Actually, I took down the browser compatibility chart, but I will say a few words on web browsers and compatibility.
Why is it important to be aware of browser compatibility? If you design webpages, you will need to realize that the appearance of your webpages may vary among different browsers, sometimes drastically if the code isn't written properly. A significant number of people out there design their pages with only Internet Explorer in mind either out of laziness or with the excuse that most people use Internet Explorer anyway. For example, the scrolling marquee may not show up in earlier versions of Netscape, or any version at all, as far as I know. CSS {body} tags will not work in some or all versions of Netscape either, as well as some versions of Opera.
Why do these discrepancies occur? Sometimes, a browser is supporting something or interpreting something its own way, despite the
W3C standards. Internet Explorer has a way of making its own rules. For example, customizing the scrollbars in a browser may not be part of the standards. Neither is using "alt" tags for both "alt" and "title" tag functions in an image.
I confess that I used to prefer Internet Explorer, but I did begin to attempt in 2001 and 2002 to make my GordeonBleu pages fully compatible with Netscape 4.7, Netscape 6.x, and a version of Opera I can't remember. However, I kept having trouble with more advanced scripts in my pages in these other browsers, and I used to take out my cross-browser compatibility complaints out on the "other" browsers. But since the end of 2003, my preference has been towards Mozilla Firefox (previously Firebird in 2003) and the rest of the Mozilla family. I had to tweak various pages in the GordeonBleu network over the end of 2003 and early 2004 to make them comply more with the W3C standards. This tweaking is basically complete.
So from Safari to Opera to Camino to Netscape to Mozilla Prime to Firefox to Internet Explorer... GordeonBleu will continue to aim for compatibility across the browsers.
Camino |
Safari |
Internet Explorer |
Internet Explorer Mac |
Firefox & Mozilla Suite |
Netscape |
Opera
Below is a Javascript script that detects which operating system and browser you're using. For example, Windows NT 5.1 is Windows XP, and Firefox/0.8 is Firefox 0.8. I haven't tested this outside Windows XP and Firefox 0.9x and Internet Explorer 6, but I assume it should work for other versions of Windows, and hopefully Mac OS/Mac OS X and Linux, as well as Camino, Opera, Netscape, and earlier version of I.E. or Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix...
Don't worry. I barely know what that means either. The moral of the story is: test your pages on another browser at least once in a while, if it's not too much trouble.
