http://www.crosswinds.net/~montrealais
Netscape makes a right holy hash of my website. Even some of the pages that I thought were pretty much as simple as you can get are eaten and spat out by it. Would anyone like to identify some of the many problems and suggest fixes?
I forgot to mention 1) it looks fine in IE and 2) I coded it myself in WordPad, no html editor programs involved.
IIRC, Netscape doesn’t handle the <MARQUEE> tag.
Looks pretty bad with Opera too, for the same reason.
Is there some similar one in Netscape? Or should I just bag it, or what? (I hope not… I like the way it looks…)
A scrolling marquee is a terrible addition to a user interface. The MARQUEE and BLINK tags have been deprecated and should be avoided in current web page design. Don’t expect current or future browsers to support them.
Are we talking about Netscape 4.7, or Mozilla?
One sure fire way to make your site look consistent across all three (those, plus +ie), is to make them XHTML compliant, checked here. I looked at your source code, and you have inconsistent quoting of attributes, etc.
XHTML means (1) lowercase tags, (2) standalone tags like <br> end with a slash, like so <br />, and (3) proper nesting. The validator will make sure that you’ve properly nested all your tags, etc.
Try it. It’s picky, but standards compliant code gets you results.
(the validator also does HTML 4.0).
To put it bluntly: who cares if Netscape can’t display it correctly? Microsoft has been so successful in stamping it out with IE that Netscape’s share of the browser market has dwindled to only 10%. Linux users be damned, it just isn’t worth the effort.
Oh, geez. No one uses Netscape? We use only Netscape here at work. I use Netscape at home (yes, under Linux.) If your page looks like shit under Netscape, I will leave the site and not come back.
Matt:
I am not bashing you, just that crap spouted by Seraphim. The suggestions in some of the other posts are really worth some consideration, especially the code validator. If you trust in the ability of a specific browser to display your code as you wanted it (even though the code is non-standard or just flat out wrong,) you run the risk of a new version of the very same browser no longer displaying your page correctly.
Validate your code. You may save yourself some incompatibilities and, if it isn’t displayed correctly by a specific browser, then you can properly grouse about about the browser being screwed up.
What Mort said, plus a reminder that once AOL’s contract with Microsoft expires, your site better damn well be Netscape compliant.
Netscape also seems not to like background images in tables. It redisplays the image in every cell.
Very impressive, especially for having been done in Wordpad.
Try these out. It’s still messy in Netscape, but it’s better.
A couple of other notes:
a. The marquee can be fixed by replacing it with a javascript version. You can find tons of them out there that you can just cut and paste. Judging by the level of HTML you understand you should be able to do this pretty quickly.
b. Seraphim may have tread heavily, but he spoke the truth.
c. hansel is correct that your coding is not as clean as it should be. Specifically note in the code below how I closed all tags, quoted attributes and nested properly. This is a good practice to get into, but in your current page, fixing that won’t make your problems go away.
d. To make spaces use " ", not “ ”.
e. In general, it’s considered better form to use content-descriptive tags, like <em> (for emphasis), rather than font specific ones like <i> (for italics). This becomes more important if you get into style sheets down the road.
index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>what's in matt's head today?</title>
</head>
<frameset rows="30,*" frameborder="0">
<frame src="topframe_front.html" name="toc" id="toc" frameborder="0" scrolling="No" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" bordercolor="#000000" border="0" framespacing="0">
<frame src="main_front.html" name="main" id="main" scrolling="No" bordercolor="#000000" border="0" framespacing="0">
</frameset>
<noframes>
<body bgcolor = black bgcolor="#000000" leftmargin=0 topmargin=0>
<center>
<font color="#FFFFFF"><em>
<b>nannynannynanny!</b>
<br>
We have detected that your browser does not support frames.
<br>
For heaven's sake, get a better browser!
</font>
</center>
</body>
</noframes>
</html>
topframe_front.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Matt Top Frame</title>
</head>
<body background = "topborder_front.gif" bgcolor="black" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" background="topborder_front.gif" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0">
<table width="380" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="right" valign="top">
<tr>
<td width="30" valign="top">
<a href = "personal/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "personalicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "who am i?" width = 30 height = 30 src="personalicon.gif" width="30" height="30" border="0" alt="who am i?">
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10"></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "quotes/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "quotesicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "quotations" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" ></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "art/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "articon.gif" border = 0 alt = "art & lit" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" ></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "esperanto/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "espicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "esperanto" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" ></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "wicca/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "wiccaicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "wicca" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" ></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "gay/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "gayicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "gay" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" ></td>
<td width = "30" >
<a href = "politics/index.html" target = "_top">
<img src = "politicsicon.gif" border = 0 alt = "politics" width = 30 height = 30>
</a>
</td>
<td width = "10" background = "topborder_main.gif"></td>
<td width = "100" ></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
main_front.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Matt's Main Front</title>
</head>
<body background = "grid.gif" bgcolor = black topmargin = 0 leftmargin = 0 text = white background="grid.gif" bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF" leftmargin=0 topmargin=0>
<basefont color = white>
<table valign = top cellpadding = 0 cellspacing = 0 border = 0 width = 660 background = "frontcover.jpg" height = 420>
<tr>
<td width="478" valign="top">
<marquee align="right" direction="right" width="340" hspace="160" vspace="100" loop=""><em>
Che cos'è nella sua testa oggi? ¿Qué hay en su cabeza hoy? Kio estas en lia kapo hodiaú? Qu'a-t-il dans sa tête aujourd'hui? What's in Matt's head today?
