 24. You have to reset it to 24
with a style statement in the new div. A pain in the proverbial.

Another good reason for never setting the font-size, especially in pixels.
And why would one set font-size: 24px for the <body> element? That is over
half again as big as I like my font. I would have to lean on my mouse wheel
to bring the font size back to what I like to read.

Cheers
Richard.

 

[Mark Parnell]

Sometime around Thu, 20 Nov 2003 07:22:00 GMT, rf is reported to have
stated:

[Netscape 4.x]

And why would one set font-size: 24px for the <body> element? That is over
half again as big as I like my font. I would have to lean on my mouse wheel
to bring the font size back to what I like to read.

Doesn't work in NS4. Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] to decrease and increase font size
respectively.