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The first thing I would do, is to see if your page
will validate on W3C: [validator.w3.org...]
Its not simple or easy, but fix each error, one at a time.
Then look at the amended page in FF.
I would code for FF. Once that comes out OK, IE should
take care of itself. - Larry
IE is the buggy one :) So try to change the configuration of your WSWYG so that it uses FF and not IE.
IF you like the WYSIWYG way of working, give DW a try. Although it may be damned expensive, its a great way to get more involved in your code if used properly. If you're budget cant stretch to DW, then working through your site with the W3C guidelines as suggested previously should see you ok.
so the general consensus is that using dreamweaver will solve these differences in what I see? I will try validating it first.
This page is not Valid HTML 4.0 Transitional!
What is this? :( Bad news?
Should I now start going through the HTML and correcting errors?
How do i go to the specified lines?
eg: Line 29, column 31: there is no attribute "LEFTMARGIN"
<body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0">
eg: Line 97, column 117: document type does not allow element "TD" here
...order-style: dotted; border-width: 1"><b>
However, if you don't know HTML, removing the leftmargin command is just going to screw up your layout in both browsers.
You might want to try working with a fresh template and get it standards compliant, then apply it to the existing site.
1.) Take the time to get your site cross-browser comaptible, which is likely to be a long process with quite a learning curve, or,
2.) Accept the fact that non-IE users (around 20% of Internet traffic) will see your site in a broken state.
Only you can make this decision, based on the time you have, the goals for your site, etc. Some people here advocate complete cross-browser compatibility, which is great if you already know how to do it. Others advocate making your site work for as many browsers as you're conveniently able to do, if your time could be more profitable if spent in ways other than achieving complete cross-browser compatibility. You'll need to weigh the pros and cons and make your own decision.
A few pointers:
1.) Validation, though extremely helpful, does not guarantee a completely cross-browser site.
2.) You'll need to use CSS if you want to use valid markup that renders the same cross-browser
3.) It's easier to develop "for" FireFox and then debug for IE, than to do it the other way around.
4.) Don't count on your statistics to give a reliable representation of what browser traffic you're getting - if FireFox users get a broken page, of course they won't visit more of your pages or come back, thus "artificially" bloating your stats in favor of IE when it comes to actual visits and visitors.