</em></marquee>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table align = center bgcolor = black border = 2>
<tr>
<td align = center>
<small>
Pictures taking too long?
<br>
Incompatible browser?
<br>
<a href = "sitemap.html" target = "_top">Try the no-graphics site map.</a>
</small>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</basefont>
</body>
</html>
Shoot. Sorry; the board makes big tabs.
…god…netscape and other crimes against humanity. Damn shame, too, because linux people deserve something better.
The thing that most annoys me about writing for Netscape is having a page that just works in IE but doesn’t in Ns, spending 4 hours tracking down what’s wrong only to find out that it’s because Netscape is having a problem parsing a single space or is defaulting to a braindead value for a nested table. Ugh.
It’s actually refreshing working on a non work-related page and being able to just ignore Netscape users.
That validator gave me such a HUGE list of errors on my webpage I can’t even begin to fix them. I don’t even know HOW to fix them.
Yikes!
(I use Netscape, and thought I checked it in IE)
Putting words in my mouth, are we, Mort? I never said no one uses Netscape. Hell, I was once one of its most devouted users, up to they released IE 5.0.
Netscape is a notoriously picky browser to code for. It throws a fit if you have any unenclosed tags. And tables are worse yet: image backgrounds end up tiled, empty cells refuse to accept a colored background, and any attempt at nesting invariably ends up looking like crap.
Do a cost benefit analysis: If it takes me an hour to code a page that 87% of my visitors can view correctly, is it worth spending another three hours hunting through code, scratching my head, just so another 12% can too?
Let’s not let this degenerate once again into a tedious browser war. I think the original post has been answered.
Netscape does not listen to you when you want a single background image in a divided table. It will repeat the same background image in every single table cell. This is why teh image in the table on the homepage looks all weird. To get around this, in the table cells ( <td> ) that you do not want your background image to repeat, set them up as <td background=" ">. (I posted about this little, um, quirk in the Pit previously, here.)
The top nav looks like it’s getting truncated. I suspect that is a problem with the default marginheight/marginwidth–Netscape adds some extra pixels if you don’t tell it not to. In the main frames and top frame page, add this: <body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> (Looks like Bill H. has addressed this, but oh well)
Verdana isn’t supported in all browsers. Specify an alternate font, either times or arial, to use if Verdana isn’t supported. Like so: <font=“verdana,times”> or <font=“verdana,arial”> (If you learn how to use stylesheets, it will make font control much easier and more consistent)
as mentioned, don’t use the <marquee> tag. Use javascript if you need to do scrolling.
This will fix the major issues, I believe.
[Edited by Gaudere on 08-14-2001 at 12:24 PM]
Geez, some of you people make writing for more than one browser sound like pulling teeth. Really, it’s not hard at all. I have no problems writing HTML that works on a variety of platforms. IE may be the most common browser, but it isn’t 87%. According to demographics from W3C, IE makes up 58% of users online. Maybe you can live without nearly half of your audience, but can you guarantee all the rest are using the same version, with the same fonts and settings as you? It doesn’t make sense to write a page with nonstandard code that will only work right for a tiny fraction of users.
I’m not here to defend Netscape, just to fight the attitude that you should optimize for your favourite browser, and anyone who can’t view your site can take a flying leap. Just writing clean, standard code will solve most compatibility problems.
Actually, you don’t have that many errors. Be sure, however, to use the
pulldown menu to specify that your document is either HTML 4.01 Transitional
or HTML 3.2 before running the validator–if you use the default of (specified online),
it will get confused, and list lots of “errors”.
Also, there are a few minor HTML errors which are triggering multiple error messages:
In <CENTER><IMG SRC= “feynnslair.gif” width=275 height=47 ALT=“Feynn’s Lair” BORDER = 0><P><P><B></CENTER>
there shouldn’t be a bold just before the </center> here.
The lines ending with we have been up to. and but does so on occasion.
need a closing </b>
The About insert-name-heres… should be nested with an opening <H3><B>
and a closing </B></H3> (correct order is very important) for a proper nesting of the elements.
I have to second this sentiment. If you’re constructing different versions for different browsers, or using browser detection code, or writing something that looks fine in one and poor in another, then it’s your own damn fault for writing bad, browser specific code.
Take the time to figure out the standard, and apply it. It’s not hard. xhtml took me an hour to grasp, and a little discipline while coding takes care of the rest. Every page I make looks the same under IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Konquerer, Galeon, etc… except where the browser is non-compliant, which is rare these days for anything but idiot tags like <marguee>.