Re: Rant !

I support making the site's information available for older browsers, but I
no longer fully support the aesthetics.  The closest I come is that I try to
make sure the pages lay out acceptable in NN4 just because that browsers was
Netscape's only product for so long, and so people are still using it,
probably because they have just barely been offered alternatives and haven't
had time to adjust yet.

Still, the fact is that NN4 is years old in an environment where software
begins being superceded in months. I fully support everyone's right to
choice, and I do not support concept of monopolies, so save the flames...:).
When considering both labor hours and range of options, however, CSS just
makes too much sense to ignore.  So, my final decision, reached around early
summer of this year, was to move strongly toward using only CSS for
presentation and just try to make sure that the menus and text were useable
and readable in older browsers, even if the site didn't look as pretty.  Of
course, I are not at the point where I can use CSS exclusively yet, which
helps keep the older models in the picture more easily, but the time will
come soon, I think.

Of course, if the customer insists on supporting older models and has the
money to pay for the additional time, we are happy to comply.  HTML Tidy
helps, as do the 6 or 8 browsers we have loaded on different machines around
here....:).

I have never designed a site that would not let the user in at all because
they have an older browser, and I am curious what the reason was behind this
in the sites you found.


----- Original Message -----
From: <David.Artiss(at)boots.co.uk>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 6:00 AM
Subject: Rant !




Two web-sites I've visited in the last week won't let me enter them because
I'm
running IE4. In both cases they tell me their site doesn't support my
browser
and provide me with links to the "latest". It seems that rather than making
their site actually work with older browsers or at least finding ways around
problems, a lot of developers are now taking the easy, but least
viewer-friendly, method of just not supporting them.

I assume no-one on this list supports this kind of thing ?

David.

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