I've been using divs out the ass but what are other good ways to make sure things are spaced out right on different browsers?

3/24/2009 4:59:47 PM

correct usage of a doctype doctype doctype

also knowing when to use divs and when to use tables.

seriously though...this thread could not be more vague if you tried.

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 5:01 PM. Reason : .]

3/24/2009 5:00:34 PM

i was using a lot of divs

but now i trended back towards the: div header, div content, div footer, table in the content.

I was using some divs in the content but they usually end up weird on other browsers. Especially safari.

Most of my stuff looks good in IE/Firefox. Fixing little shit for safari and chrome is pissing me off.

3/24/2009 5:53:21 PM

Sounds like you are doing something very very very wrong. Safari (and probably Chrome and FireFox) are the browsers where shit just works even if you did a sloppy job. IE on the other hand is a different story. But if it works in IE, generally it will work every where else with the exception of a few things like padding and z-index's etc

only use tables to display tabular data or if you're using something like dojo that constructs widgets on a page. Those are then constructed in tables.

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 5:58 PM. Reason : .]

3/24/2009 5:58:02 PM

Quote :

"Most of my stuff looks good in IE/Firefox. Fixing little shit for safari and chrome is pissing me off."

yeah, that doesn't really make sense.
I have built websites before where I start from scratch and start typing, and after a while I check it in FireFox Win/Mac, Safari Win/Mac, and IE7, and it looks great and consistent across those browsers. Then I check in IE6 and all hell breaks lose. It's f'ing amazing how bad IE6 mangles good CSS.

3/24/2009 6:07:44 PM

Actually Chrome has jacked some shit up for me recently.

3/24/2009 6:27:13 PM

Quote :

"what are other good ways to make sure things are spaced out right on different browsers?"

Don't do this:

Quote :

"table in the content"

What exactly are you having trouble with? Floating divs? Positioning divs?

You can't just say, "I can't get my shit to work right" and expect any real help.

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 6:29 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2009 6:28:33 PM

learn how to use CSS properly and you shouldn't really have any problems.

...especially if its just spacing stuff. The fact that you're using div's has nothing to do with it.

3/24/2009 6:32:26 PM

You can just do like I do and have a browser check in the header. If it is IE6 or older I just have them redirected to another page with a giant H1 banner saying: "Your browser is old as shit, plz to upgrade"

But this is just for my personal webpages I do, if this is for like a buisness or something then I don't think that will fly.

3/24/2009 9:29:04 PM

^ honestly I follow that approach a lot, too.

3/25/2009 4:55:16 PM

I had divs floating over the footers was the main thing. They looked ok in IE, then i'd fix it, and it wouldn't look ok in Firefox/Safari/Chrome. vice versa.

Long story short, i like safari and its a cool browser. will use more.

[Edited on March 25, 2009 at 6:55 PM. Reason : ss]

3/25/2009 6:55:19 PM

Tips:

1. Read a book or something. You can avoid these types of problems with a solid knowledge of CSS.
2. Develop in Firefox. Don't even look at IE until everything is working in FF.
3. Google "clearing floats"

3/25/2009 7:18:40 PM

Quote :

"2. Develop in Firefox. Don't even look at IE until everything is working in FF."

Do the opposite.

If you're going to support IE6, start there and work your way out.

3/25/2009 8:27:31 PM

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/reset/

3/25/2009 9:27:41 PM

Quote :

"1. Read a book or something. You can avoid these types of problems with a solid knowledge of CSS. 2. Develop in Firefox. Don't even look at IE until everything is working in FF. 3. Google "clearing floats""

the only thing you said that is worth reading is 1.

2. Start in IE as Stein says because FF and Safari will not give you any kind of trouble if it works in IE (with the exception of padding and z-index's in some cases)

3. LOL? if you need to clear floats you are doing something wrong.

3/25/2009 9:59:35 PM

just do everythng in flash

3/25/2009 10:02:49 PM

It makes much more sense to design for Firefox (or any standards-compliant browser) first, then adjust for IE6.

Quote :

"FF and Safari will not give you any kind of trouble if it works in IE"

That is absolutely false. We're talking about IE6 here.

IE6 renders compliant markup all kinds of wonky. It's much faster and far more future-proof to build a 100% compliant site, then tweak (not hack) for IE.

Quote :

"3. LOL? if you need to clear floats you are doing something wrong."

LOL? Did you read the thread?

3/25/2009 10:50:43 PM

^Did you not read?

There is no reason to clear floats if you do things right. There is no reason to 'hack' anything for any browser (IE6 included) if you know what you're doing. and these 'tweaks' are things that involve padding and z-index's since IE renders them differently than FF/Safari. If you start with IE life is much easier for everything else.

3/26/2009 2:48:53 AM

I hate IE so much. it's ruined so many perfectly planned demos.

3/26/2009 6:38:29 AM

^IE6 will make something that looks pretty in other browsers look like complete ass especially images.

3/26/2009 10:45:41 AM

telling people their browser is old and needs to be updated is a bitch move for lazy people.

even though they should have updated their browser 5 years ago.

