Tables in Netscape

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2003

Hello,
First off I must say this is a great place! .. ok, now down to business.

http://www.tekjnke.com/murder_exhibit

The above website was crafted primarily with IE v6 in mind, but a friend recently looked at it with Netscape v4.75 (I think) on their iBook and told me that they tables were all "screwed up".

I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers on crafting differences between Netscape and IE - or at least what is wrong with this code? Another friend checked the site using Netscape v7 and said it was fine (on his Wintel box).

Also, would it be a good idea to install say, Netscape v4.xx for testing purposes? I don't like the idea of having more than one browser/corporation installed on my machines, but for testing purposes obviously it would come in handy.

Thank you.
-Tekjnke

Suzanne's picture

She has: 5,507 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

It's a good idea to have multiple versions of browsers on your system if you don't use standards, and even when you do since some browsers aren't the most compliant and it's good to know what quirks you'll be dealing with.

As far as N4.x -- validate validate validate and then validate again.

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

Welcome to TWF
there are some errors in your coding, the index page is fine
the bibliography page has a few, there is a but not start tag in your second table, in your 5th table you have:
(missing a > on the td).
don't use the tbody tags, if you do they should be used with the complete set, thead, tbody, tfoot but is best not to use any as they aren't fully supported in some browsers.

the timelines page just displays the links at the top. the code looks like its been cut off, finishing at

the exhibition page is ok except the left navigation is flowing into the content, could be the layers doing that. but there is a in the second table with no start tag and two empty tables under that. Netscape doesn't like it has to be  

the search page is but are some tbody tags without partners

the credits page looks ok

I just picked these errors up by looking at your code, you should run the pages through a validator which could pick up some i've missed

It's up to you how many browsers you have on your puter, I personal have 6 but if you validate your code you should get away with one. but if you were only going to code for one browser I'd pick Netscape as IE allows any junk thrown at it, but its personal prefence

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2003

Quote: Originally posted by Suzanne
It's a good idea to have multiple versions of browsers on your system if you don't use standards, and even when you do since some browsers aren't the most compliant and it's good to know what quirks you'll be dealing with.

As far as N4.x -- validate validate validate and then validate again.

Thanks!

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2003

Quote: Originally posted by Busy
Welcome to TWF
there are some errors in your coding, the index page is fine
the bibliography page has a few, there is a but not start tag in your second table, in your 5th table you have:
(missing a > on the td).
don't use the tbody tags, if you do they should be used with the complete set, thead, tbody, tfoot but is best not to use any as they aren't fully supported in some browsers.

the timelines page just displays the links at the top. the code looks like its been cut off, finishing at

the exhibition page is ok except the left navigation is flowing into the content, could be the layers doing that. but there is a in the second table with no start tag and two empty tables under that. Netscape doesn't like it has to be  

the search page is but are some tbody tags without partners

the credits page looks ok

I just picked these errors up by looking at your code, you should run the pages through a validator which could pick up some i've missed

It's up to you how many browsers you have on your puter, I personal have 6 but if you validate your code you should get away with one. but if you were only going to code for one browser I'd pick Netscape as IE allows any junk thrown at it, but its personal prefence

Thanks for the input!

After installing a few browsers and doing some heavy code inspecting, it would appear that Netscape v4.8 doesn't like the JScript menu's that I have for this website. However, Netscape v7.0.1 displays the website just fine.

Is there a way to help Netscape v4.x to deal with JScript? Short of creating an entire set of pages just for that browser?

-T

They have: 11 posts

Joined: Jan 2003

IIRC, JScript is friendly only to MS Browsers, so to overcome that, I'd use JavaScript or ECMAScript, just declare <script type="text/javascript">
//code here
</script>
and I'd assume you'd be okay.

The other part of the problem is JS-powered drop-menus on web pages make heavy use of the DOM, which is not exactly followed to the letter by NN4.x, so really you're SOL on that side of things; all you can do is put the basic styles in a ed stylesheet and the ones NN doesn't understand into an @imported stylesheet.

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2003

Quote: Originally posted by listless
IIRC, JScript is friendly only to MS Browsers, so to overcome that, I'd use JavaScript or ECMAScript, just declare <script type="text/javascript">
//code here
</script>
and I'd assume you'd be okay.

The other part of the problem is JS-powered drop-menus on web pages make heavy use of the DOM, which is not exactly followed to the letter by NN4.x, so really you're SOL on that side of things; all you can do is put the basic styles in a ed stylesheet and the ones NN doesn't understand into an @imported stylesheet.

I currently have the tag:

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2">
//code here
</script>

But for some of the pages, etc., NS appears to not handle it at all. Some pages will load OK but you have to hit REFRESH. And on the Exhibition page (http://www.tekjnke.com/murder_exhibit/exhibition.html), the menu (which is the script) hangs into the text table under NS 4.8.

Thanks for all the input, this is really helping.

-T

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