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Musings on browsers

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:51 am
by SpiderMonkey
Certain browsers don't interpret the websites we develop properly. So, we fiddle around until they work in these troublesome browsers, and our visitors remain happy.

But are we really doing them any favours? We offer them no incentive to get a better browser. Wouldn't we ultimately be making them more happy by motivating them to upgrade?

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:23 am
by CoderGoblin
Depends on the circumstances. For commercial websites you want your customer to use your services. If they go away you are unlikely to get them back.

Private websites on the other hand are another matter entirely and I agree in part. The difficulty comes also with the operating system. Do you want to force a user to use Explorer... what happens if they use linux ? I think in the real world all you can do is accept a limited range of browsers at their latest version. (i.e. Firefox/Explorer/Opera).

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:59 am
by matthijs
Interesting point. For a commercial site I would say it wouldn't be wise to give IE visitors (or other? bad browsers) a bad experience.

However, for personal sites I would consider it ok to give browsers that support webstandards a better experience then browsers which do not.

One thing I would do is make it a matter of progressive enhancement. So users of all browsers get a nice website and are able to use the site well. However, people using browsers which support webstandards, get the caking on the ice. You know, some fancy visual stuff or some other enhancements.

Then maybe, people will realise there's more then IE. And to help them realise that, an unobtrusive message somewhere telling them that your site is best viewed in a "modern" browser instead of an ancient broken one like IE and where to download one. (the modern one, that is)

Re: Musings on browsers

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:58 am
by Roja
SpiderMonkey wrote:Certain browsers don't interpret the websites we develop properly. So, we fiddle around until they work in these troublesome browsers, and our visitors remain happy.

But are we really doing them any favours? We offer them no incentive to get a better browser. Wouldn't we ultimately be making them more happy by motivating them to upgrade?
This philosophy was attempted in practice a few years ago. Perhaps you've seen the "This site best viewed in Browser X" badges on some sites?

The reality is that regardless of the vendor, favoring and selectively preferring one browser for your webdesign means that the web is less a "common ground for the masses", and more of a vendor competition. Users have lost substantially in previous vendor competitions for the web, so there is a push to avoid that occurring again.

If your goal is to enable the largest number of users to access your content, then you should code to standards. Doing so ensures that browser manufacturers must agree on a common set of criteria, and develop consistent solutions for customers.

"Offering an incentive to get a better browser" could mean a number of things. At its worst, however, it could mean coding using non-standard browser-specific technologies, in which case everyone loses. It encourages browsers to use non-standard technologies, and leads us down a path we've visited before - one which resulted in a myriad of if/then coding to handle 3 dramatically different browser rendering engines.

Also keep in mind that many users have little control over which browser they use (Work, ISP lock-in, assistive browsing technologies, etc).

Encouraging users to upgrade to a *recent* and *standards compliant* browser is a reasonable and worthwhile effort. Causing problems for their browsing experience when they do not isn't.

Re: Musings on browsers

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:42 am
by Luke
Roja wrote:"Offering an incentive to get a better browser" could mean a number of things. At its worst, however, it could mean coding using non-standard browser-specific technologies, in which case everyone loses. It encourages browsers to use non-standard technologies, and leads us down a path we've visited before - one which resulted in a myriad of if/then coding to handle 3 dramatically different browser rendering engines.
Boy am I glad somebody finally did something about that. I feel sorry for the poor web developer pioneers who had to deal with this at its worse. When I first started web design/development, it was still pretty prevelant, but I never had it THAT bad.

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:03 am
by Benjamin
Someone should just make an open source plugin that renders every page the same way that can be installed in any browswer on any os. I'm surprised it hasn't been done before.

Something like a page that says, hey I am standards compliant html & css, but don't use the browser to render me, use x plugin instead. If the plugin isn't installed it could fall back to the quirky rendering engine of the browser.

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:15 am
by RobertGonzalez
When I started writing HTML I had not idea there was a standard. I didn't use any CSS for about two years because I didn't know you could use something that cool. It wasn't until I started using CSS and noticing that some browsers (IE vs. Navigator) handled things QUITE differently that I realized there was a potential for disaster. That is when I started looking into ways to make the development experience easier for me and the browsing experience better for the user.

Of course, shortly after that I picked up on PHP and took my focus off of HTML standard compliance and put it squarely on learning PHP and programming logic. Then I realized (there's that word again) that a really kick-butt PHP app still sucks smelly cheese if the markup that wraps it is garbage. So I began my quest to learn proper, standards compliant markup and styling. It was at this point that I realized (?!?!?!) that all browsers were not created equal and that either the developer needed to make accomodations for the browser or the browser needed to be redeveloped.

Seeing as Microsoft has Internet Explorer on like 14,000,000,000,000 machines around the world, that left me with little choice but the somehow work my designs so that they were compliant AND didn't alienate my users.

