Page 4 of 5

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:55 am
by jason
Gen-ik wrote:
jason wrote:"If you are incapable of building a web site that works in all browsers, you are incapable of building a web site."
There's a difference between not being able to and not wanting to.
Not wanting to make a web site work in all browsers (an easy task) is the same thing as not wanting to make a web site. If you do not want to make a web site that works in all browsers, you are not making a web site.

I'm sorry, but you can't come here and expect me to applaud bad practices. You say it's people that work to make web sites accessible that hold back web development.

I am sorry, it's people that choose not to make website that works in all browsers that hold back web development and design.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:00 am
by patrikG
Gen-Ik wrote:Does that mean that securing a site using SSL is in fact pointless as anyone can get access to the info?

Would that mean any information passed to and from SSL pages on the server could get intercepted by anyone?
No, the point is that without encryption the source-code of a website is freely available.
Encrypting parts of the source-code (e.g. Javascript) is possible as quartis has shown, but by doing this, you are preventing many potential visitorsfrom viewing your site who are not using IE as their browser of choice.
Stoker wrote:...If the browser can fetch/decode it, so can anyone else..
That's the point. HTTP cannot differentiate between a "legitimate" (e.g. a browser requesting a webpage and its includes) and an "illegitimate" (ripping the content) request. HTTP was not designed with a proprietary mindset. It was designed to share information, just as the internet was and (to a some degree) still is.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:20 am
by twigletmac
Gen-ik wrote:the sites I create are not geared towards people with disabilities, in fact it never has been and never will be a major influence in my website development
Until the day you're served with a lawsuit because an individual using an alternate browser is unable to access your site - in the same way that architects have to be creative in designing buildings to allow access to disabled people and such like, so do web developers when they design sites.

This doesn't mean you can't do the effects you want - it just means you need to think about providing an alternative for those users who can't access them.

Mac

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 12:33 pm
by Gen-ik
Fair point.

I guess then (going back to the original discussion) that I am looking for a way to secure browser-included files (such as javascript) from average-users.. obviously it's not possible to secure the includes from the more advanced users.

I guess we were on the right track using the session() method but need to find a way around each browser's various qwerks.
I think using the header-content-no-cache idea is a good one because this will (hopefully) prevent any files being cached by the browser, but this doesn't solve the problem of browsers re-reading the files in order to save them to disk... the hunt continues.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:28 pm
by m3rajk
to a fair degree i have to agree with twig and jason here. i know that until rather recently i didn't have the option of cable access. it seemed to me most people designing took it for granted the visitor had cable. the reason i say this is the fact that most sites i went to, including places like yahoo, took 5 or more minuteds to load entirely as a result of the pictures, swf and other embelishments. as i've told friends: if you're making a website for a company and cannot do it as a gopher you're doing something wrong.

the idea of the net is similar to opensource: to get information out there and available. therefore anything that doesn't need to be secured or dynamic should be able to be called as a gopher page.

also a number of designers need to shrink their images. unless you're making say a ratemesite, your images should enhance without being a major drag on load time. a ratemesite the person's going there for the pictures of other users. a site like that can ignore that design guidline for that reason.


until the end-of-life announcement for netscape 4.x, a lot of software for handicapped etc were being made for netscape 4.x, therefore i felt iframes weer somethngto be avoided since 4.x can't handle them. but now that isn't the case.

that's the mindset i have for creating sites. right now refurbished computers are cheap enough and available enough via ebay and some sites that specialize in selling refurbished ones of decent quality (ps/300 and faster @ prices of $90 and up. a friend of mine sent me that site when i gutted a p1 (pre mmx)/166 to rebuild into a server) that anyone should be able to afford a computer that's capable of using a browser capable of iframes.

it's good to incorporate newer technologies, but not at the expense of the masses. as viruses etc get more prevalent people are increasingly hesitant to upgrade until something is proven stable. for microsoft products, that is a problem per se

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 2:33 pm
by Gen-ik
m3rajk wrote:it seemed to me most people designing took it for granted the visitor had cable.
It's still a good idea for people to design sites for dial-up connections, unless the site is designed for broadband/cable connections of course like a few of the new on-line radio stations popping up here and there.

