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Oh the horrible old days!

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 5:55 pm
by Unipus
I've been coding a page for Netscape 4.7 today. I had forgotten how horrible it is. What I've been doing:

* dealing with lots of tables
* dealing with lots of inconsistencies in how it displays table background-images
* getting real angry

This just makes me appreciate the modern, super-happy, table-free world even more. It's been a while since I had to code something for this ancient beast, and I'm soooo glad.

know the feeling

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 7:17 pm
by phpScott
I know the feeling.
Trying to make things compatable that far back is a true headache.
Well actuall smashing head agianst the screen mumbling incohernt unrepeatable words which leads to a headache.:cry:

Why can't people just download the new browser, its free after all. :? :?

phpScott

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 7:41 pm
by Unipus
Ha, I wasn't even making anything compatible. This was a strictly NS4 page - in fact, a "please upgrade your browser" page! But even getting it to look right just in NS4 was a horrible battle of nested tables and image slicing.

Ick.

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 10:57 pm
by trollll
I think the only way you can make sure that something looks the way it should in Netscape 4.7 or less: plain text formatted for a screen reader. I remember working for a crap dot-com in San Francisco, 2000 trying to get DHTML layers to work in it perfectly, consistantly and reliably for PC and Mac.

If you do need a hand, though...I have got the war wounds to prove my experience and could help out a bit. We all feel your pain!

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:19 pm
by Unipus
Nah, it's not worth the time to put any more into it. So I'm moving on to greener pastures. Pastures that properly recognize margins and padding and sweet sweet justice.

Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2003 12:00 pm
by cybaf
the best way to go is to make a javascript that adds the newer functionality to to the older browsers. That way you code the same way and it works in all browsers... it takes _a while_ to get the script to work and to find workarounds for "all" browsers, but most of the stuff could be done...

//cybaf - javascript guru...:)

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 1:39 pm
by Unipus
Some of the stuff could be done, but it still wouldn't be standards-compliant, and it would take so much time for such a small percentage of market return that I have to question your statement about "the best way."

To me, the best to go is to politely tell these users to suck it. In most situations.

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:52 pm
by Vincent Puglia
Hi,
the best to go is to politely tell these users to...
Most times, though, it isn't up to the developer, but rather the client. While you can suggest the client forego the 'small return', s/he might see those users as being the source for your fees.

IMHO, tis always better to know how to code for as many browsers as possible -- a year and a half ago, I helped a developer who had a group of users (a school district in AU) who were stuck with version 3s & 4s.

Vinny

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 6:48 pm
by Unipus
True. There are exceptions. But they are thankfully increasingly rare and increasingly difficult to justify.

Only 1.5% of my current project's audience is NS4-using troublemakers. My last job, it was 1.9%. I say 3% is generally the point of irrelevance.

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:21 am
by twigletmac
Unfortunately, irrelevance depends on your audience, I work in local government in an area which has some very deprived sections. We can't ignore the marginal users because they are often the ones who need access to the resources we provide. That said, we are moving from trying to make the site similarily styled in 4+ browsers to just ensuring that the information is available (but probably not pretty) to users of older browsers.

Mac

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:33 am
by cybaf
when I said most of the stuff could be done that's what I meant. but I hear you when you say it's not worth the time put in to make it work. As for me I already have the script done so most things work in "all" browsers. In some companies the users cannot decide themselves what version of the browser to use so the "right" way to code, with availability in mind, is to make the code work for as many as possible.

This is one of the reasons why I'm not that keen on flash, since it requires users to download plugins that are not "standard"... eventhough I have to admit that you can make pretty sweet things with flash... however that is a different topic.

//cybaf

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:36 am
by cybaf
one of the sweetest things about javascript is the prototype method... being able to add methods to functions (classes) after the object is created depending on needs is something that many other languages lack.

Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2003 10:55 am
by m3rajk
cybaf wrote:the best way to go is to make a javascript that adds the newer functionality to to the older browsers. That way you code the same way and it works in all browsers... it takes _a while_ to get the script to work and to find workarounds for "all" browsers, but most of the stuff could be done...

//cybaf - javascript guru...:)
that's a bad idea.

because of outlooks' issues with vbscripting, many many a person turned off javascript as well until they know they can trust a page.

i assume that someone will have it off unless they turn it on for me, so i state in the index that for it to display right you need to turn it on, while adding little things to hopefully cover the case the person refuses to

Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2003 11:24 am
by Vincent Puglia
Hi
that's a bad idea.
Don't you really mean -- an incomplete idea? After all, you are saying:
1) some people have js disabled, and
2) you advise them to turn it on for your pages to be rendered correctly.

Vinny

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:39 pm
by cybaf
that's a bad idea.
of course there is some code to display for users not having javascript turned on...:)

but I think you missed the point of my post... the point beeing that the problem of older browsers not having the functionality of complete W3C DOM compatibility could be worked around for most issues. and it could all be done automatically so that you don't have to take care of older browsers when you script. Because the js I'm talking about does the stuff for you. Somewhat of a minicompiler for javascript. 8)

//cybaf