Code not working in Firefox and Opera

[drhowarddrfine]

regardless you are coding to the browser.

Not at all. You code to the W3C standard and check it in the most standards compliant browser you can get; in this case, it's FF and Opera or you could use Amaya. Like you said:

FireFox is by far the one that best meets the standards

Which is the point. If you want to write standard code, you can't be checking in the least standard browser, specifically, any version of IE.

I assume that you are talking about IE6 since IE7 isn't that old.

IE7 is nine years behind web standards. [quote]Sometimes you just can't do it the same way in IE. Writing the site to FireFox almost always results in using features that aren't available in IE.[\quote]For the just mentioned reason.

(although I haven't had these issues in IE7 - yet).

Perhaps because IE7 is better than IE6 but that's not saying much.[quote]One of my developers added dynamic tabs to a site. [\quote]And you are now noticing just how bad a browser IE6 is because you see that your standards compliant code worked in Firefox and IE7 but didn't in IE6. This is my point. Do initial testing in Firefox or Opera and then adjust for IEs quirks and bugs.

It takes time and money to figure out why the code that works perfectly in FireFox does not work at all in IE, and it takes no more time to port the page from IE to FireFox.

That's the first time I've ever heard that. The problem is always code that works in IE has to be adjusted for Firefox, then Opera, then Safari, then etc. while code tested in Firefox/Opera/etc. only needs one adjustment for IE.

Hacks for getting IE to work correctly are known and long standing. There are several important sites, such as positionisevery thing.net and webdevout.com, that document how to fix IE and what works in different browsers. I assume you are also familiar with "haslayout" issue with IE?

It doesn't take a genious to see which makes the most business sense.

Have you been hearing about all the sites that had to be fixed when IE7 came out? If they were coded to Firefox, such adjustments would not be necessary. If you test to Firefox/Opera, you know it probably works in all browsers, maybe even IE but probably with tweaks.

Again, you are talking about coding to browsers and I am not. I am saying use a better browser to test for standards compliance. Make sure you wrote proper code. If it doesn't work in IE then that is IEs fault and not yours. The adjustments you might have to make are known and documented.

Hopefully at some point IE will have enough standards compliance where it is a non-issue or the tide of browser users will switch to FireFox, but I'm not holding my breath.

I wouldn't. Chris Wilson, lead developer for IE, told me a few weeks ago that he won't tell what their roadmap is for the future of IE. In his call for suggestions for the new IE8, his emphasis is on RSS support with no mention of better compliance. If the web is going to use the features available to it, IE needs to get better or go away.

I made a mistake. Firefox is 16% in the US and 13% world wide. Here is the source reported in all the magazines.

[iam_clint]

i'm with atli though i don't like how w3c standards aren't Clear and Concise and that it can be interpreted different Personally i would choose IE over Firefox or netscape or opera any of them..... I write several thousands of lines of code a week to only have to go back and fix it for Firefox due to incompatabiliti es such as onscroll and the list goes on and on.

[drhowarddrfine]

I don't know what you are specifically talking about but this is the web developers mantra: "If it works in IE but not Firefox then something is wrong." I think what you might be doing is trying to get code that IE misuses to work in Firefox/Opera or whatever which is performing correctly. I rarely find the opposite to be true.

Also, "choosing IE" means you are coding to a browser and not to the standard. There is a published standard which all vendors look to, including Microsoft.

If every other browser interprets the W3C standards correctly but IE does not, there is hardly a problem with being clear and concise. After all, all the browser vendors, including Microsoft, are members of the W3C. It is only IE that apologizes for it's inability to correctly interpret the standards. As Chris Wilson said, "We have a lot of work to do to catch up." And you see some of those changes as IE7 now works more like Firefox/Opera than before.

[jbailey]

And you are now noticing just how bad a browser IE6 is because you see that your standards compliant code worked in Firefox and IE7 but didn't in IE6. This is my point. Do initial testing in Firefox or Opera and then adjust for IEs quirks and bugs.That's the first time I've ever heard that. The problem is always code that works in IE has to be adjusted for Firefox, then Opera, then Safari, then etc. while code tested in Firefox/Opera/etc. only needs one adjustment for IE.