I still make sure my sites load within a reasonable time on dial-up connections and would only design a broadband/cable site if that was part of the brief.


m3rajk wrote:it's good to incorporate newer technologies, but not at the expense of the masses.
But the 'masses' do use modern browsers. Depending on which source you look at between %45 and %50 of internet users are using IE5/IE6 with a futher 25%-30% using the Gecko powered NS.

New browsers get shipped with new PCs and Macs so it's only a matter of time until the older/useless browsers are phased out as people buy new computers and/or upgrade.

I'm not going to waste X amount of time developing my sites to work with the older browsers, there's really no point any more. The amount of visitors that may not be able to run the sites is tiny compared to the number who can.

It's each to their own I guess. If people still feel they need to develope sites or versions of sites for older browsers then it's up to them. Personally I think it's a waste of time.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 6:05 pm
by m3rajk
like i said, priior to the end of life announcement of netscape 4.x i would say it's a follie to not design witht hat in mind. but since that has come and gone i'd and 70% - 80% using ie5+/ns6+ (i think you mean 5.5 ... i thought it was 90% using ie 5.5 or netscape 6 or higher) that should be the minimum EVERYONE designs for.

i used to have a machine at home hooked up with a 14.4 modem on it
when i was doing stuff fro friends at school i'd go home the first chance i got after getting it up and use that machine. if it didn't load for me within 2 minutes i'd scratch the design and redo it to take less time. now i have cable at home so i'll either get aohell or something if i go into professional design and do that with 56k, or i'll get a friend to time it for me. i have enough friends with 56k one should always be available

i never said you didn't take that into consideration, i said i've seen enough forgetting that (last i saw was 7 motnths ago) 80% of people still use dial up., and 60% don't have cable/dsl/sattalite as an option.

my personal feeling is the browser discussion in this thread is mooted by that connection statistic (although i should preface the stats on connections were from a us magazine abou the us. it would udoubtedly change if we expand to all "developed" nations and we'd find a good chunk without computers if we add in 3rd world countries...)

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:12 pm
by McGruff
twigletmac wrote: Until the day you're served with a lawsuit because an individual using an alternate browser is unable to access your site - in the same way that architects have to be creative in designing buildings to allow access to disabled people and such like, so do web developers when they design sites.

This doesn't mean you can't do the effects you want - it just means you need to think about providing an alternative for those users who can't access them.

Mac
The law varies from country to country, but the UK act due to come into play next year mentions "reasonable adjustments" for people with disabilities. What exactly that means is anybody's guess - lawyers will make a mint arguing it out in the first bunch of cases - and it's not clear exactly how you should go about designing an accessible site in the UK. A strict definition could prohibit clickable images as links (without alternative text links) for example - who knows.

The building analogy is a good one. Public spaces, and websites that offer a public service, should undoubtably be widely accessible but targetted sites offering niche experiences ought to be free to do what they like - and I expect they will be since in practice (as with the health and safety legislation) good intentions face the impossibility of monitoring or prosecuting every single building site - or web site - that fails to comply.

With some sites the act would be nonsensical in any case: just how exactly do you make a music site offering Britney Spears downloads accessible to deaf people?

Actually that's more of a health and safety issue since ONLY deaf people should be allowed to listen to Britney Spears.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:19 pm
by jason
Gen-ik, I'm not proposing you should develop for older browser. Rather, I am suggesting developing to standards. By developing with standards in mind, you will open up your site to countless people you wouldn't otherwise know about. It would also allow you to spend less time developing your site, and make the pages smaller in size, thereby ensuring it loads fast and decreasing your bandwidth costs. By developing to standards, you can ensure that your site is future compatible, as well as backwards compatible.

