[ale] Browser compatibility? (was: Wachovia web banking seemsto be fixed with Mozilla)

John Wells jb at sourceillustrated.com
Fri Aug 9 16:29:48 EDT 2002


IMO, this always depends on your target audience.  You don't *have* to
make it compatible with netscape 4.x.

Look at it this way.  If the majority of your target audience gains some
*real* benefit from the site by having IE>=5.0 and Netscape>=6.0-only
features, then it might be worth forcing the others to upgrade. 
However, if it's just "bells & whistles" and not increased value, then
shoot for a simpler page.

It also may be feasible to design two versions.  Sucks, but that way you
can keep all those nice dynamic menus and highlight-able table cells,
and still keep your dinosaurs happy :).


John


On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 16:06, Fulton Green wrote:
> Here's a burning question: just how far back should we web designers shoot
> for in browser compatibility? The reason I'm asking is that the website I'm
> designing for a client requires some JavaScript for the DHTML and also uses
> CSS pretty heavily. MSIE >= 5.0 and Netscape >= 6.0 seem to like what I've
> done so far, but Netscape 4.7x totally chokes on the DHTML JavaScript and
> almost totally ignores the CSS hints. I'm almost halfway tempted to throw
> an upgrade nastygram to NS 4.7x users, but I'm curious if I should provide
> at least some sort of compatibility for them, especially since Red Hat is
> now only just removing NS 4.7x from their distro (and other distros might
> still install it by default).
> 
> Thoughts? TIA.
> 
> On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 03:53:50PM -0400, Jim wrote:
> > demanded a fix. When you run a business on the Web, it is just idiotic to 
> > lock somebody out. You could even argue that it's a form of discrimination. 
> > If a browser is standards-compliant and meets security requirements, there is 
> > no need to lock anybody out. Period.
> 
> ---
> This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
> See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
> sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
> 



---
This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
sent to listmaster at ale dot org.






More information about the Ale mailing list