Reasonable Browser versions to support

[David Logan]

Hello,

I don't know if this is the best place to ask this question but if its
not I'm sure someboy will tell where is.

I am taking a website that has been developed for IE browsers running
on Windows systems to a multi platform multi browser site. What
versions of what browsers is reasonable to have to work with.

This site is going to require users have Adobe Acrobat reader
installed and windows IE users are going to have access to an ActiveX
control for additional functionality.

So is there a list somewhere of browsers and also is there any kind of
virtual system for testing these. I don't have any unix or mac
systems available to test from so how will I know that everything is
working on them?

Thanks

David Logan

[Jim Ley]

Re: Reasonable Browser versions to support

On 31 May 2004 10:58:43 -0700, ibflyfishin@yah oo.com (David Logan)
wrote:[color=blue]
>This site is going to require users have Adobe Acrobat reader
>installed[/color]

Why? why not anything that can read PDF's?
[color=blue]
>So is there a list somewhere of browsers and also is there any kind of
>virtual system for testing these.[/color]

Nope, just author defensively.

Jim.
--
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

Re: Reasonable Browser versions to support

ibflyfishin@yah oo.com (David Logan) writes:
[color=blue]
> I am taking a website that has been developed for IE browsers running
> on Windows systems to a multi platform multi browser site. What
> versions of what browsers is reasonable to have to work with.[/color]

All current and future browsers.

The trick to that is to use standards. Use validating HTML and CSS and
use the W3C DOM where possible. It is reasonable to expect all (near)
future browsers to understand this correctly. However, you should
still make the pages degrade cleanly when Javascript, or particular
features, are not available.

Then you must decide which current browsers you want to support as
well. Some of these have bad standards support (IE in particular),
and you make the page degrade cleanly for these browsers as well.
[color=blue]
> This site is going to require users have Adobe Acrobat reader
> installed[/color]

That is a problem. There are other ways to show PDF-files, and even
Acrobat isn't always integrated into the browser (i.e., you can't tell
the difference between opening the PDF file and just saving it).
[color=blue]
> and windows IE users are going to have access to an ActiveX
> control for additional functionality.[/color]

Extra functionality is not important if you can use the page without
it. It's just a bonus.
[color=blue]
> So is there a list somewhere of browsers[/color]

If there is, it's pretty certain that it isn't complete, and it will
not prepare you for the future.
[color=blue]
> and also is there any kind of virtual system for testing these.[/color]

That would be <URL:http://www.browsercam. com/>
It'll only show how it looks, the Javascript is harder to test.
[color=blue]
> I don't have any unix or mac systems available to test from so how
> will I know that everything is working on them?[/color]

You can, fairly easily, get a Linux or BSD system running on any
standard PC. The Mac browsers (mostly Safari, not many people use
IE 5.2 for Mac any more) are harder to test.

Good luck.
/L
--
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@hotpop.com
DHTML Death Colors: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/rasterTriangleD OM.html>
'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'

[Richard Cornford]

Re: Reasonable Browser versions to support

"Lasse Reichstein Nielsen" wrote:[color=blue]
> David Logan wrote:[/color]
<snip>[color=blue][color=green]
>> and windows IE users are going to have access to an ActiveX
>> control for additional functionality.[/color]
>
> Extra functionality is not important if you can use the
> page without it. It's just a bonus.[/color]

There is a running assumption that if the browser is Windows IE then it
will run ActiveX. It is a mistake that even Microsoft are guilty of,
leaving me with no choice but use a Gecko browser when visiting MSDN.

<snip>[color=blue][color=green]
>> I don't have any unix or mac systems available to test from so how
>> will I know that everything is working on them?[/color]
>
> You can, fairly easily, get a Linux or BSD system running on any
> standard PC. The Mac browsers (mostly Safari, not many people use
> IE 5.2 for Mac any more) are harder to test.[/color]

Because they share their underlying code, getting something to work on
Konqueror means that it will probably work on Safari (or not take much
altering).

One option for testing Konqueror on i386 systems is the Knoppix
self-booting (Debian-based) Linux CD ROM, which has booted to a
functional Linux/KDE system on about 3 out of 4 of the desktop 386 PCs I
have tried it with to date.

The main drawback is the 680Mb download of the ISO image file for the
disk, which takes 4 hours on broadband (and probably two days on
dial-up) (though it can be ordered through the post).

<URL: http://knoppix.org/ >

Richard.

[Steven Daedelus]

Re: Reasonable Browser versions to support

In article <k6ysgu8o.fsf@h otpop.com>,
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <lrn@hotpop.com > wrote:
[color=blue]
> ibflyfishin@yah oo.com (David Logan) writes:
>[color=green]
> > I am taking a website that has been developed for IE browsers running
> > on Windows systems to a multi platform multi browser site. What
> > versions of what browsers is reasonable to have to work with.[/color]
>
> All current and future browsers.[/color]

No need to go insane with it, however. If your project goes over budget
by 20% because you're struggling to support version 3 browsers, well,
that's just plain ridiculous.

4 is a good cutoff point. The science museum here in Boston supports
nothing older than Netscape 4.7, and they are sticklers for compliance.

A lot of schools still use 4.x versions, but anything prior to that
really should be off your radar.

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Re: Reasonable Browser versions to support

Richard Cornford wrote:
[color=blue]
> One option for testing Konqueror on i386 systems is the Knoppix
> self-booting (Debian-based) Linux CD ROM, which has booted to a
> functional Linux/KDE system on about 3 out of 4 of the desktop 386 PCs I
> have tried it with to date.
>
> The main drawback is the 680Mb download of the ISO image file for the
> disk, which takes 4 hours on broadband (and probably two days on
> dial-up) (though it can be ordered through the post).[/color]

Knoppix CD-ROMs sometimes come with PC magazines and on exhibitions (I got
my four copies [for friends, family and me :)] of Knoppix 3.4 at the CeBIT
this year) as well. And yes, it is great, especially for *x beginners and
as a backup system.


PointedEars