Some of the biggest misconceptions about browsers and web design are the number of disabled people that utlize the web. Simply put, your average web site doesn't do well to cater to these people, hence these people won't go to your web site.

However, with standards, you can bring these people into your site, as well as still support your other users using the latest and greatest browsers.

Also, by utlizing standards, you can do things IMPOSSIBLE without standards.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:04 pm
by Gen-ik
I think making websites accessible by law to all browsers and all users, be they disabled or not, is going to be tricky as pointed out with the 'music site' example above. Yes the internet is public but a lot of the sites are personal, by that I mean sites that people have created with no commercial use in mind.

I can't see these laws being passed in either the UK or US for a few reasons. First of all people will argue that the internet is like a huge digital global library, and if these laws are passed for the internet then they should be passed for public libraries. What are the chances of every single book in the world having a braile (spelling?) version to go with it for the blind? Chances are zero.

People who create personal sites will argue that they have spent time and money creating their site, it's their site, in a public domain, and as such they can do as they please with it.

Also where does this all end, will websites eventually have to be created for every language in the world just because sites that are created in american/british English can't be read by people who can't speak or read English?

I can see that big companies and corporations may have to make their sites accesible by all, but even then these laws are going to be hard to impose on the internet for a million and one different reasons.

If someone can't access, use, read, hear or see my websites then so what? ..they can wonder off and find another site.. doesn't bother me one bit. We should all have the right to create our websites how we see fit and not have to confirm for the minorities. It's not my problem if someone can't see properly and can't read or use my sites, it's their problem.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:12 pm
by Stoker
dude, your are missing the point and not getting it...

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:00 pm
by nielsene
Gen-ik wrote: I can't see these laws being passed in either the UK or US for a few reasons. First of all people will argue that the internet is like a huge digital global library, and if these laws are passed for the internet then they should be passed for public libraries. What are the chances of every single book in the world having a braile (spelling?) version to go with it for the blind? Chances are zero.
Actually there already are laws on the books in the US and in the UK regarding this. The UK has another law that's been passed as twig alluded that strengthens their existing ones. Every session the US Congress considers strengthening the existing ones. I agree that its unlikely to every be applied to niche websites, but you never know when you'll grow to developing a site that's not a niche. If you haven't "practiced" accessibility stuff before, when it didn't really matter, it will be tough when it does...

But this has gotten way off-topic :)

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:31 pm
by trollll
I have to add my two cents in on this one...

Having not only worked for the EPA and IBM Research doing web development (meaning I know section 508 inside out and wrongside...whatever), I've also had the pleasuse of having friends and family see just how many different browsers they can use to check out my (and my wife's) websites. Until I used XHTML and CSS2 I heard a lot of "why doesn't this work?" and "your site looks like crap!" from people who just don't even know what the word "upgrade" means. Casual users don't know or care what browsers do. And until their tech support does it for them (meaning until they get a new computer in some cases) they will not upgrade their browser because it has worked just fine for them for the last four years.

If you have a personal site, people you know will try to view it using Netscape 4.01 from MacOS 8 (seriously, this happens). If you have a site for use by developers, they will use lynx! If you code to standards, it really won't matter what people use. I just got the PS2 linux kit and went to my wife's site without even loading KDE and I could read her diary and even see what photos she uploaded just fine because we code to standards! Some people prefer to browse with images and plug-ins turned off because they have a dial-up. Some people like to browse using their phone. How lame do people see your site as when you say "I code professionally, but you need IE 5.0 or above or Netscape 7 to actually see anything I do." and they run IE 4.5?

It really doesn't take a lot of effort and it really helps development down the road when you want to edit/add functionality to your site. Not to mention I'd give you props if you can say you've beaten everyone else on your block to blogging in XHTML 2.0.

This doesn't mean that you have to exclude all of your home videos from streaming from your webserver. It just means that you have to take into account the people who may get to that page without the means to see or hear it. If someone has images turned off, include the alt attribute to let them know what they've missed. If you have a killer javascript game, include the noscript tag to tell them they've losers for not having a javascript browser. If someone doesn't have the latest flash plugin, tell them where to get it. It just may motivate them to update their machine and actually see what you can do.