On the contrary, I've ALWAYS known that IE6 has horrible standards compliance, followed only by the Netscape browser in how lousy the standards compliance is. What I am saying is that the client and their customer could care less if the web site is following standards or not; they only care if it looks right in their browser. For the moment, this is still IE6 in most cases. You give the priority to what will satisfy the most customers. In the case above, I had to spend an additional 32 hours getting something to display properly for the 80% of the site users. If I had done it for IE originally I would have gotten it to work for the 80% of the customers starting out, and then if resources permitted delivered it to the FireFox users. In this instance, the solution would not have requred any changes to work in FireFox, but even if it had the time to address it is after the majority of the customer base is dealt with (the IE users). When I did a Mac user group site, I tested under Safari first before even looking at IE or FireFox simply because that is where the audience is.

Have you been hearing about all the sites that had to be fixed when IE7 came out? If they were coded to Firefox, such adjustments would not be necessary. If you test to Firefox/Opera, you know it, probably works in all browsers, maybe even IE but probably with tweaks.

But this just hasn't proven to be true, at least not in my own company. If the site had been done to standards compliance, it would not have looked correct in IE6; the browser used by most of the audience. This is especially true the more you use advanced CSS features in the site. Many of the more advanced CSS features just can't be replicated in IE (try overlapping divs in IE6). In the case of these IE6 specific sites, they obviously did not have time to test the site under FireFox and get it working there, which is unfortunate but is often the case. If they had done the site to standards compliance, they may have run out of resources before getting the site to work in IE, which would have been disastrous. They reached the largest audience with the resources (people and time) available. I've looked at dozens of books including Professional CSS Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design by Wrox publishing which document the workarounds required by IE6, Safari, IE for Mac, and others and in numerous cases the books settle for a less sophisticated appearance in IE6 because it doesn't support the standard. That may be fine for a book, but the reality is this doesn't cut it in the real world. The customer and the average person at home could care less about standards or if the site works in a browser other than their own.

Again, you are talking about coding to browsers and I am not. I am saying use a better browser to test for standards compliance. Make sure you wrote proper code. If it doesn't work in IE then that is IEs fault and not yours.

If your site does not deliver properly to the largest part of your audience, IT IS YOUR FAULT! Again lets keep a foot in reality here; the client, and obviously most of the web users out there, don't care that IE is crap. They only care that if it can be done, you had better do it. If it doesn't work in IE then you didn't write it properly for IE, regardless of the underlying reason. If you're a consultant, that probably means you're not going to get paid. I can't tell my client that its IE's fault that something doesn't look quite right if they can see other sites implementing the same thing. They and my replacement would have a great laugh over that one.

I've never heard of anyone hired to write a standards compliant site as the top priority. In my experience its deliver the content and functionality to as much of the target audience as possible with the available resources (preferably deliver content to everyone, but that isn't always possible with resource constraints). If my target audience is Mac users, I'd better make sure this site runs on Safari, if it is for the general web audience, it had better run properly under IE, and if its a Linux user group site, by all means make it standards compliant first because your major user base will be using FireFox and will love telling the IE users that it doesn't display properly in IE because IE isn't standards compliant.

Ultimately what it came down to in my company was that after tracking the time to convert standards compliant sites to work in IE6 and then later the time to convert IE6 sites to display in standards compliant browsers with similar sites, converting IE6 to run under standards compliant browsers come out requiring less effort almost every single time. I initially saw all the documentation that taught to write to the standards compliance first and then convert to IE, and so I started with that paradigm. It was after experiencing the issues with this approach and tracking the hours required for each methodology that I decided to code to IE6 when the site is for general audiences. We may not have coded the sites the way I might have prefered, and may have used structures that I know can be done cleaner with advanced CSS features, but in the end its about delivering to the largest target audience, not making your site standards compliant for the sake of standards compliance.

If I had the choice, I would make every site standards compliant, and give a link to IE users for where they could get FireFox or Opera. But then my company would go broke, and I would have to find a job working for someone else, and I've grown rather fond of being my own boss. Ultimately you have to make the tough choices on what you can do with the time and resources available.

