Which browser has maximum cross-browser compatability?

Which one is best to test in first?

[GuanoLad]

It's frustrating to work really hard on a site with the twisty turny CSS tricks you have to do to get it looking the way you want, only for it to look awful in Netscape or Opera and you have to totally redo most of it again. And then, just to make life really annoying, it doesn't work in the new browser for 2006, Vesuvius v1.2 (though of course it looked great in version 0.9).

Anyways, which current browser is the best to test in first, so as to expect maximum likeliness of compatability in other browsers?

[jetboy_70]

I would think almost everyone here would say a current version of Mozilla or Firefox. The theory being that you code for the most standards compliant browser, and then retrospectively fix things for the others.

However, I'd suggest you don't go any great length of time without testing in all the major browsers you're supporting. It's heartbreaking to have to pick apart a layout piece by piece to find out what causing a compatibility problem. Far better to catch these things early.

[Bonusbana]

Good question.

It depends on the target audience of your site visitors. If you expect more than 70% using explorer, you really should design for explorer first and then make it look good in FF/gecko/opera/netscape etc.

Firefox and safari have very good CSS support, but most people still use IE. I tend to design for the "tough" browsers first (IE & opera) and then make it work just as good in gecko browsers. But I know many people do the other way.

[Lance]

I design for IE and use IE as my primary browser. Better than 95% of my users use IE as well, but I still want to support FF/NN/Moz for the few rare occasions when they do show up.

That said, I have found it much easier to design in FF and then adjust accordingly for IE. It seems much easier to take a good "standards compliant" design and add in the few hacks you need for IE than to go in the other direction (IMHO). And if you keep the standards and quirks in mind while you're developing, you can, without too much stress, come up with a design that looks good cross-browser with few hacks at all, if any.

[GuanoLad]

Well, we've been designing in IE and FF concurrently, complying with standards, and that seems to look just fine.

Except Opera doesn't seem to want to agree in some issues, and IE for Macs is just going completely bananas (though Safari seems happy).

It is, to put it mildly, irritating that this still happens.

[vkaryl]

....the new browser for 2006, Vesuvius v1.2....

Okay - I'll bite. What's this, who's producing it, which platform is it for, and where do I get one?

[GuanoLad]

Cool name, huh? I was trying to think of some name that sounded plausible, so thought of Angelic, Quantum, Valhalla, and Volcano, and I liked that last one so went with Vesuvius.

[createErrorMsg]

If you expect more than 70% using explorer, you really should design for explorer first and then make it look good in FF/gecko/opera/netscape etc.

The argument against this, and for using a compliant browser (FF) as jetboy suggested, is: what happens when/if IE fixes their problems? A site tweaked for specific compliant browsers, may then break in everything new coming on the market (assuming, as I think it's safe to do, that future browsers will trend towards compliance, not away from it), whereas tweaking for IE by exploiting IE's bugs will fix the IE versions currently exhibiting those bugs, and will also display fine in the potentially compliant future versions that will (?) not exhibit those same bugs.

[vkaryl]

Yup - had this discussion on another site the other day. There's no winner here, but really, working FROM standards compliance is by far the best basis as regards "reality"....

[Congrats, you!]