Compatibility issue between NN and IE

The styleSheets method...

[dnimrodx]

Hello,

Inside a Javascript function I have the following line of code:

document.styleSheets[0].rules[0].styles.visibility = "visible";

Once again, everything works just fine under IE, but when I tryied it on Netscape I couldn't believe my eyes. :o

Later I found out that only IE supports this feature, therefore I would like to know if someone in this (brilliant) forum has an idea on how to solve this glitch.

Thanks a lot,

d#Nimrod

PS: I really don't understand Microsoft for developing non-compatible features for a program which wasn't even their own original idea in the first place. I mean what do they want to do?, eliminate every single software house from the face of the Earth by (trying) to dominate the software market and dictate its rules?
I feel very disappointed with Microsoft; This is what makes me want to forget completely about Windows (and every single Micro$oft product) and migrate to Linux/Unix!

[isitreal]

It looks like NN 7 just doesn't support that particular DOM item, that was a pretty early version of Mozilla, between 1.0 and 1.1 if I remember right, complex javascript, well, any javascript, can be expected to not work on at least one browser out there, Safari's support isn't very good either. That's why I stopped using much javascript, this game just gets old, first detect netscape 4 or IE, now newer ones, IE will usually work for most code, the newer Operas, Firebirds, Safaris will probably be much closer to the standards than IE, but since these groups are different you just have to test.

I mean what do they want to do?, eliminate every single software house from the face of the Earth by (trying) to dominate the software market and dictate its rules?

Yes, this is exactly what they want to do, this is what they've wanted to do always, and it still is, their vision is one OS running, with MS software, and that will solve all the computing problems in the world. They really believe this, they are like religious about it, they just can't understand why the rest of the world doesn't see it their way.

I'm also getting pretty sick of it, and am getting ready to switch over to Linux as soon as they work out some of the desktop weaknesses, for instance redhat 8 was almost ready, but you still have to run something like wine to run real office apps and photoshop, openoffice.org for example still won't display pretty basic MS Word stuff like text boxes correctly, but it's getting there.

[dnimrodx]

(...) am getting ready to switch over to Linux as soon as they work out some of the desktop weaknesses, for instance redhat 8 was almost ready, but you still have to run something like wine to run real office apps and photoshop, openoffice.org for example still won't display pretty basic MS Word stuff like text boxes correctly, but it's getting there.

So basicaly what you are saying is there are quite some vulnerabilities and weaknesses which will eventually be solved in the near future?

I must tell you and everybody I am sick and tired of Micro$oft! Some of the great software developers I know (which I actually consider gurus) use Linux OS and cannot stand Microsoft as well. China has started using Linux-OS based computers and have been saving huge sums of money as there are no copyrights to pay (open-source).

Apart from some compatibility issues with the Microsoft world (which we unfortunately depend of) I can only see advantages in using Linux.

d#nimrod

[isitreal]

The china Linux project is aiming to achieve I believe around 70-80% of the functionality of Windows 98. That's from them, not me.

I do an installation of Linux every year or so to see where it's at, last year was the first time I actually ended up using it a bit, I like it, I just don't have time to learn the whole Unix syntax thing right now.

I haven't seen SUSE 9 yet but I've read good things about it, I'm not looking to replace my desktop development environment just because I dislike Microsoft, which I do, but because it works for me in reasonably decent manner.

The reason developers tend to use Linux and have no problems with it is because all they are doing is programming and webstuff, and Linux/opensource has a lot of good programming tools, so it doesn't really matter to them that you can't run MS office 2000 or Photoshop 6. Only the most deluded of the deluded would claim that the Gimp, for example, is anywhere even remotely close to Fireworks or Photoshop in functionality.

Which means you can go out and get Photoshop 7, Office XP, WINE, and run them on Linux to get the functionality you need, or you can wait a little longer, I thought it would be this year for sure, but it's taking them a little longer than I thought it would to get a decent product out.

Keep in mind that it was only this last year that Linux finally had a real, modern browser, the newer firebirds and konquerors.

[RonPK]

MS have invented their own 'standard'. The W3C DOM Level 2 specification specifies the cssRules property. In this case, that would be
document.stylesheets[0].cssRules[0]

[w3.org...]

[dnimrodx]

First of all I must say I am very new in web site development. I started doing this kind of work one month ago, which is not much time really. And I now think it isn't an easy job. Why? Not because it isn't hard to have an idea and develop it, but yet because you have to consider the fact there isn't a norm used by all browser's software developers.

Therefore it is not difficult to find yourself creating a web site which runs perfectly under IE, and later finding out it isn't compatible at all with Netscape due to the non-standard (?) features employed.

Personally my biggest concern about developing websites is the fact they must be accessible by any user on any browser. And this limitates any developer's moves. This is an enemy of quality.

Does anyone know if in the future we will see some standards being outlined and used by the web community?

d#Nimrod

[DrDoc]

Test your page in non-IE browsers first. Usually the page will function well in IE as well.

[dnimrodx]

Doc do you know any browsers I could use? Have you got any (free-downloadable) suggestions? :)

d#Nimrod

[DrDoc]

Mozilla [mozilla.org] and Opera [opera.com] are two good browsers everyone should test in. You should also make sure to have IE5, IE5.5, and IE6 on the computer. Just because it's IE doesn't mean it will look the same. :)

[dnimrodx]

Doc I was told this:

This is AFAIK:
Netscape is dead - R.I.P.
Explorer is in limbo pending the result of various court cases - incl. the DoJ and E.U.
Mozilla and related browsers (Firebird, Camino, ...) - see mozilla.org/
Opera - see opera.com/
Safari - see weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/

Having this in mind what browser do you think I should be developing to?

I appreciate your feedback, thanks