Dvorak gripes about CSS
March 21st, 2009
Dvorak gripes about CSS
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Love him or hate him, John C. Dvorak has written an article concerning the topic of this blog. John is bugged by CSS. The idea is great, it just falls apart in practice noting how Firefox displays CSS differently from Internet Explorer, which displays it differently from Opera he says.
“Everyone loses here, from users who can’t understand why things look screwy, to developers who can’t get CSS to do the job right, to baffled content providers.And what’s being done about it? Nothing! Another fine mess from the standards bodies.”
If we could get atleast two of the popular browsers on the same page, than we would be set. Imagine if IE and Firefox rendered code the same way. Every other browser would be forced to follow or die a slow and miserable death.
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- Opera 7+
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- IE 5.5+ on Windows (using DHTML behaviors)
- Firefox 2 beta 1 is now available as a developer preview, for testing purposes only. (I guess that’s a little redundant, isn’t it?) Its features include: support for Javacsript 1.7; inline spell checking in text boxes; and the ability to reopen accidentally-closed tabs (I definitely need that one, with my command-W-happy fingers).
- Opera 9 has been released, with a lot of cool new features. To name just a few, it boasts built-in BitTorrent, thumbnail site preview, and one-click ad blocking. And there’s more, so much more!
- All the cool kids are talking about Flock, with its built-in blog integration and photobar. If that doesn’t have “Web 2.0” written all over it, I don’t know what does.
- Firefox 2.0 - Windows XP
- Firefox 3.0 - Windows XP
- Internet Explorer 6.0 - Windows XP
- Internet Explorer 7.0 - Windows XP
- Safari 3.0 - Macintosh OS X
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Conditional CSS - not just for IE
It’s true that IE is the most notorious browser for inconsistencies, incompatibilities, and bugs. But the fact remains that no two browsers are created equal, and while IE is the most likely to cause headaches in the course of development, other browsers can be culprits, as well.If you run into a major roadblock, Rafael Lima’s CSS Browser Selector could be your saving grace. A tiny bit of Javascript (less than 1kb!) determines the user’s browser and creates an accordingly-named class. From there, it’s simply a matter of applying the styles that were written for that particular browser. For example:
.ie .example {
background-color: yellow
}
.gecko .example {
background-color: gray
}
.opera .example {
background-color: green
}
.konqueror .example {
background-color: blue
}
.webkit .example {
background-color: black
}
.example {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: brown;
} The colored box on the CSS Browser Selector page gets the point across better than anything else, though. Open the page in a few different browsers to see for yourself.
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WebKit-based browser for Windows
Safari - or at least, something not unlike it - may be coming to the Windows platform. Swift is a new browser for Windows, based on Apple’s WebKit rendering engine.Swift is in the very earlier stages of development. Practically embryonic, you might even say. The repository was created a mere three weeks ago. And, as the Web Standards Project warns, “it’s marked as 1.0pre alpha, and it is very much an alpha: very rough-looking UI, no scrollwheel support, pathetic form controls and I’ve had reports from colleagues that some folks can’t even get it to install.”
Nevertheless, Swift looks promising! I recommend keeping a close watch on this project. It could be very helpful to developers who need to ensure that their sites (particularly those with heavy scripting) function across browsers.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
100 Raw CSS Examples
Looking for examples of CSS in action? Well you have come to the right place. The examples are very crude but function perfectly. Take a peek at the source code to figure out how it was done. There is a lot to look through. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsMicrosoft.com: a failed redesign
Looks like Microsoft is the latest to be guilty of a failed redesign. Their current homepage iteration sports a table-based layout circa 1998.They’ve also released a beta preview of their new new homepage - which you can view only with Internet Explorer. (When I attempted to view the preview site in Firefox, I was simply redirected to the existing homepage.) The preview site appears to use semantic markup, although the source has been compacted down to only a few lines, so it’s nearly impossible to read. And with no Web Developer extension in IE, outlining all block-level elements (or all table cells) isn’t an option.
Funny that with the IE 7 team touting how standards-compliant the new browser will be, the Microsoft homepage flies in the face of standards. (Is that for-real ironic or only Alanis ironic?) Having worked for a few large corporations, I understand that one department’s products can appear to be the antithesis of another department’s, with the worker bees in both departments being none the wiser. Still, this is pretty egregious, given the emphasis Microsoft claims to be placing on web standards.
Although… we’ve been there before with Microsoft, haven’t we? Perhaps these things are cyclical.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Pure nested CSS menus
HowToCreate.co.uk has an interesting guide to creating a purely CSS-based nested-list menu. This technique uses absolutely no Javascript except for IE 5 for windows. Here is the list of supported browsers:Some browsers that don’t support this technique display styled nested-lists instead. Go check it out.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Browser windfall
While we’re on the subject of new browsers…IE 7 Beta 3 available
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 has been announced and is now available for download. Features include tabbed browsing, RSS integration, multiple search engines via the built-in search box, and more. Sure, these are all features that Firefox, Safari, etc. have had for a quite some time, but as the old saying goes, better late than pregnant. There are no new CSS features, however; Microsoft has stayed true to their promise that, for better or for worse, as of this March IE 7 was “layout complete.”Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsTraveling back to 1996…
The Internet was a bland wasteland in 1996. Just take a look at some of the big corporations sites from 10 years ago. It may be downright painful, but it is a testament to see how far web design has come with the help of CSS. Check out Pepsi’s futuristic web-look. Ah, those were the days…Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsInterview with Håkon Wium Lie
Check out this Slashdot interview with Håkon Wium Lie, the originator of the CSS idea. (Can you believe it’s been over 10 years since CSS was proposed? Time flies when you’re coding with tables!) Lie currently serves as CTO of Opera Software.In the interview, Lie suggests that before releasing IE 7, Microsoft should ensure that the browser passes the Acid2 test and supports TrueType downloadable fonts. He also discusses XML, microformats, Ajax, and (of course) the future of CSS. Read the interview and watch him effortlessly knock down all suggestions that CSS is somehow lacking in capabilities.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Code Better CSS And Preview Websites Across Different Browsers With Adobe BrowserLab
Adobe BrowserLab is an online service that allows web professionals to test their websites on popular browsers and operating systems. Screenshots of actual browser renderings are generated in real time, with multiple viewing options to help pinpoint issues. Adobe provides integration with Dreamweaver CS4, and the free preview is currently available only to a limited number of users.
Currently, BrowserLab supports the following web browsers and operating systems:
The sad thing about BrowserLab is that it will eventually be released as a paid service. In the meanwhile, there are alternatives like Browsershots which remain free for low-priority usage.