I will say at this point, thought, that I am seriously leaning toward strict compliance regardless of browser capability. If Opera, Netscape and Mozilla can put out updates to their browsers every few months, why can't Microsoft?

Re: Musings on browsers

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:22 pm
by Roja
The Ninja Space Goat wrote:Boy am I glad somebody finally did something about that. I feel sorry for the poor web developer pioneers who had to deal with this at its worse. When I first started web design/development, it was still pretty prevelant, but I never had it THAT bad.
I'm sad to say they haven't. The latest Opera and Firefox releases include WhatWG concepts, and even browser-specific technologies that aren't standardized by ANY standards body.

I don't want to go all chicken little, and say that means the world is ending. SOME innovation beyond the standards body is arguably a good thing. In both cases I'm thinking of, I actually think they are positive - not negative - things. That said, I don't want to give the impression that browser-specific coding has ended. Far from it. But yes, we are worlds better off now than we were a few years ago.
Astions wrote:Someone should just make an open source plugin that renders every page the same way that can be installed in any browswer on any os. I'm surprised it hasn't been done before.
"The same way" has been done. Thats what both Opera and Firefox offer - a consistent, any-os rendering engine. Across multiple browsers is a very different challenge. Keep in mind that *no* browser on the market today fully supports all the existing published standards. Heck, none of them even fully support the 5-year old standards!

Programming a rendering engine that is consistent, and rational, and functional is incredibly difficult. It has taken over a decade for the majority of browsers to reach the levels they have. Going beyond that, to turn it into a cross-platform PLUGIN would be even MORE challenging.
Astions wrote:Something like a page that says, hey I am standards compliant html & css, but don't use the browser to render me, use x plugin instead. If the plugin isn't installed it could fall back to the quirky rendering engine of the browser.
Quite honestly, the problem really isn't that bad with truly standards compliant html & css, except on Internet Explorer. Most standard code goes into standards mode, which most of the browsers render very consistently. With IE7, the range of code --- in standards mode --- that is rendered differently is very small.

Quirks mode, on the other hand, is a complete nightmare.
Everah wrote:I will say at this point, thought, that I am seriously leaning toward strict compliance regardless of browser capability. If Opera, Netscape and Mozilla can put out updates to their browsers every few months, why can't Microsoft?
I don't hesitate to take pretty much ANY opportunity to criticize Microsoft on a huge variety of issues, because I feel they've earned every bit of it.

In this case, I feel it is doubly true. Their actions imply that after they killed off the competition (Netscape), and built a "functional" browser (IE6), they felt no need for significant changes that would reduce their market lock-in. Even if users demanded it.

Once their market share started to decline below 95%, then they added their very best developers, in an incredibly short period of time, and revamped the engine.

Notice that the majority of the fixes to IE7 are to the most common rendering engine problems. Many of which gave a vendor advantage to Microsoft. For example, png rendering in IE6 is a mess, and to get full support for png's transparencies, you had to use an ActiveX object. By not fixing that bug - and it was a bug - they were able to increase the number of cutting edge sites that required ActiveX objects. That in turn meant more people leaving ActiveX enabled, which meant in turn more users that you could code IIS-driven, ActiveX heavy sites FOR.

In IE7, they fixed the rendering bug for PNG's, and noted it as a bug. This is a clear statement, in my opinion.

Thankfully, its not a negative statement. Its very positive. It says that Microsoft is putting more importance on standards compliance than vendor advantage, and is doing the right thing. I sincerely hope that trend continues beyond IE7. At the least, I would love an IE that didn't choke on the correct mime type for XML.

Until then, I'll give IE the tweaks it needs in my CSS and HTML to work around their well-known flaws, to make sure my message reaches the largest possible market.

[[EDIT: Fixed quote authors - SORRY!]]

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:54 pm
by Luke
Interesting points Roja, but I didn't say half the stuff you quoted me for... :lol:

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:57 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Yeah, the second and third quotes were from astion's earlier post.

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:02 pm
by Benjamin
I think he'll figure that out ;)

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:11 pm
by RobertGonzalez
I know, but I am using repetitive pronunciation of your name to acclimate myself 8O .

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:11 pm
by Benjamin
lol

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:56 pm
by Luke
Everah wrote:I know, but I am using repetitive pronunciation of your name to acclimate myself 8O .
You sound like a high school kid practicing vocabulary words :lol: 8O

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:26 pm
by RobertGonzalez
In a more structured environment I might find myself appalled to be the recipient of a comment of that nature. However, given the openly public platform upon which we intermingle in this community, I find it not only insightful but intensely appealing that one would have the unction to approach their electronic communication device and initiate a communique in which the very substance of the foundation of the fora in which we commune might best be presented to those less involved or associated with open channels of interaction and commingling.
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