Chris Wilson, lead developer for IE, told me a few weeks ago that he won't tell what their roadmap is for the future of IE. In his call for suggestions for the new IE8, his emphasis is on RSS support with no mention of better compliance. If the web is going to use the features available to it, IE needs to get better or go away.

Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe if we all send a few bucks to the "Send IE to Hell" fund we can bribe Microsoft to abandon the browser. :) I'll have to fool around with the name first and come up with a good acronym for it. Ultimately though, FireFox will need to step up with enterprise patch management functionality for its browser to function in a corporate environment though. Downloading the patches at the client isn't going to cut it in a corporate environment where you need to know that your users have the same updates any more than downloading from the Microsoft Windows Update site worked for Windows in the corporate environment.

I made a mistake. Firefox is 16% in the US and 13% world wide. Here is the source reported in all the magazines.

Thank you very much for the link, I appreciate it. It helps a lot to have the numbers when trying to justify effort to clients. Unfortunatley they still just aren't high enough. Based on the numbers, this suggests that there are fewer FireFox users outside of the US, but I'm sure there are pockets where it is more popular. The worldwide numbers might be distorted by how many languages FireFox is produced in.

[drhowarddrfine]

Not to beat a dead horse but I'm trying to say that you should design for standards compliance and chances are your code will work in all browsers. Design for IE only and chances are it will only work in IE.

If the site had been done to standards compliance, it would not have looked correct in IE6; the browser used by most of the audience.

You are right and that is what conditional comments are for. Now that IE7 is taking off, are you having trouble with that browser? If you code to standards compliance, you would have the advantage of it working in all browsers. If IE had a problem, there are known and proven hacks or you can use conditional comments. These are easy things to do in most cases so I wonder if you are aware of them.

the reality is this doesn't cut it in the real world.

Well, it works for me in the real world every day.

The customer and the average person at home could care less about standards or if the site works in a browser other than their own.

Tell your customer that two out of every 10 customers can't view their site correctly or tell him that it will cost him to recode his page for IE7 because it has changed and see how much he cares.

I can't tell my client that its IE's fault that something doesn't look quite right if they can see other sites implementing the same thing.

I didn't say forget IE. I said write proper html code and fix it so it can work in IE. It's easy. I do it all the time.

I've never heard of anyone hired to write a standards compliant site as the top priority.

It is listed in some of my client written contracts as a requirement.

if it is for the general web audience, it had better run properly under IE

Again, you are assuming coding for different browsers requires a different form of html/css. I am only saying that if you code to standards your code will most likely run in all browsers just fine, even IE, though that is the browser that may require tweaks. The last site I did tested well in every browser with a slight width adjustment for IE6 and that was all we had to do. We didn't sit back and worry about it not working in Opera or Konqueror or Safari or even IE7 because we just knew it would be fine; and it was.

after tracking the time to convert standards compliant sites to work in IE6 and then later the time to convert IE6 sites to display in standards compliant browsers with similar sites

There is just something fundamentally wrong with how you approach this. We don't "convert" from one browser to another. Never have. We make a little tweak or IE hack here and there but we're talking about a few minutes. And these are complicated sites. So when someone says it took them 32 hours to not solve something I'm taken aback. It doesn't make sense to me.

FireFox will need to step up with enterprise patch management functionality for its browser to function in a corporate environment though.

Firefox is the preferred browser for IBM.

Unfortunatley they still just aren't high enough.

One site we take care of gets 300 orders daily. Late last year, there was an error we didn't catch but the client's son did. His son used Firefox. The client mentioned it in passing and said he didn't care but how many people use "that thing". I think I told him then around 10% and he blew a gasket. "Do you mean I'm missing out on 30 orders a day!!!"

[acoder]

I agree with Doc here. If you code for IE, you're not coding to a standard. You'll probably put in a few proprietary attributes, functions, etc. Now try that in Firefox. It doesn't work, so you try to fix it for Firefox. So now you've got it working in two browsers. Now you test in Opera - on no! It doesn't work there either. Try fixing that too and it goes on.

