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Designing for other browsers

Shiny Grimer

Shiny Grimer

Active member
Pronoun
she/her, they/them
Should I design for browsers not used by my viewers?
58% of my users use Firefox or Mozilla, 21% use Opera, 18% use Internet Explorer 7 or 8, and 3% use Safari. I design for these browsers (except Safari which I don't have). However, I download a version of Netscape and am shocked to find that one of my styles is a disaster in it.

Now, I know Netscape is passé. Nobody uses Netscape except for people who have yet to get with the times. I'm not even sure if Netscape is standards-compliant. However, it just bothers me that any browser could murder a style of mine so horrifically, even though it works with that standards-spitting Internet Explorer (I never though IE would be the easier one to please o_o).

I'm tempted to download a shizload (I like the word shiz) of browsers just to see how my site looks, because I didn't NOT expect Netscape to fuck up my style so badly (my site becomes unviewable. The content doesn't show, so you can't change the style, and you are stuck. This is a disaster and it pisses me off). I checked my site in the rarely used Lynx browser, and was surprised to find that it works fine, though is a little... impractical.

My crazy perfectionism tells me that if there's a single browser my site won't work in, it must be fixed because my site must work everywhere, but I can't help but feel that that is impossible.

So, tldr; do you think it's worth it to make your site viewable in as many browsers as possible, even browsers your users won't probably use?
 
I say that it's not worth it. Who knows what kind of stuff you'll have to do to your style to get it to work in Netscape and other obscure browsers, and who can tell if that'll mess things up in more commonly used browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer? Chances are if your site is that horribly messed up in Netscape, other sites are equally messed up in it; you can't fix every site, so just leave it to the viewer to download a new, more functional browser. =)
 
I know what you mean. I downloaded Netscape a long time ago, and I have hardly ever used it because of how terrible it's display is. It's CSS support is just outrageous. It's worse than IE 6, if that's even possible. If none of your viewers use Netscape you probably shouldn't worry about it, but if you have a splash page you might want to put a message on there that says not to enter the site if you're using Netscape because it doesn't work. =P You might want to try getting Safari though - it's free, and is fairly easy to download/install. It isn't as fast as its website puts it out to be, (it loads HTML and text fast, but it takes ages to process PHP, dynamic scripts, and images) but it shouldn't wreck your style if it's standards-compliant.

Oddly, Netscape 6 was standards-compliant, and was, in fact, supposedly the best CSS-supporter of its time. o_O I guess times have changed...
 
The only browser most people have to actively code around is IE. It's not a matter of designing for each separate browser; it's a matter of designing for IE and everything else. If it works in Fx, it will almost certainly work in Opera, Safari, and any other standards compliant browser you care to name. Once you start saying, "but what about if people use this browser that breaks things?" you may as well make sure it works in IE4 as well. At one point you have to just say "no sorry your browser is terrible".

eta: later versions of netscape were based off Fx, so you were probably testing in an obsolete version
 
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If it works in Fx, it will almost certainly work in Opera, Safari, and any other standards compliant browser you care to name.
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I'm not sure what was going on, but the same problem which was in Netscape also showed up in Safari and Google Chrome, despite not being in Opera, Firefox, or IE7/8, which... leaves me dumbfounded as to wtf was going on. o_o

I fixed the problem in those browsers, however.

eta: later versions of netscape were based off Fx, so you were probably testing in an obsolete version
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It was the semifinal version before AOL decided "This shit isn't worth it soz". It makes me scratch my head in wonder. :x
 
I'm not too sure about this, but you're probably using Netscape 7. It's about as old as IE6, which is pretty old. Back then, very few people used it, and I'm sure no one uses it now. So, don't worry.
 
Furthering this question, should people bother designing for IE6? 'Cause according to Wikipedia a lot of people still use it. Or is the percentage of IE6 users in the Pokémon fandom specifically not enough to worry about it if making a Pokémon fansite?
 
Mumei said:
Furthering this question, should people bother designing for IE6? 'Cause according to Wikipedia a lot of people still use it. Or is the percentage of IE6 users in the Pokémon fandom specifically not enough to worry about it if making a Pokémon fansite?
Click to expand...

Don't worry about developing for IE6. Instead, put a banner like this one on your site. Not only is it saving you lots of time, it's also helping the viewer upgrade to a more modern web browser.
 
I personally do not design for IE6 past glimpsing at the site through IE Tester [which, so I've heard, is inaccurate?]. I was actually surprised to find that most of my layouts work in IE 5.5+.

I design and test in Fx, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. When I've done that, I check it in IE 5.5+. If it doesn't work in 5.5 and 6 [usually transparent PNGs lol] I don't worry about it.
 
BTW I think some sites better viewed with mozilla. 'Coz some ppl download em.

BUt to me the most good is IE and Mozilla
 
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