Frames differences with browsers: how to cope with 'em

How to make adjustements to nn4.7 frames and framesets

[Phil de Belgique]

Having read a few messages allready, i can see that some of you strongly dislike frames.
Nevertheless i've got a problem when using netscape 4.7 to test a project.
I had a navigation bar 'cut up' to put some banners in it (not my idea) and it shows perfect in IE 5.5 and NN 6. Only in NN 4.7 it turns out all is displayed smaller than it has to be, it has moved a little bit and i cant seem to correct it. I allready wrote a script that depending on browser shows another layout, and tried to addapt the nn 4.7 layout, but it doesn't want to work.

Has anyone out there also encountered this problemo and is it fixable.

Thanx in advance

[tedster]

Hello Phil, and welcome to the Webmaster World forums.

Oh yes, I've run into the Netscape frames problem. The issues I've faced involve Netscpe 4.x adding extra space around the edges of frames. This means that it's often not possible to have a complex image span from one frame to another and match up seamlessly. It also means that images get cut off in different places, and a few other other kinds of mayhem.

Add in the fact that Netscape fonts are slightly smaller than the same font in Explorer, and you can have a real challenge.

If you hope to seamlessly span an image across two frames, the design must take this glitch in mind -- matching up fine details just won't work cross-browser, but matching solid colors or basic patterns can, with a bit of planning and forethought.

As you mentioned, another helper can be browser sniffing and creating separate .css file for Netscape. That way you can tweak the layout a bit for this testy little browser.

But, for the most part, these Netscape oddities just sit there and limit what you can actually accomplish. Many ideas just won't work out in 4.x frames, and that's the unfortunate situation.