3/26/2009 11:08:43 AM

^true. But its also IT departments being lazy because they don't want to test and certify all their internal apps on IE7 or FF3 then upgrade workstations to use IE7 or FF.

not to mention a lot of large corporation have their own branded IE6 browsers. Thats a whole other job in itself to have IT re-brand IE7.

[Edited on March 26, 2009 at 11:32 AM. Reason : .]

3/26/2009 11:31:17 AM

Quote :

"telling people their browser is old and needs to be updated is a bitch move for lazy people."

i take it you design to support IE4/5 and netscape 4?

3/26/2009 1:25:20 PM

There's a profound difference between developing for something that is dead and developing for something that is outdated.

Netscape 4, IE4, IE5, and IE5.5 are dead. Outside of a website that requires them, they're probably well under 1% usage.

IE6, while thoroughly outdated, is still a fairly common browser to see in the wild. In fact, on every site I work on, I see a higher percentage of users using IE6 than either Safari or Chrome.

If people are still using it, in bulk, then I'd agree it's lazy to ignore it.

3/26/2009 2:20:58 PM

^ oh, i agree with you...my point is that using the blanket statement of "we should support everything because someone, somewhere, might be using it" is silly in the extreme...to say that to do otherwise makes a person lazy is just dumb

i think a good rule of thumb is to support the current and most recent major previous version of a browser...when IE8 is released, i suspect i'll quit putting in extra energy to compensate for those are then TWO versions behind

i won't go out of my way to not support IE6...i just feel it'd be a waste of time to put energy into it

3/26/2009 2:31:29 PM

^that isn't entirely smart either. At my last job we had a significant percentage of users using IE6. With the release of IE8 that won't change all that much because you still have people running windows XP and people who visit your site on a work machine. I would support browsers by the percentage of people still using it regardless if its 2 versions behind or not.

at my current job pretty much all our clients only use IE 6. Yay for hospitals!

[Edited on March 26, 2009 at 3:13 PM. Reason : .]

3/26/2009 3:13:23 PM

well, i suppose it does depend very much on your target audience...i know for a fact that the VAST majority of my audience is using firefox, or IE7 at the worst (even on XP machines)...i'm sure there are some IE6 lagabouts out there, too, though...i just don't care all that much...if they want the usability of the site (because, in my case, it's not JUST about whether it looks pretty), they have no choice but to upgrade and they should thank me for making them

3/26/2009 3:47:04 PM

The sad thing is that the release of IE8 really won't affect the IE6 userbase.

The same people who refrained from upgrading to IE7 will probably be the same people who don't upgrade to IE8 either.

3/26/2009 4:11:20 PM

^and that is mainly thanks to corporate IT departments.

3/26/2009 5:12:29 PM

I don't think most people on my floor even realize FF exists. And we're all in IT.

3/26/2009 6:42:47 PM

Quote :

"oh, i agree with you...my point is that using the blanket statement of "we should support everything because someone, somewhere, might be using it" is silly in the extreme...to say that to do otherwise makes a person lazy is just dumb"

I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread knew what I was referring to, you're the only one who went to an extreme.

3/27/2009 2:47:04 AM

i'll do whatever i can to kill off IE6

3/27/2009 8:05:42 AM

^^ how was i supposed to know exactly what you were talking about? you specifically said:

Quote :

"even though they should have updated their browser 5 years ago."

IE7 wasn't even released until LATE 2006, IIRC...this is 2009, kid, which means that if you were referring to IE, you HAD to have been referring to IE5 (since the only update you could have been referring to would be from 5 to 6)...which is why i SPECIFICALLY asked you if you still supported IE5

learn to think about what you write before you write it, and don't get all pissy just because someone actually READS the words as you wrote them

3/27/2009 8:12:03 AM

Quote :

"I don't think most people on my floor even realize FF exists. And we're all in IT."

To some extent, Firefox is just one giant webdev/nerd circlejerk. For the average web browser (and by this I mean the person doing the browsing), IE is more than capable of doing what they want, is readily available, and familiar.

3/27/2009 9:07:38 AM

^And don't forget to add "Mac users who bank with BB&T" to your FF circle jerk

3/27/2009 9:41:44 AM

To be honest, when posting that I totally forgot about Macs.

As it's too late to edit my post now, please read that as webdev/nerd/Mac circlejerk.

And before anyone jumps on me for not including Linux, I count you kids under the "nerd" portion

[Edited on March 27, 2009 at 10:05 AM. Reason : wait, does that mean you can't bank using your iPhone? That's pretty beat up.]

3/27/2009 10:04:58 AM

^no, you can. You just can't bank using the latest version of Mac OS X. because BB&T's dev team consists of the bottom of the barrel scraps and outsourcing. So user authentication doesn't work in Safari and you get a message saying 'we are working closely with apple to fix this issue please download ff in the meantime'. Its been up there for months and by 'working closely with apple' what they mean to say is we don't know what the fuck we're doing.

3/27/2009 10:23:28 AM

Actually you said ie4/5 and netscape, and I took that as blatant sarcasm whether it was or not.

I was just throwing out a guesstimate number to give a general idea. Yes it was a little hyperbole, I'll admit that.

Either way I think the general idea was understood by most. Only you took it so literally.

"If your message can be misunderstood, it will"

"TWW is serious business"

3/27/2009 11:26:11 AM