no9t9, I'll have to go with Thyssen here. The standards are there to be, that's right, standards. When I say I want a block level element with a one pixel black border, I want all capable browsers to display that, and not two pixel red dotted borders instead. The difference you might get between Firefox and Opera are not intentional differences, they are essentially bugs which (hopefully) will be fixed.

To me, the advantage of designing for Firefox is that you can do all sorts of neat stuff which you can't do with IE. So basically, make a nice looking site, and then check that it looks okay in IE. Not much extra work for a nicer site.


And I have to comment on your "who would want to pay extra for stanards compliant pages" thing. You seem to assume that everyone is making pages for IE, and that making them work in other browsers is loads and loads of work. It isn't. If you can only make websites that work in IE and only with much difficulty can get them working in Firefox and Opera, you shouldn't be a webdesigner/developer in the first place.

Of course, there are people who take it all too far. Testing in IE6, Firefox and Opera should be okay. Anyone sane happily ignores IE5Mac and such abominations.

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Come on, mate. Don't try and pull that one. The way your sentence is worded implies that you think 99% of people are using IE. It's like if I say: "If you're gonna be argumentative, I'm not gonna talk to you" - it clearly implies that I think the person is being argumentative.


I'm clearly not saying that am I. I say something and then you twist it around to come to the complete opposite conclusion. I'm not talking about designing pages that IE can't display; I'm talking about designing pages that all browsers can display.


Well actually I do know a little a bit about business and in fact, internet business as I've worked for several internet companies in the past. So I do know that companies DO spend money on getting their sites working for as many browsers as possible, including those using Macs. Not every company can afford to do it, but it doesn't mean that no-one does it. By your logic people wouldn't even bother developing browsers (or any applications for that matter) for Macs cos not many people use them.


Just cos a site has a simple layout doesn't mean it isn't designed well. And what's with calling Mac users 'losers' all the time. Did one steal your girlfriend or something?


Do you think if everyone had the same attitude as you there would even be cars today? Or the Internet? "Why should we build roads for cars? No-one drives any; they all use horses and carriage."
It's called progress, but if you wanna live in the past, go ahead.


No, I think it's you who don't really know what you're talking about. And that's why you're arguing the point so vehemently cos you don't really understand how to design for cross-browser compatibility.
If you design your site right, it'll look almost identical in most browsers. About the only thing that should look different is how the browsers display fonts and if you've done your designing right you can minimise how much that affects the overall look. It certainly shouldn't affect the layout itself.

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And you need to pay attention to my post before telling me I'm wrong.
If you'll notice the word IF in the statement regarding the 99% IE usage... Next, I say that MY website generates 90% IE users. I could care less what the industry averages are. MY website is all I care about when designing webpages...


I know what standards are. I've had this discussion MANY times. You keep talking about internet experience... Well, if you are designing webpages that IE can't display properly cause IE is "broke" then what does that do to the web experience for 61% of the internet users (using your number). You are gonna crap on me for dismissing 2% of users when you are willing to dismiss 61% of users because "they are stupid for using IE"... That makes sense...


You obviously don't know anything about business. 2% of users is not a 2% market share... And the effort to create a 100% or even a 99% compatible website COST MONEY. It isn't free to develop websites... In case you didn't know, developers for websites cost anywhere from 30-100$ an hour. You're telling me that you are willing to spend thousands of development time so that some loser with a MAC can properly view your website? Get real, the MAC user will see what all people using crappy browsers will see... some dumb down page that is crap. No one is gonna design for 2% of your "potential" customers. .


Hey... good for the government. Have you actually seen government sites???? They are some of the simpliest (in terms of layout design) websites on the net... WHY? because that way people will be able to see it properly across platforms. You think a government website is gonna be designed to look good? NO. They can't because people will not be able to see it properly AND because it is a WASTE of money. Just like you would WASTE your money designing a nice site for the loser that is running Konquerer (or however that browser is spelled).


Just because technology exists doesn't mean you have to use it. I can also come up with some stupid comparison that make no sense as well. But I won't. Instead, I'll just use yours. So you say that IE is like a horse and carriage while "standard" browsers are fancy modern cars. If 61% of people on the road are using horse and carriage... do you think that the roads will be suitable for your fancy modern car? Do you think there would even be traffic lights? None of that would exist if the majority of people are still on horse and carriage. Your fancy car would be USELESS.


First of all, I already said that so called "compliant" browsers DO NOT DISPLAY THINGS THE SAME. Regardless of whether they are compliant or not, you will get a difference between FF and Opera, or some other "standard comliant" browser.

Also note that I stated "I design for IE AND FF to cover 98%" of my visitors. Where did I say my code is not compliant? Even if it IS compliant, it will STILL look different across browsers. If you don't agree with this statement, you don't know what you are talking about.

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You need to check your stats, they're out of date. W3Schools shows that IE's market share is at 61% to FF's 28% and falling all the time.
As for the standards being 'BS', imagine if every other industry held such an attitude, like car manufacturers for instance. The standards are there to ensure that everyone regardless of device, operating system, browser or whether they are disabled, can enjoy the same Internet experience.
You say you design for 98% of users which means you're disregarding the needs of the other 2% - well that may be fine for you but people who make money from their sites won't be happy with a potential 2% loss in market share. And governments worldwide are increasingly introducing legislation to make it compulsory for government websites to adhere strictly to the web standards to ensure that no users are being discriminated against.
Also, designing for IE5/6, which are fairly antiquated browsers now as it stands, is like still driving around in a horse & cart when there are cars available. Sure, you still get to where you want to go with a horse, but you're not taking advantage of the latest technology.


I agree that 100% compatability is beyond the means of most individuals, but by conforming to the standards you can certainly get a lot closer to 100% than you can if you just design for IE.
Learning (or relearning) web design correctly may take a little longer but once you know how to do it, building standards-compliant websites takes no longer than it does to build a non-compliant one.

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I think the WC3 "standard" is BS anyway. I always hear that Firefox is "compliant" and so is Opera and other browsers. What does this mean? It is SUPPOSED to mean that a webpage with coded "properly" will look the same in Opera and Firefox. Well, it DOESN'T. There are always differences depending on the browser you use. Especially if you are using fancy stuff.

The browser you should "test" your site in is basically the browser that your visitors use. If 99% of them are on IE, why would you design using Opera?? It doesn't make sense. When I design pages, I make sure it is perfect in IE (90% of visitors) and I make sure it is 99% fine in Firefox (8% of visitors). For the other 2% of my visitors, I could care less what they see (example: MAC users).

If you tried to design your site for 100% of the browsers out there, you would never finish your pages.

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