Nathan,

You're welcome! :-) In answer to your question about Netscape 4 usage, I
submit data from some of my sites that I administer or own. This is
subjective data and is not necessarily accurate net-wide, but gives a good
representation, I think. Because the logs are big, I'm gonna cut out all but
total sessions and the percent of that which represents N4. This data
represents site usage for the month of March 2001:

SITE ONE:
Total sessions served during period: 165
  Netscape 4.x: 12 sessions (7.27%)

SITE TWO:
Total sessions served during period: 1868
  Netscape 4.x: 88 sessions (4.71%)

SITE THREE:
Total sessions served during period: 278
  Netscape 4.x: 4 sessions  (1.44%)

SITE FOUR:
Total sessions served during period: 27811
  Netscape 4.x: 2149  sessions  (7.73%)

SITE FIVE:
Total sessions served during period: 18236
  Netscape 4.x: 542 sessions (2.97%)

SITE SIX:
Total sessions served during period: 1938
  Netscape 4.x: 144 sessions (7.43%)

SITE SEVEN:
Total sessions served during period: 14316
  Netscape 4.x: 990 sessions (6.92%)

Overall summary:
Total sessions on all seven: 64612
  Netscape 4.x: 3929 sessions (6.08%)

So you see, while N4 is not all that far up there, with about 6% overall
usage for these seven sites, when you look at the actual sessions for N4,
you really can't just ignore them, either. I mean, for all seven sites, just
under 4000 of the sessions were for Netscape 4 users. But when you look at
the bigger scheme of things, including the other data which shows MSIE 5.x,
AOL 4-6, and N6/Moz (all of which use modern browsing technology), that
percentage comes out to about 91% of all sessions. So it's safe to say that
a targeted site could easily do away with Netscape 4. But you'd still be
alienating SOME users.

The question you need to ask yourself is this: Does the degradation in
Netscape 4 pose a problem, or is it livable. If it's okay in N4 but great in
the others, I'd leave it at that. If the degradation is severe, I'd consider
a dual-site option (two of the above sites use this -- they detect based on
DOM model and send modern browsers to modern pages with all the gee-whiz
goodies, and less-capable browsers to equivalent pages that look good on
them).

But, since you asked about N4's usage, now you have a sample to work with. I
hope this helps! :-)
Kehvan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nathan Lyle" <natlyle(at)nmu.edu>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 16:43
Subject: Re: Margins 'n stuff


| Thanks to Kehvan, Kimiko and Kym for responses... (heck, even *I'm* not
| sure exactly what I'm trying for sometimes.. <grin>)
|
| The browser I've been using to check my pages in *is* a Netscape 4.x
| version, which I never switched from because I figured it was best to
start
| with the lowest common denominator. ;-)   Plus, I did used to very much
| prefer Netscape over anything else, and am only recently giving in to
| feelings of betrayal and frustration. <sigh>
|
| The reason for frames instead of tables, is because I wanted to be able to
| change the content in the main area and use Javascript reflection to write
| pages to it (kind of simulating a database with a few minimal functions).
| I've not done too much with layers, because my first few experiences were
| buggy and quirky and I'm holding out before completely learning them. :-/
|
| What I ended up doing was compromising design and style and going with a
| basic two-frame split window. <yawn> For now, anyway. But that brings me
to
| another related question.... how much in use is Netscape 4.x these days?
| I'm assuming there's no justification to ignore designing for
| it....?   <hopeful expression>
|
|
| ~Nathan Lyle   (The Tragic Comedian Poet)
|
| Email:  natlyle(at)nmu.edu    or    jopling(at)geocities.com
| Web: http://euclid.nmu.edu/~natlyle
| Phone: 906-227-5736
|
| "Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of
| realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the
| risk of displeasure." - Kingman Brewster
|
|

• Web Designer Courses
• Off the Shelf Training Courses

HWG hwg-techniques mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA