Forum Software

[mythusmage]

I use an 8 year old iMac running OS9.2. My browser of choice is Netscape 7.02 because it works better than IE. Except when page coding does not follow Internet standards. Like these forums.

I can I tell these forums use non-standard coding? Because Netscape, a standards compliant browser, can't render the pages properly. As a matter of fact, when I post this I don't expect to see the full post. It will be hidden.

Get a better app.

[Rob Carriere]

Mister Mythusmage,
A few of the things that you mention turn out not to be facts. Proper or improper rendering of a page by a browser, even your very own beloved favorite, is never proof or disproof of the page being compliant with any standard except "is rendered properly by this browser". The reason for this is that rendering webpages correctly is such a formidable task that there is no bug free browser on the planet at this point, nor is one expected anytime soon.

Proof or disproof of the correctness of a webpage can be had by submitting the page to the appropriate validator(s) of the W3C, the standards body for, among others, (X)HTML and CSS. You may have noticed that this site facilitates that procedure by showing validation buttons in the bottom-right corner of every page--something very, very few sites dare to do.

A quick sampling of pages shows that (a) the CSS is valid and (b) the HTML contains a single validation error (the login button) that isn't actually rendered when you are logged in. Due to the nature of the error, it shouldn't affect the page when it itself is not actually rendered. So, we should expect any reasonably well-written standards-compliant browser to render the site correctly. Indeed, a single and minor validation error is a lot better score than 99% of the Internet.

While Netscape likes to pound itself on the chest for standards-compliance, with the ancient version you are using, you would actually be significantly better off in terms of compliance if you used IE 5.5 for the Mac.

Finally, there's a saying about the relative number of flies caught with honey and vinegar. I at least normally try to avoid your tone of voice even with people I pay to listen to me, never mind people who are voluntarily doing something wonderful. And, on the rare occasion where I do assume that tone of voice, I check my facts first.

I think you owe Clinton a rather abject apology.
SR
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[Larry L.]

Rob,

Internet Explorer 5.1.7 is the latest MS browser for MacOS 9.

Getting non-ancient software for OS 9 is something of a chore.

That said...

"Mythusmage," (real name?)

I've never had any serious rendering problems with the new software, using Firefox on various platforms -- as well as Blazer on my Treo!

Netscape's builds of the Seamonkey browser are known to be buggier than the mozilla.org versions.

The only problem with "non-standard code" that I can think of is that W3C character entity encoding isn't supported. So, um, I suppose letters with umlauts might show up incorrectly. Not really a site breaker, though.

So, rather than blaming the site admin, has it occured to you the problem may be yours to solve?

Also, the site admin's home is currently flooded. By this unfortunate coincidence, you have just advertised yourself as a huge jackass.

[Larry L.]

"Mythusmage," (real name?)

It's Alan! Sorry, didn't catch your sig.

[Rob Carriere]

Internet Explorer 5.1.7 is the latest MS browser for MacOS 9.

My bad. You're right, of course. Not that it matters to the point, though. IE 5.x/Mac uses a completely different rendering engine from IE 5.x/Win. It is effectively a different browser (and a significantly better one) that just happens to have the same name as the Windows IE.

Now Alan is definitely in a bad spot with that hardware/OS specification. Mac by itself is already a minority platform, and everybody who does develop for Mac targets OS X, not OS 9 or earlier. That's hardly a Forge problem, though.

SR
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[Clinton R. Nixon]

Actually, my home is just surrounded by dead bodies, looters, and fetid fecal matter-filled water. Initial reports indicate no flooding. My cat's trapped inside, though, and slowly dying.

But, on to cheerier stuff. The site renders fine. I have no idea what Alan's talking about. And on other sites, he's proven himself to be someone who enjoys argument, not constructive discussion, and because of the tone of his message, I'm going to go ahead and let everyone know that before engaging with him.

So. Hrm. I think I'll close this thread down now. Please discontinue posting to it.