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PREVIOUS PAGE • SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER • CLIENT LOGIN Hey, buddy, can you spare a standard?OLD COMPUTER JOKE: It's easy to comply with the standards when there are so many of them.For anyone who develops Web pages, that's no joke. It one of the major frustrations of the job because Microsoft (90% of the market) and Netscape (6% of the market) have chosen different "standards". It was worse when the two browsers each had about half of the market. Choosing a Microsoft-only feature today means that you'll lock out only about 10% of the audience. Fortunately, Microsoft saw the light in version 5 of its browser and started paying attention to W3C standards. For Netscape, there was no version 5; but version 6 provides good support for the standards. Why it's a big dealIf you take a look at one of my sites (www.610tech.net) with Netscape 4.x and with IE 5 (or 6) you'll see significant differences in the way headlines are represented and in the way vertical spacing and typeface sizes are handled. That's because Microsoft chose to follow the standard for cascading style sheets (CSS) and Netscape didn't. Compare Netscape 6 to IE, though, and you'll see nearly identical displays. That's because Netscape pitched much of the non-standard proprietary "standards" and adopted W3C standard. Hallelujah! I already use cascading style sheets on most of my sites because they work well with IE 5 (73% of my visitors), acceptably with IE 4 (1% of my visitors), and well with Netscape 6 (1% of my visitors). For Netscape 4 users (17% of my visitors), CSS sites don't look as good as they would in IE, but they don't look any worse than a non-CSS site would look. The browser war is overI don't know how many years ago it was that I said the browser wars were over and that Microsoft had won. Most of us who operate Web sites and who look at browser statistics know that the war has been over for a couple of years. It's just that Netscape doesn't seem to want to lie down and die. While I'm no Netscape fan (I've been known to call version 4.x "Netbarf" and version 6 has attracted even worse epithets), I'm glad that the browser is still around if for no reason other than to keep Microsoft honest. Netscape Communicator 6 will probably become a usable browser because Netscape really did get some things absolutely right in the latest version. Support for cascading style sheets has improved to the point that I can barely tell the difference between Communicator and Explorer. But I can't recommend Communicator 6 because of its numerous nasty bugs. For me, the worst bugs involve JavaScript (which Netscape invented [with help from Sun Microsystems]). I still find it hard to believe that JavaScript that works fine with MSIE and with Netscape Navigator 4.x fails with Netscape Communicator 6. What were they thinking in Mountain View? Ready! Fire! Aim!So Netscape got off the first shot in the latest skirmish, but Microsoft is dragging out its big version 6 guns. Explorer 6 is out in "public beta" now, meaning that anyone who goes to the Microsoft Web site can get it. Explorer 6 appears to be a lot less buggy than Communicator 6. It's still a work in progress and Microsoft continues the infuriating process of allowing users to have only one version of the browser installed at one time. When Explorer 5 came along, you could retain a version 4 look-alike if version 4 was installed on your computer. For those who design Web sites, having older versions of browsers is more than helpful - it's essential. When I installed Explorer 6, there was no option to retain version 5. When it comes to allowing multiple versions to co-exist, Netscape got it exactly right. Not only does the company allow multiple versions to exist on the same machine, but the old versions continue to be available for download from Netscape's Web site. Why should Explorer 6 kill Explorer 5? What were they thinking in Redmond? (Yeah, I know you have to keep up the pretense that the browser is an integral part of the operating system, but this is carrying things too far.) The fat lady has laryngitisA couple of years ago, I started looking at Opera, a browser from Norway. At the time, Opera was a shareware product competing with two free products. It has always been considered the most standards-compliant browser on the market. Now Opera is "free", too. Or, more accurately, "ad ware" (supported by advertising). You can make the ads vanish by purchasing it. Or so they tell me. The problem is that I can't get Opera to run. Not for free. Not with a registration code (which Opera provided for free). It's supposed to run on Windows 2000 (along with the other Windows variants) but I can't even get it to open on Windows 2000 and I tried installing it on three machines. I've sent reports to Opera with precise explanations of what happens, but I've heard nothing. And that's too bad because Opera is probably the browser that has traditionally come the closest to supporting the international standards for browsers. Give it a try if you have a Windows 9x machine or Windows Me and maybe Windows XP. But Windows 2000? Nope! What were they thinking in Norway? The verdictThat leaves me with two browser companies - Microsoft and Netscape. Until Netscape exterminates a lot of bugs, I won't suggest that you upgrade. If you don't upgrade, sites that use cascading style sheets won't look right because Netscape version 4 doesn't handle style sheets very well. Netscape 6 does, but it's a badly mangled browser otherwise. Internet Explorer 6 will be the new GOLD STANDARD. There are a few new features. Typical of Microsoft, some of these new features will annoy you. Example: If the page you're viewing has a graphic that's too large to fit, the browser will automatically resize it so you won't have to scroll. Resizing on the fly is ugly, though. Information will be lost. The image won't look right. There's a quick, easy way to expand the image, though - and then you can scroll. A capital (small) ideaNOTE: If you're using Netscape 6 or MSIE 6, you'll see samples of small caps in this section. If you're using Netscape 4, you'll see lower case letters where I've coded small caps. If you're using MSIE 5, you'll see FULL CAPS. If you'd like to print, e-mail, or save a graphic image from a Web site (Can you say "copyright infringement"?) Explorer 6 makes it easy. Cascading style sheet support continues to improve and - for the first time - both version 6 browsers get "small caps" right. This has been an ongoing problem for me and for one of my clients. Recently, I wrote to the client: GOOD NEWS (but read all the way to the bottom before you celebrate)! Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 supports small caps properly. To (ah) recap ...
IMPORTANT: Internet Explorer 6 is available (free) from Microsoft, but it is a WORK IN PROGRESS. Some functionality is missing from the BETA (i.e. "test") version. It does, however, seem to have all the functionality of version 5, along with some of the enhancements planned for the release version. If somebody must be able to see small caps right now, recommend (with warnings) that they download MSIE version 6-beta from Microsoft's Web site. Let this be a warning to youI explained to the client that their customers should be warned about potential problems with MSIE 6: 1. This is "public preview" software, meaning that it is not yet in its final form. It may cause problems with other programs. 2. Microsoft says, "Important This is beta software, distributed for feedback and testing purposes. Microsoft does not provide technical support for beta products. This software is for advanced users who regularly test pre-released software. If you are unsure of whether this accurately describes you, Microsoft recommends that you do NOT download this software. If you choose to install this software, Microsoft recommends that you install it in a test environment and not on a primary computer or operating system." 3. [Your company] is explicitly NOT RESPONSIBLE for any problems that may be encountered as a result of downloading and installing MSIE version 6.0. What it means to youThe good news is that people seem to upgrade to new versions of the major browsers far faster than most of us who develop Web sites expected. As of March 30, 2001, (and based on 205,928,352 Web site visits during March), 77% of users have MSIE 5, 9% have MSIE 4, 9% use Netscape 4. The other browsers each have less than 1% of the market. My guess is that within a year (and possibly within 6 months) most of the Netscape 4 users will have downloaded version 6 and that most of the remaining MSIE 4 users will have upgraded to version 5 or version 6. MSIE 5 and 6 and Netscape 6 are all largely standards based. While designers can still use the occasional browser-specific functionality, the reason to do so declines each day. Welcome to the future, where standards are finally beginning to win out over proprietary browser technology. |
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William Blinn Communications - All Rights Reserved |
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