Compensating the Firefox - MSIE gap

T

Thorben Grosser

Hello NG again,

after messing a bit around, I got a quite satisfying result on my page
which works good for both, MSIE and Firefox. Now I rebuilt the page in
my CMS and checked it again for HTML4 vailidity and got a positive
result. In fact, HTML-Conform always meant for me: Looks good on every
browser.

http://gosingen.dyndns.tv/ce-page/

If you look at this link, it actually doesn't at all. Any explainations
whats actually wrong or how to work it out?

so long
Thorben
 
B

Barbara de Zoete

Hello NG again,

after messing a bit around, I got a quite satisfying result on my page which
works good for both, MSIE and Firefox. Now I rebuilt the page in my CMS and
checked it again for HTML4 vailidity and got a positive result. In fact,
HTML-Conform always meant for me: Looks good on every browser.

No, html is for structuring your content. Has nothing to do with looks, although
mistakes can influence looks because they cause wrong rendering.
Besides, how do you make your pages look good in Lynx, in other plaint text
browsers, in braille browsers or in aural browsers? Well structured and valid
pages guarantee that they can be accessed and used in all sorts of browsers.
http://gosingen.dyndns.tv/ce-page/

If you look at this link, it actually doesn't at all. Any explainations whats
actually wrong or how to work it out?

Well, for one: the page is in quirks mode:
<http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/doctypes.html>
<http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/05/29/quirks_mode>

Secondly, never expect to be able to render a pixel perfect design exactly the
same in all browsers out there. Just make sure it works everywhere (correct
markup) and looks nice in the modern and mainstream graphical browsers (for
other OS than just Windows too). It doesn't really matter if it looks the same
in various browsers or not, because your visitor has the habit of coming to your
pages with just one browser anyway. If it works in that browser and looks kinda
nice, it's fine with that visitor, so it should be fine for you too.

What helps is to make a page design as flexible and fluid as possible:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=liquid+OR+fluid+design>

What also helps is to internalise the idea that your control on how your pages
are rendered is actually very little. All one can do is provide properly
structured and meaningful markup and some nice CSS to create the looks and feel
for the mainstream graphical UA.

--
,-- --<--@ -- PretLetters: 'woest wyf', met vele interesses: ----------.
| weblog | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html |
| webontwerp | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html |
|zweefvliegen | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html |
`-------------------------------------------------- --<--@ ------------'
 
T

Thorben Grosser

Barbara said:
Besides, how do you make your pages look good in Lynx, in other plaint
text browsers, in braille browsers or in aural browsers? Well

so far. sometimes people overestimate or understand wrong the use of
html, actually in lynx the page looks quite good I think :) well, the
navigation doesnt properly show up the difference between menue and sub
menue, but, for this kind of page, lynx is quite neglectable.
What helps is to make a page design as flexible and fluid as possible:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=liquid+OR+fluid+design>

very very very good :)

BUT: my point still is: I started the page with a sketch
(http://gosingen.dyndns.tv/cinevent/website/) which looked fine in both,
MSIE and Firefox. As I have learned through the years doing websites,
most people are using one of both. At least my "clientele". Now I pushed
it to my CMS without changing too much. And now it looks weird in MSIE.
So that damn CMS (which acutally works quite good, phpWcms, worth a try)
must have changed something. The point is, I dont know what and I have
no idea how to figure it out. Perhaps I lack of imagination :)

thorben
 
R

rf

Thorben Grosser said:
http://gosingen.dyndns.tv/ce-page/

If you look at this link, it actually doesn't at all.

It "actually doens't" what at all? That sentence does not scan.

Which browser are you having problems with. What is the problem, in detail,
or are we to guess.
Any explainations
whats actually wrong or how to work it out?

The first thing I see is that you have an invalid doctype (a missing URL).
This puts IE into quirks mode and who knows what happens there.

You also should be writing to the strict doctype for new pages.

<looks further down>

Oh my. You used dreamweaver to generate this, didn't you. Well you can
expect what you get then :)
 
D

David Dorward

rf said:
The first thing I see is that you have an invalid doctype (a missing URL).

The URL in the Doctype is optional (for PUBLIC Doctypes), so it isn't
invalid but it does have the side effect of ...
 
B

Barbara de Zoete

so far. sometimes people overestimate or understand wrong the use of html,

Better be careful with this. I for one am very sure I understand fully the
proper use of html. More likely people underestimate the actual power of html:
giving meaning to elements and structuring pages in to firm constructs that are
accessible to all that want to get to the content.
Using tables for layout purposes is a sign one underestimates.
actually in lynx the page looks quite good I think :) well, the navigation
doesnt properly show up the difference between menue and sub menue,

There you go.
but, for this kind of page, lynx is quite neglectable.

Sure. If you insist.

Please don't shout.
my point still is: I started the page with a sketch which looked fine in both,
MSIE and Firefox.

There is no point to explain where it started, is there? After all, it is the
end product you are not happy with. If you still have them both, run them
through a proper text editor to find what the differences are between the two
files. Or do you expect someone to do that for you?
And now it looks weird in MSIE.

And you tried putting IE back to standards mode, like I suggested you could try
in my previous post, right?


--
,-- --<--@ -- PretLetters: 'woest wyf', met vele interesses: ----------.
| weblog | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html |
| webontwerp | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html |
|zweefvliegen | http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html |
`-------------------------------------------------- --<--@ ------------'
 
T

Thorben Grosser

Barbara said:
Please don't shout.

sorry. a million times sorry for that :)
And you tried putting IE back to standards mode, like I suggested you
could try in my previous post, right?

well yes, I did. And I played around with that CSS thingie and had to
notice that MSIE and FF have both very different opinions on it. Thanks
a lot for your advice, there were some great ideas I will now work on :)

t
 

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