This is only an example, but you get the idea. Of course, when you code for Firefox, you should code according to standards for it too. In other words, code according to the standards, not a browser. Obviously, you test in the browsers whilst coding.

For IE support, see this link.

[Atli]

OK.

I've been quoted incorrectly here a couple of times, tho due to memory restrictions I can not remember the names of the wrongdoers.

To clarify:

• The initial problem was that code written FOR IE did NOT work in FF, or any other "standard" supporting browser.
• I DO test my code in FF, tho forced to make a choice I would always choose to have my code work in IE rather than any of the rest, for obvious reasons.

Most of the developers here seem to think that we should all try to fallow the "standard", and I would have to agree.

I do however not agree with most peoples definition of the "standard".

What I mean by that is, that even tho there is a group (W3p0 or something) that publishes a set of rules that they, and most ppl for that matter, call the "official standard" which we are all so tempted to fallow.
I would argue that the actual standard is the set of rules created by Microsoft for it's IE browsers, Not because it is superior to the official standard, but because it is used by somewhere around 90% of internet users and therefor must be complied with by any serious developer.

The exception is obviously Mac and Linux users. But non-Windows users are even a "bigger" minority than non-IE users. Which makes sens really, if you think about it.

We all know the golden rule don't we? The one who has the gold, makes the rules.
And we all know who has all the gold.

[acoder]

I've been quoted incorrectly here a couple of times, tho due to memory restrictions I can not remember the names of the wrongdoers.

Well, I can sympathise with you if you feel that, but whoever has misquoted you has been too kind because what follows defies any common sense.

How on earth can Microsoft "Buggy" Corporation be the standard?! Not even Microsoft lay claim to that! In fact, IE7 has attempted to follow more closely to the correct standards (though they failed in many aspects).

Why should everyone be forced to follow a buggy 'standard'? IE7 still doesn't implement the standards properly. It's playing catch-up but it hasn't yet caught up.

[Atli]

Well I guess I can't really hold it against ppl to misquote me, mostly because most of what I say is pure nonsence, designed to disagree with anyone who thinks his opinion is the one and only truth.
Which, seeing as hating Microsoft is somewhat of a fashion these days, always ends with me defending Microsoft. :)

But you must admit, even tho Microsoft's set of rules are way of target (assuming they were aiming for the official standard) we, developers, are pretty much forced to fallow their lead, as they control 9/10'th of the market.

So the real standard we must all live by is not the official one, it is the one created by Microsoft.

[acoder]

Let's leave out Microsoft for now and consider this. Netscape 4 was an extremely buggy browser, but was, for a while, used by many people, so it had to be supported.

But, from that, you can't set that as the standard. The whole argument is flawed.

It's not about Microsoft-bashing. I use a lot of Microsoft products and some of them are very good. However, when it comes to browsers, they are hopelessly off-target and still behind the rest of the competition.

IE6 is still the most widely used browser, so we still have all the bugs to cater for. IE7 has broken many existing pages.

When it is possible to program to a standard that works in all browsers (almost) and just requires a few tweaks to work in IE too, then why not allow support for everyone? Don't forget too that the number that use alternative browsers is increasing all the time.

[Atli]

When it is possible to program to a standard that works in all browsers (almost) and just requires a few tweaks to work in IE too, then why not allow support for everyone? Don't forget too that the number that use alternative browsers is increasing all the time.

This is true, and I bet a majority of developers attleast try to do this. I know I do.
Sadly tho, when faced with a deadline most of us will worrie less about fallowing standards and more about making things work for the leading browser. Then if there is time, worrie about the other browsers.

The number people using alternative browsers is increasing all the time, that is also true. But this number is still far short of being any threat to IE's monopoly over the market.

There is a very logical reason why IE is as crappy as it is.
IE is basicly freeware, not technicaly of course but still, MS make no money of it. So, logicaly, they would not devote much resources to it's development.
Also, they already have most people using their software, and because of our work, most of them never know how crappy it is. Thus another reason for MS not to spend much on it.
I know this all sucks extremely much for us, as we are the once who suffer, but this is still how it is.