META - CSS2 vs. real world

[Chris Beall]

I'd like to use CSS2 for some new and reworked sites, BUT I'm concerned
that a significant percentage of real-world clients won't understand it
and will therefore not display/print what I had in mind.

I'm looking for some thoughts (or references to prior thoughts) on how
to deal with this quandary.

My own, sketchy, thinking:
- Doing things twice (or more) is Bad. I do understand that it is
possible to have two (or more) versions of a site, each tailored to a
specific browser capability set. The idea makes my skin crawl.
- Coding for the least common denominator seriously restricts what you
can do. It's hard to explain this to a client (person) who has seen
lots of spiffy sites which will only work with browser X.
- Coding to the latest standards provides a high degree of
satisfaction for the developer, but the site will probably only work on
a small fraction of real-world browsers.

What's a person to do?

Chris Beall

 

[spaghetti]

- Doing things twice (or more) is Bad. I do understand that it is
possible to have two (or more) versions of a site, each tailored to a
specific browser capability set. The idea makes my skin crawl.

You shouldn't have to. Just build your site to the browsers most people are
using now, which all support web standards decently. If you want to go the
extra mile, whip up a stylesheet to server to Netscape 4 and IE 4, that
gives a bit of the "feel" that the full style has. Any browsers older than
that are used by people who are either used to sites looking like crap and
don't care, or realize they are wayyyy behind and they just want to read
content... to hell with glitz and do-dads.

- Coding for the least common denominator seriously restricts what you
can do. It's hard to explain this to a client (person) who has seen
lots of spiffy sites which will only work with browser X.

Many major websites have designed with standards (or fairly close). Try
http://fastcompany.com/, http://espn.com/, and http://wired.com/. Also
explain to your clients that developing with CSS for modern browsers allows
you to develop better sites in less time, which amounts to savings for the
client (you work the same amount of hours but produce more stuff).

- Coding to the latest standards provides a high degree of
satisfaction for the developer, but the site will probably only work on
a small fraction of real-world browsers.

Actually it will work on many of the most popular browsers. You'll have
issues with < Netscape 4 or < IE 4, but most of the popular browsers like
Mozilla, Netscape 6/7, and IE 5+ can understand all the basics of web
standards. IE might hold you back alot, but with some clever work arounds
you'll have no major troubles. You just won't be able to fully realize all
the potential of CSS for a few more years. But, there is still alot of CSS
to enjoy now as it is.

 

[David Dorward]

I'd like to use CSS2 for some new and reworked sites, BUT I'm concerned
that a significant percentage of real-world clients won't understand it
and will therefore not display/print what I had in mind.

What's a person to do?

Be aware of common browser bugs.
Expect graceful degradation (taking in to account the above)
Protect Netscape 4.x from the CSS.

 

[Chris Beall]

(snip)

If you want to go the
extra mile, whip up a stylesheet to server to Netscape 4 and IE 4, that
gives a bit of the "feel" that the full style has.

Is there a way other than JavaScript to SELECT such an alternate
stylesheet based on browser type? My concern is the 15-20% of clients
that have JavaScript disabled... Of course I could make the 'stripped'
stylesheet the default, in which case ALL clients without JavaScript
would see that version.

Thanks,
Chris Beall

 

[Mark Parnell]

Also explain to your clients that developing with CSS for modern
browsers allows you to develop better sites in less time, which
amounts to savings for the client (you work the same amount of hours
but produce more stuff).

And that these sites are far more likely to be forward-compatible - they
will work in any future browser without any tweaking required. So long term
it will save time and money, too.

 

[David Graham]

(snip)


Is there a way other than JavaScript to SELECT such an alternate
stylesheet based on browser type? My concern is the 15-20% of clients
that have JavaScript disabled... Of course I could make the 'stripped'
stylesheet the default, in which case ALL clients without JavaScript
would see that version.

Thanks,
Chris Beall

Conditional comments in the head section will allow only certain types of
browser to see the contained html eg your link bit. They use no js.
HTH
David

 

[Isofarro]

and will therefore not display/print what I had in mind.

If the display and print is more important than the content, maybe HTML
isn't what you should be using? Have you looked into PDFs?

 

[Neo Geshel]

You shouldn't have to. Just build your site to the browsers most people are
using now, which all support web standards decently. If you want to go the
extra mile, whip up a stylesheet to server to Netscape 4 and IE 4, that
gives a bit of the "feel" that the full style has. Any browsers older than
that are used by people who are either used to sites looking like crap and
don't care, or realize they are wayyyy behind and they just want to read
content... to hell with glitz and do-dads.

I once came up with some CSS that spontaneously crashed NN4 (all sub-
versions) and often took out the entire operating system with it.
Windows 95, 98 & Me were particularly susceptible. It came in
particularly handy on the Intranet I was working on... when field staff
started complaining that their laptops couldn't access the Intranet
anymore, I reminded them of the monthly checkups that their laptops
should have been getting. Some staff hadn't brought in their laptops in
*years*, and were still running a very early version of NN4.

Since I was also handling the OS/software end of things, being able to
say "I told you so" (they had been warned in advance) to the complaining
technophobes and Luddites was quite satisfying.

Then I upgraded them to NT5.1, with Opera and Express Plus, which threw
a real monkey wrench in their complacency. :-> Had I been a real sado-
masochist, I would have gone with OpenBSD, but I don't like seeing grown
ppl cry.

....Geshel
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[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Neo Geshel pounced upon this pigeonhole and pronounced:

I once came up with some CSS that spontaneously crashed NN4 (all sub-
versions) and often took out the entire operating system with it.
Windows 95, 98 & Me were particularly susceptible. ...

Can you explain how CSS could take out an operating system?

What was the CSS?

 

[William Tasso]

Neo Geshel pounced upon this pigeonhole and pronounced:

Can you explain how CSS could take out an operating system?

You need the ouzi plug-in

 

[Jacqui or (maybe) Pete]

Neo Geshel pounced upon this pigeonhole and pronounced:

Can you explain how CSS could take out an operating system?

You just redefine 'operating system' to include 'windows 95' and find
the css that causes writes to a null pointer in some ancient buggy
browser. Sounds entirely plausible to me.