Website Issues
Since the start of making this website, I have encountered many problems. These are related to forgetting some php and web browser issues. The idea of having html validated is that we have standards to ensure a website looks the same on different browsers and various operating systems. Unfortunately this is not always the case.
On my homepage and on the about website page I listed browsers I have aimed this website to work under. I have selected these as reports show that most of the internet browsing is done using one of them. Please see below:
| 2009 | IE6 | IE7 | IE8 | Firefox | Safari | Opera | Netscape | Nokia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December | 11.2% | 11% | 7.6% | 53.7% | 4.3% | 1.6% | 1.1% | 4.1% |
| November | 18.7% | 8.1% | 12.7% | 44% | 4.7% | 4% | 0.2% | 2.4% |
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The above table shows browser stats from the website log files. Anything consistently under 1% is not shown, including un-reported browsers and older website browsers.
Internet Explorer 6 and even 7 have dropped over the last few months (but last month IE8 went up). Interestingly Firefox usage has is slowly increasing nowadays. This to me looks like a Chrome battle going on (notice the difference between them). Safari and Opera are steady. I have to rate Opera though as it's faster, more reliable than the others and the newest website code works. The rest of the competition are months behind.
The next table checks for usability. Not all of the websites function properly with all the browsers, however I have some workarounds. First of all, the table below shows a list of browsers and if tested a "y/n" to say if it works or not. If you find different, please let us know the browser you were using, the screen resolution used and the operating system (Windows, MAC, Linux and so on) you were on.
| Web Browser | Visual | CSS2 | RSS | Useable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome v1 | y | y | n | y |
| Chrome v2 | y | y | n | y |
| Firefox 2 | n | n | y | y |
| Firefox 3 | y | y | y | y |
| Internet Explorer 5 | n | n | n | n |
| Internet Explorer 6 | n | n | n | y |
| Internet Explorer 7 | n | n | y | y |
| Internet Explorer 8 | y | y | y | y |
| Konqueror 3.5.4-13.5 (1999-2005) | y | y | y | y |
| Opera 9.25 | y | y | y | y |
| Opera 9.50 | y | y | y | y |
| Safari 3 | y | y | y | y |
| Sea Monkey 1.1.3 | n | n | y | y |
Some explanations of this table.
- Visual Check - Does the website look the same across each browser?
- CSS2 Compatible - Does the CSS stylesheet work?
- RSS2 Compatible - Does the browser display RSS feeds properly
- Useable - even with some glitches can you still use the website?
Chrome
Google have recently brought out a browser that they would like others to compete with. The aim is to make the other browsers improve on usability, functionality and look. Although this is a new browser, it displays website very well. The only downside at the moment is that it cannot display RSS news feeds (even in version 2), but I'm sure it won't be long before it does. The browser will allow addons too, just like Firefox.
Firefox 2
Firefox 2 seemed to do well in the tests. As the website has developed, I have started to hate the browser. It has affected the display with because it is not CSS complaint. Please see the bugs section for more details on this and other browsers. Also this browser displays the website slightly different when viewed between Windows and Linux OS's.
Firefox 3
Firefox 3 seems to work fine with the site. The only difference that I could find was a height difference of one or two pixels in the header and footer. This is negligible far as I am concerned. On both 800x600 and 1024x768 there were no problems. Firefox allows me to allow min and max widths in the CSS so that I can have the width between 770px and 1024px. This is used to keep the 800 width standard and allow people with larger resolutions to benefit without affecting the look of the website. There has been a recent annoyance. You cannot use "z-index" of negative numbers. You can in Opera, Safari and IE7.
Internet Explorer 5
Internet Explorer 5 is a very old and insecure browser. I have not supported the browser as the newer versions work on Windows 2000 up to Vista. Less than 0.1% of Internet users still use IE5 (as of August 2008). I have allowed for an IE6 template to work if this site is viewed in either IE5 or IE5.5 but there are issues. The other fact is that IE5 is so old now, it will not support CSS2 and some XHTML tags of today.
Internet Explorer 6 and 7
Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are not compliant to standards. I can understand IE6 as it is around from Windows 2000 (around 8 years ago) but IE7 is not that much better than you would expect it to be. When viewing the website in IE6 I had to keep the width at 770px because it would not allow for variation. IE6 however allow me to implement min height which is a bonus. This is achieved with a slight trick and I found this a good result with many people still using the browser. IE6 does not allow for un-ordered list (ul) menus. This means that when you hover over each menu, you cannot see the list. Please use IE7, Firefox, Opera or Safari to see this. I have added a workaround so that, when you click on the menu it brings a page with the contents menu.
Internet Explorer 8
Internet Explorer 8 is a success in my opinion. The software developers have worked well to make is comply with many standards. There are some issue but this is a major relief over IE7. IE8 is more customisable tool, has tidy toolbars and requires less hassle than IE7 as you don't need to do many registry tweaks to move toolbars around. If you are considering upgrading from IE 6 then bypass IE7 and go straight to IE8 as there is a compatibility mode for IE7. I wish this included compatibility with IE6 as well.
Netscape browsers
Netscape users, please note this browser is at the end of production. Since losing a large share of the browser war (first to MS, then to Firefox), the team has decided to call it a day. The latest version is 9. More info can be found on the end of Netscape. Netscape advise their customers to make the switch to Firefox, otherise I'd advise people to make the move to Opera.
Opera and Safari
Opera and Safari, what can you say but thank you. For this website there are no big issues to raise here and I'm grateful some people cracked it. Firefox is great too, it's just slightly behind on the complaince issue. There is one thing however, Opera 9.5b unlike the rest of the browser implements newer html. There is code for file upload just using html and only Opera understands it. Just a shame these 2 browsers are not used by many. I like features Opera has like reload every 30 seconds and speed dial.
Unix / Linux Users
Good news for Linux users. I have tested Konqueror and Sea Monkey and they work a treat. Unfortunately Sea Monkey does not support CSS properly. Konqueror is compliant as far as I can tell. Beats Sea Monkey, IE6 and Firefox 2. Throughout the site I had no major issues.
The browsers Konqueror and Sea Monkey used for testing were not the latest versions of the browser. They are both using the Gecko engine of web browser layouts. For a 2005 browser these certainly beat IE6 and provide more functionality.
Summary
I have added stylesheets for most browsers (except Opera due to its greatness). This is to fix the minor pixel differences to make the browser look the same across the board. Please note that if you use Firefox on Linux compared to Windows there is minor pixel movements. I know this by testing. This issue is going to be a problem from time to time. On the plus side (according to the table above) I have a website that works for 95% of website users. Just don't go near IE5.
As of June 2008 more people use IE7 than they do IE6 (well done and thank you). IE7 still has problems that browsers like Firefox 2, Opera and Safari had fixed earlier. This is a big shame when you consider how many people work for Microsoft and create this software. I'm sure everyone is enjoying the fact that people are moving away from IE and making the move to Firefox. Any way IE7 allows for ul menus, which is great. I have had to use another css file like I did for IE6 now with IE7. This is to override settings of the master css file when IE7 is detected (luckily no javascript is needed). It is done using "if IE 7" (there is also "if lt IE 6" or just "if IE"). I wish all the browsers allowed for simple code like this. However if they were all compliant you would not need to. The final problem is that when you resize the browser larger than 924px wide the menu moves up in IE7. Safari, Opera and Firefox don't do this. I tried fixing this but ended up only allowing max width of 924px. This is a simple fix for a non compliant browser.
