Re: navigation bars-absent on newer version of Netscape

At 09:10 AM 24/04/01 -0700, you wrote:
>St=E9phane Bergeron wrote:
>
> > That's not entirely true.  Indeed, both IE 4 and NN 4 came out months
> > before the HTML 4.0 spec came out and years before the DOM did but the=
 CSS
> > Level 1 spec came out in late 1996, months before either browsers were
> > released.  That's why NN 4's abysmal CSS implementation is so
> > frustrating.  Netscape were arrogant enough to think they could bypass=
 the
> > W3C and do things their way once again.  That was their demise as later
> > history proved.
>I have to disagree, though, that poor support for CSS was the reason for=
 their
>demise. Joe User out there doesn't care about that. Microsoft won the war=
 by
>ensuring that IE was installed on all of the PCs being sold. There's little
>reason for most users to bother looking for any other browser - IE is "good
>enough."

True about Joe user but amongst developers, IE's far superior technology=20
won them many converts, me included.   I also knew many regular users who=20
adopted IE 4 because it was faster.  It took a larger hard drive footprint=
=20
but it loaded a lot faster on the much slower machines of the time than NN=
=20
4 did.   It also has major memory leaks and although Joe user couldn't=20
quite name the problem with NN 4, I was hearing many complaints from people=
=20
about NN 3 feeling buggier to them than NN 3 and it was. As a user I was a=
=20
die hard NN 3 fanatic until NN 4 came out and was very disappointed by=20
it.  Many people I know felt the same way and switched to IE never to look=
=20
back.  Remember how buggy NN 4 really was when it came out.  Until NN 4.04=
=20
it was one of the most unstable piece of software I and many others ever=20
had the displeasure to install.

>Yes, it's very frustrating that Netscape has released all of these updates=
 to
>NN4 without addressing many of the core problems. They've made some very=
 big
>changes - the introduction of JavaScript 1.3 in 4.06 and of JavaScript 1.4=
 in
>4.5 and the addition of PNG support in 4.04, for example - while doing=
 nothing
>to improve support for HTML and CSS. Not the choices I would have made!

Not the choices I would have made either that's for sure!

>And yes, it's taken forever for NN6 to arrive. Making Gecko an open project
>slowed things down a lot, as did the buyout by AOL and the loss of a large
>portion of the Netscape team.

Netscape being bought out by AOL is probably the saddest part of the=20
story.  Good thing many of these developers joined the Mozilla Project's=20
efforts though.

>In my earlier post, I said that traditionally the W3C had been followers=
 and
>based the standards on things that the software companies had already=20
>released.
>I forgot to follow up on that thought. It seems as if they're trying to=20
>reverse
>that role. With XHTML, the W3C seems to be trying to take the lead. It=
 remains
>to be seen how successful that's going to be. I can't say that I'm 100%
>enthused with the choices they're making. For example, I'm not at all=
 pleased
>that they want to dump support for frames. Frames have disadvantages, I=
 won't
>argue that, but they are very useful at the same time. Instead of just=20
>throwing
>them away, I wish they'd instead address the problems with them and fix=
 them.
>Or develop some new method that provides some or all of the capabilities of
>frames without the bad side effects.

That technology already exists with CSS, the DOM and HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.x=20
with which you can dynamically change the content of a layer or make layers=
=20
visible or invisible by clicking a link.  All this is achieved without the=
=20
loss of the capacity to index the page properly.  Personally I still feel=20
that the disadvantages of frames far outweigh their limited=20
usefulness.  Iframes are a lot more interesting and I don't think the W3C=20
will deprecate them.  As far as the W3C taking the lead I don't really=20
think of it as a good thing either.  Looks to me like many of its members=20
are far more interested in thories than in providing usefull technologies=20
for the real world.  That's why browser innovation is still very important.

St=E9phane Bergeron

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