Re: mouse-over problem, again

Michael:

You said:

>But how about a little personal responsibility on the part of the users?
>my pages all work in NN 3. That's my line. [drawn]

I could not agree more. We have all heard time and again, how we must
reduce our efforts to that supported by the lowest common denominator. But
never a word about encouraging people to bring their web surfing equipment
up to even a modest attempt toward current standards.

As I has said previously, valid code is really not the main issue. The main
issue is where to draw the line at providing for obsolete equipment. After
all--as many have pointed out--the latest browsers are all free.

I've heard a few pound home the fact that some people are "stuck" with
whatever browsers their employers or local libraries provide.

Well--every business owner I know that depends on the Internet for business
purposes, uses the latest and best. They HAVE TO. Because if they don't, you
can bet their competition most assuredly does.

As to libraries. I can not speak for everyone. But up here in the hilly
sticks of Northern California boon-docks, the librarians all insist that
they consider the suggestion that they fail to provide anything less that
IE-5 and/or Netscape 4.7+ downright insulting.

I have often suggested that "most" of these "old browsers" we often talk
about are in the hands of web authors, overly worried about old browsers.
And--for those "few" remaining--the sooner we stop codling them, the sooner
they will break down and upgrade.

Now--as to looking out for the visually impaired--that is indeed a worthy
endeavor--far more sensible than designing a web site in black and white on
the off chance that someone, somewhere, may still be using a B&W monitor.

Best wishes and happy sour grapes to all ...
Ted Temer
Temercraft Designs Redding, CA
temer(at)c-zone.net
www.temercraft.com/novels/
www.newsredding.com/
www.ramac-rc.org/




> Larry,
> You're absolutely right. And with a browser of that age all the  
> spaces we throw in will show on the page and if I remember right, tables
> all have borders, but then again their pages will load so very slowly on
> the 14400 baud modems that were cutting edge when NN2 came out. My guess
> is that anybody who uses that generation of browser will be very used to
> alerts and strangely rendered pages. I know there are still 286 and 236
> machines out there with the pre-loaded browsers and users who still
> don't know how to download an update. This may sound cruel but most of
> those people probably are not on line for financial reasons.
>
> I'm very happy to label my tables and alt my images. I try to make sure
> my pages degrade gracefully in absence of CSS. I'm also dyslexic and
> have found that the shorter my code the fewer opportunities I have to
> screw it up. As a learning disabled designer I'm a huge fan of usability
> and accessibility.
> And I have to draw the line somewhere. Just as operating systems bog
> down keeping legacy code so can our web design.  I certainly wouldn't
> take the time to write a DOS program anymore.
>
> People with disabilities have no choice with their accessibility
> problems. People with browsers that won't display a huge percentage of
> modern web pages do. Flashing gifs make it almost impossible for me to
> read a page. The distraction of the moving images rearranges the letters
> on the page for me. No problem. I turn off looping in the browser.  I'm
> not advocating filling pages with Flash and making people add plug ins.
> But how about a little personal responsibility on the part of the users?
> My pages all work in NN 3. That's my line.
> best, michael
>
>
>

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