Netscape 6 - Do you test your designs on it? - HTML forum at WebmasterWorld

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Netscape 6 - Do you test your designs on it?

If no, why not? If yes, how are the results?

martinibuster

2:27 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

I just downloaded the 6.2.3 version and am visiting different sites with it. Some sites work fine (Alistapart seems fine) but others have spacing/alignment issues (A site I'm working on, of course) and Ebay is showing table borders. How about you?

fathom

2:41 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

Yes, but it's a real F.... pain!

deejay

2:44 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

:) Yep, always test my sites in it.. always have, always will. Mostly because when I went online 7 years ago I started using NS as my browser of choice.

Even if NS isn't holding market share at the moment I figure it's the a good way to check that my code is as clean as I think it is. Of course I should be checking Opera, etc, too... but... um.. yeah... *can't think of a good enough excuse why not* uhh.. yeah, ok, I need to do that too.

ps... I read something about AOL or some bit American provider switching to NS for their browser of choice? Could mean a resurge in use of NS.

korkus2000

2:45 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

I test with it after I found that it had a strict idea of xhtml. I created the site in HTML then after a month converted. I checked the site in IE 5 and 6, opera 6, and NS4. I thought I had covered the bases. I day later I had users emailing me that they couldn't see the site. I had nested a tag incorrectly. NS6 was the only browser that caught it. A quick fix was commenting out the xhtml dtd. I fixed it and it worked fine. I was surprized that NS6 was that picky. From now on all sites are checked in NS6.

A side note, all the users who found the problem were on macs. I find that almost all of my NS6 users are on macs.

papabaer

4:34 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

All the more reason to run your code through a validator! Why take a chance when a quick check will catch any typos or improperly nested tags?

http://validator.w3.org/

Catch 'em before they hurt! ;)

martinibuster

5:28 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

papabaer,
I ran a couple documents through the validator, but it kept picking on my meta tags, saying they didn't belong in the head section.

Interesting thing, the dtd was 4.01 loose, and the online validator flagged margin height=0, top=0,etc that I had indicated for the table everything is sitting in. Is it the table that's skewing the results?

I ran the sites through "cse html validator pro" and it validates without errors.

I have to say that I'm confused.

fathom

6:11 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

marginleft, margintop accommodates explorer versions

marginheight, marginwidth accommdates netscape versions

the validator really doesn't have anything to do with browsers. It accommodates the standard.

martinibuster

6:49 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

Thanks Fathom appreciate the answer.

However, to validate with the standards (4.01 loose), how do I get the table to hug the browser window left and top? Or is the standard prefer/asking for divs? In other words, is the table throwing it off, and that's why NS 6 is throwing off my design? I'm going to keep troubleshooting this, but any help would be appreciated.

fathom

7:36 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

Sorry, I actually quoted top and left wrong.

papabaer

7:50 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

Just set your page margins (and padding!) using CSS and drop the attributes from their previous location in the opening <body> tag.

Read the W3C specs section 7.5.1 The BODY element (HTML 4.01): http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.5.1

<!doctype>
......
......
......
<style type="text/css" media="all">
body {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

As far as the generated errors and meta reference, try leaving only the <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> element in place and see what the results are. Look closely at your <head>code to see if there might be an error you missed.

Nick_W

8:11 am on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

I can't imagine why a web designer would not test on it? I test in everything I can get my hands on.

Nick

scotty

1:53 pm on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

I always develop my sites using Mozilla 1/Netscape 6, and then test it with Internet Explorer just in case it doesn't work in IE :) If you are doing intensive Javascript stuff, Mozilla with JS debugger and inspector is the way to go...

4eyes

3:19 pm on Jun 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

I'm with Scotty

Build with Mozilla, final check against IE and Opera and Netscape.

Q. Why check with Mozilla etc?
A. Because I can't see sense in turning away 1 out of every 20 customers.
(replace '1 out every 20' with your own market figures - whatever)

How much Walmart would pay to up their customer base by 5%?

rewboss

4:51 am on Jun 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

Just set your page margins (and padding!) using CSS and drop the attributes from their previous location in the opening <body> tag.

Unless you want to be Netscape 4 compatible, in which case you must also include marginwidth and marginheight in the <body> tag.

martinibuster

4:58 am on Jun 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

I feel like such a backslider, but I got my pages to validate but ns6 was adding about 5 pixels between different random images that should abut each other. I took out the doctype, and all of sudden, ns6 was happy. Go figure.

Purple Martin

5:24 am on Jun 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

Yes I always test in N6. I think everyone should, but my question is which one? N6.0 is buggy and complex pages often break (N6.1 as well to a lesser extent), but it's market share is tiny and will only go down, so can I ignore N6.0? Testing in N6.2 seems to make more sense to me.

p.s. I'll also test in N7 when it's officially released.

JamesR

9:32 pm on Jun 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

What percentage of your users have NS6?

fathom

10:23 pm on Jun 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

less than 1%