[WebR] Level of compatibility (with browsers/standards)

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 28 Apr 2005 16:24

[WebR]: This thread is a research thread for the website team. Everyone are allowed to comment as long as you stay on topic and motivate you're arguments.

Question: Level of compatibility (with browsers/standards)

Answers: Plese stay on topic, and motivate your arguments.

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I think we should follow the w3c standards for the technics we choose to use, and make it work on IE and Opera too. To do so, i suggest that we stay away from the most fancy stuff.

Also, I think we should use aporite <h1>, <h2>,... tags for different heding levels, and then in the CSS fix the visual, to make the site accesible on on graphical browsers. ALT texts for images would be preferable too.

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 28 Apr 2005 16:31

I agree. Use the standards and keep it simple.
We're making the game cross-platform, so we want our website to be working on all platforms. Also I don't want to spend ages loading the page.

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » 28 Apr 2005 18:08

Making the page fully W3C-standard compliant will be the best way to ensure cross-platform compatibilty. 'nuff said.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » 28 Apr 2005 18:13

It is important that we make it run perfectly on the latest releases of IE, Firefox and Opera. If it works on them, it doesn't really matter how W3C compliant we are.

I'm not sure what browser people on Macs use. I can't say i really care either

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » 28 Apr 2005 18:16

Steve wrote: I'm not sure what browser people on Macs use. I can't say i really care either

The people on Macs will care, that's for sure!

The predominant Mac browser would be Safari, as that's what's packaged with the system, but Firefox is also quite dominant on that platform as well. We'll have to recruit a couple of Mac users to make sure things look ok in Safari.

And making things W3C-compliant will ensure that minority browsers will have no problems with our page either - this is a Good Thing(tm).

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 28 Apr 2005 18:56

Steve wrote:It is important that we make it run perfectly on the latest releases of IE, Firefox and Opera. If it works on them, it doesn't really matter how W3C compliant we are.

I think W#C compability matter, as SGrunt said, that means that most browsers will handle it. If we also stay away from the newest stuff, eaven more browsers will handle it.

Still, I agree that we have to make sure that it work good on Gecko (mozilla, firefox), Opera and IE. I gues that IE will require most work, but I don't know.

jfs · Post by **jfs** » 28 Apr 2005 22:28

As I wrote in the technologies thread, we can't use XHTML 1.1, since it might trigger a bug in recent versions of MSIE, making people unable to view the page.

Apart from that, I believe we should attempt to completely avoid any browser-specific code, eg. no user-agent checks serverside, and generate output based on that, and similar.
We should make sure the pages are usable with all major HTML renderers. Right now, I can think of: MSHTML (IE, "shdocvw"), Gecko (Mozilla), Opera, KHTML (Konqueror, Safari). We should support at least one major version back from the current version, IMO.

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » 29 Apr 2005 02:10

jfs wrote: We should make sure the pages are usable with all major HTML renderers.

W3C compliance ought to be enough for all of these except IE, so we should aim for that first.

jfs · Post by **jfs** » 29 Apr 2005 10:20

SGrunt wrote:
jfs wrote:We should make sure the pages are usable with all major HTML renderers.
W3C compliance ought to be enough for all of these except IE, so we should aim for that first.

You forget that there is a difference between "looking good" and "being usable". It's perfectly possible to have something that looks great but is unusable, or have something very usable that's not aestethically(sp?) pleasing.

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » 29 Apr 2005 14:29

jfs wrote:
SGrunt wrote:
jfs wrote:We should make sure the pages are usable with all major HTML renderers.
W3C compliance ought to be enough for all of these except IE, so we should aim for that first.
You forget that there is a difference between "looking good" and "being usable". It's perfectly possible to have something that looks great but is unusable, or have something very usable that's not aestethically(sp?) pleasing.

Assuming the browser is sufficiently compliant with the standards the layout should appear exactly as we want it, independent of rendering engine (again with the probable exception of IE). It follows that should we create a design that is usable-yet-elegant that is also standards compliant we won't have as much to worry about.

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 29 Apr 2005 21:09

We should avoid designs that depends on font sizes, and other user settings. Also we souldn't depend on that the usesers have a spcific screen size of his browser view (The box inside the browser that is used for displaying content.)

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 30 Apr 2005 10:53

jfs wrote:As I wrote in the technologies thread, we can't use XHTML 1.1, since it might trigger a bug in recent versions of MSIE, making people unable to view the page.

IMO, we should not be working around browser bugs in our website. Agree that we shouldn't design the website to fit into a fixed size - that is probably the second most annoying thing in website design ever, after animated backgrounds.

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 30 Apr 2005 11:06

I would put that after websites with music/sounds, then animated background, and then fixed size.

Oh well back to the topic again.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » 30 Apr 2005 11:19

ChrisCF wrote:IMO, we should not be working around browser bugs in our website. Agree that we shouldn't design the website to fit into a fixed size - that is probably the second most annoying thing in website design ever, after animated backgrounds.

Well, your opinion is wrong. *chuckles*
There is no point having a website that some users can't view. They'll open the website, see we can't even handle a working website and just leave. They won't bend over backwards, finding a new browser, just for us.

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 30 Apr 2005 12:06

Steve wrote:Well, your opinion is wrong. *chuckles*

Did you read what I said?

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 02 May 2005 12:03

What will the conclusion be? DO we nead a poll for that?

Yes or no:
1. Design to work acording to the standards.
2. Support for individual browsers
3. Avoid the latest standards.
4. Design for a specific screen size.

Anything more?

Hyronymus · Post by **Hyronymus** » 02 May 2005 12:09

How much more does it add to our site if we have it enabled for all browsers in the world? Can't we just settle for the three most common browsers: IE, Opera and Firefox?

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 02 May 2005 12:21

Hyronymus wrote:How much more does it add to our site if we have it enabled for all browsers in the world? Can't we just settle for the three most common browsers: IE, Opera and Firefox?

And it should validate with the w3c validator. That I think is enoght, as that will mean that it will work on most other browsers too. Perhaps we shall try to make it work in safari/konqueror too, if we plan to make a Mac port. However I think that if we follow the w3c standards, and design a page that works fairly well on Firefox, IE and Opera it should not require much extra work to make sure it works on safari too.

So my suggestion is:
* W3C compilance
* Work fairly well on Mozilla/Firefox, IE, Opera and Safari/Konqueror
* Avoid static designs (don't except a specific look at the users end.)

Hellfire · Post by **Hellfire** » 02 May 2005 12:51

zuu wrote:1. Design to work acording to the standards.
2. Support for individual browsers
3. Avoid the latest standards.
4. Design for a specific screen size.

1. Yes.
2. Yes. (1. will ensure this)
3. Yes. (Why use "XHTML 1.1 strict" if "HTML 4.01 transitional" suffices?)
4. No!

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » 02 May 2005 14:35

zuu wrote: 1. Design to work acording to the standards.
2. Support for individual browsers
3. Avoid the latest standards.
4. Design for a specific screen size.

1. Absolutely; non-negotiable.
2. Only if criteria 1 is still met (standards compliance ought to be the biggest point of reference such that the pages will look consistent across platforms).
3. Only if those standards do not properly in the latest browsers.
4. Absolutely not - or those people with 1600x1200 or bigger displays will be whining without fail.

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[WebR] Level of compatibility (with browsers/standards)

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