Support For Css Standards

vizskywalker

Sep 21 2005, 07:14 PM

I've recently decided to make my site 100% support CSS 2.1 standards as well as xhtml 1.0 standards. However, when I load my site in IE, some of the styles don't show up properly. For example: I have a tag defined, and then I redefine it with :hover, yet IE doesn't activate the :hover portion. Is there anywhere I can go to find out which standards are supported by which browsers?

~Viz

mastercomputers

Sep 21 2005, 08:01 PM

I wouldn't try working with IE, I dropped into their development discussion for IE7 placed a few suggestions about things they never got to doing in CSS1 only to be told it wasn't a priority, and then asked about other recommendations for them to implement and still not a positive attitude towards it... I want to develop for all browsers, but I also would like to make use of the recommendations. Rumour has it, they're willing to drop w3c recommendations just to have their browser work their own way. That would be real sad, and if they do, I'd definitely not bother supporting them, even if they have that market.

As for a site that has a compatibility list, which is about to be redone since newer versions have been produced for some browsers. You can find it here http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support.php but it is outdated (but not by much).

Cheers,

MC

vizskywalker

Sep 21 2005, 08:37 PM

I know IE has and probably never will support standards. Unfortunately, AIM just released AOL Explorer, which is essentially IE, so I've found a number of people whi switch because they think they ar elaving "evil" IE but getting the same interface. So, since this is a company site I'm working on, the IE market is one I have to worry about (unfortunately) although my site will definitely be optimized for Firefox and have a link to it.

And thanks for the link.

~Viz

hatim

Sep 22 2005, 12:02 PM

I think all sane web devlopers hould start making sites for FireFox only. And besides even Firefox is not 100% W3C compatible ..its the next best thing.

abhiram

Sep 22 2005, 12:33 PM

This is what I used to get hover functionality in IE.

Put this code in the <head> of your index.html file

CODE

The contents of iefix.js are:

CODE

startList = function() {
if (document.all&&document.getElementById) {
navRoot = document.getElementById("nav");
for (i=0; i<navRoot.childNodes.length; i++) {
node = navRoot.childNodes[i];
if (node.nodeName=="LI") {
node.onmouseover=function() {
this.className+=" over";
}
node.onmouseout=function() {
this.className=this.className.replace(" over", "");
}
}
}
}
}
window.onload=startList;

Any element you need to apply hover functionality, specify like this :

CODE

li:hover, li.over
{
background-color:gray;
font-weight:bold;
}

The li.over makes the list element 'hover'able in IE, thanks to the javascript.

Finally, use code like this to make some settings specific for IE. This should be placed at the top of the CSS file. Whatever you set here will override what you specified in the CSS file.

CODE

/* Fix IE. Hide from IE Mac \*/
* html ul li { float: left; }
* html ul li a { height: 1%; }
* html ul { margin-left:0; margin-right:0;}

/* End */

This method has been taken from A List Apart. It's been used for various CSS menus. For more resources, I would suggest you visit the site. They've got loads and loads of stuff on CSS and Javascript.

Hope this helps you out

Hercco

Sep 30 2005, 12:25 PM

QUOTE(hatim @ Sep 22 2005, 02:02 PM)

I think all sane web devlopers hould start making sites for FireFox only. And besides even Firefox is not 100% W3C compatible ..its the next best thing.

Oh god don't say that. What about Opera users? And people who are stuck with IE and IE based browsers, in work for example.

What I'd like to see is all developers doing W3C comliant code. If the most websites, epscially big commercial ones, started appearing in standard (X)HTML & CSS the browser developers would have to start paying more attention to standard compliancy. The pecking order should be: standards, web developers and the browser developers at last. Unfortunately now it is completely opposite and for most sites its not the plural form of "browser developer".

And for full-CSS people stuggling with IE, you might want to check out Dean Edwards' IE7 package. You can find it here http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
The beauty of the thing is that users don't need to install anything but most of the CSS stuff that wouldn't work on on IE now works. In addition to better CSS 'support' you also get a proper PNG transparency with which you can get rid of those GIFs finally.
IE7 is also bloody easy to use. Just include the scripts when the client agent is IE. There is absolutely no need to make changes in you CSS or html.

vizskywalker

Sep 30 2005, 10:38 PM

That's interesting, the IE7 project. I wonder what MS is going to do when they find out about it. I totally agree, you cannot forget about people because you dissaprove of a software company, that would be wrong and unfair. I wonder hoq the real IE7 will compare to this one, I'm tyring to get onthe beta for it, but I can't figure out how.

~Viz

mastercomputers

Oct 1 2005, 11:13 AM

Just an update on that link, it's still in the testing stages, so some things have not been tested yet.

IE 6 & 7, Firefox 1 & 1.5, Opera 8.
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support...7|FX1|FX1_5|OP8
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support...7|FX1|FX1_5|OP8

Always happy to see improvements on the standards no matter which browser is improving.

Cheers,

MC

morrisnoble

Oct 3 2005, 09:22 PM

QUOTE(vizskywalker @ Sep 21 2005, 01:14 PM)

Hey VIZ go to http://w3schools.org - they have the best tutorials and information on web standards. They have tutorials on ASP, HTML, JAVASCRIPT, XHTML, XML, PERL, CSS, PHP and many others.

You could also try http://www.htmlgoodies.com, one of the best free resource sites on the net. they too have free tutorials on the above topics.

Good luck.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at morrisnoblejr@yahoo.com

Retaining

Oct 3 2005, 11:59 PM

Great links, I'm going to have to try all of them out, that IE7 script looks very useful. If nothing else, it's better than the "Get it working in Firefox in 5 minutes and then spend 2 hours making it work in IE" programming I've been doing. Unfortunately, IE/MS doesn't support many W3C standards and doesn't appear to be moving that direction either, making web development very difficult...

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jcguy

Oct 4 2005, 01:35 PM

I'm sure many web developers want to be compliant with W3C standards, but I've a feeling that many ware skipping it and not being compliant because they want their websites to be available to as widest an audience as possible. And Microsoft and the other browser developers aren't helping by creating their browsers to stick to the standards and render pages according to the rules.