And just in case they have a disability and can't upgrade to check out the cool effects, give them a description! Even if they don't care, they may recommend it. Blind users have friends.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:56 pm
by qartis
Like oddpost. I love oddpost, it's a really great web-app, but if I can't use it on my linux boxes too, then that just blows. I'm not saying they should take it offline -- I'm glad I can use something like that at all, but it's not too too hard to port it over to Mozilla, is it?

I love it when sites have W3C buttons in their disclaimer/footer. You click the image (WITH alt text) and you see "This site is XHTML 4.01 Compliant!". It's just nice to know that they've taken the time to bump their site up to par, so if you visit from the local library, or the school computer lab's old macs, you'll see very much the same site.

.. unless they use konqueror :)

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:25 am
by Gen-ik
trollll wrote:I have to add my two cents in on this one...

Having not only worked for the EPA and IBM Research doing web development (meaning I know section 508 inside out and wrongside...whatever), I've also had the pleasuse of having friends and family see just how many different browsers they can use to check out my (and my wife's) websites. Until I used XHTML and CSS2 I heard a lot of "why doesn't this work?" and "your site looks like crap!" from people who just don't even know what the word "upgrade" means. Casual users don't know or care what browsers do. And until their tech support does it for them (meaning until they get a new computer in some cases) they will not upgrade their browser because it has worked just fine for them for the last four years.

If you have a personal site, people you know will try to view it using Netscape 4.01 from MacOS 8 (seriously, this happens). If you have a site for use by developers, they will use lynx! If you code to standards, it really won't matter what people use. I just got the PS2 linux kit and went to my wife's site without even loading KDE and I could read her diary and even see what photos she uploaded just fine because we code to standards! Some people prefer to browse with images and plug-ins turned off because they have a dial-up. Some people like to browse using their phone. How lame do people see your site as when you say "I code professionally, but you need IE 5.0 or above or Netscape 7 to actually see anything I do." and they run IE 4.5?

It really doesn't take a lot of effort and it really helps development down the road when you want to edit/add functionality to your site. Not to mention I'd give you props if you can say you've beaten everyone else on your block to blogging in XHTML 2.0.

This doesn't mean that you have to exclude all of your home videos from streaming from your webserver. It just means that you have to take into account the people who may get to that page without the means to see or hear it. If someone has images turned off, include the alt attribute to let them know what they've missed. If you have a killer javascript game, include the noscript tag to tell them they've losers for not having a javascript browser. If someone doesn't have the latest flash plugin, tell them where to get it. It just may motivate them to update their machine and actually see what you can do.

And just in case they have a disability and can't upgrade to check out the cool effects, give them a description! Even if they don't care, they may recommend it. Blind users have friends.
You have made some very good points and I'm finding it difficult to argue against any of it :)

However (here we go again) I do feel that a website that uses some non-standard javascript such as .getElementById() .getElementsTagName() .innerHTML .parentElement .childNodes (I believe these aren't standards yet) to name a few shouldn't be called unprofessional just because it does use those commands. They are part of IE5.5+ and the Gecko powered NS so if they're there why not use them?

I'm not saying all of my websites don't comply to standards because a lot of my ealier ones do. Some of my latest sites however use the new JS commands to give the site a bit of creativity and originality, and allows me to pull off some nice content cross-over dynamically and in real-time, as well as changing various object events, including and removing new parts of the html page when it's needed, plus a load of other stuff not possible when sticking to the 'standards'.

Programming to standards is good don't get me wrong, but it does restrict your creativity if you want to do something more spetacular and original with your website(s).

Both methods (standard and non-standard) have their up-sides and down-sides, it's down to the type of site you are creating and who you're creating it for that dictates which method you may use. But if you are an experienced website designer/developer you can't say that either method is wrong... they are simply two different sides of the internet coin.