Possibly a dumb question

message from Jenna on 21 Jul 2004

I know nothing whatsoevera about Macs except that you have to pry them out
of their cold dead hands before they'd switch to a Windows machine.

Recently a Mac owner said that they had to do something "special" to their
company website before she could see the website on her Mac. She doesn't
know anything about computers except how to turn it off and on, so I wasn't
able to get any more information out of her.

DO you have to do anything special when developing a website to accommodate
Mac users??... Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had to ask!

James Shook replied to Jenna on 21 Jul 2004

No.

Murray *TMM* replied to Jenna on 21 Jul 2004

Good coding methods?

Seriously, no. Any website built with standards compliant code will be
equally visible on Macs and PCs. Be aware that it's possible to build a
completely broken site that looks vastly different on the two platforms, and
still have valid code, however.

seb replied to Murray *TMM* on 21 Jul 2004

"Standards compliant" code is not rendered the same way by different
browsers. Actually, if you're going to use "standard compliant" CSS
positioning for your layout, don't even bother publishing your site
without previewing it in as many browsers as possible on both Mac and
PC, because your layout might as well be *upside down* from one browser
to the next. Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with
less enormous consequences (no upside-down stuff, mostly alignment
variations).
Also, there are big differences in javascript support. If you're going
to use timelines, show-hide layer behaviors or even swap image
behaviors, you better test in both Mac and PC, because same browser
version might not behave the same way on different platforms.
Same discrepancies apply to table layout, although with less enormous
consequencies than for CSS layout and javascript.

Murray *TMM* wrote:

Murray *TMM* replied to seb on 21 Jul 2004

While it is true that testing sites in many browsers is always a good idea
no matter what your coding methods are, I think it's not correct to assert
that using CSS positioning can cause your site to be radically wrong on
different CONTEMPORARY browsers. But I have not seen any of your sites, so
I can't really judge what you mean by this.

Really? Like what?

Really? Can you give me specific examples where you see these differences?

seb replied to Murray *TMM* on 21 Jul 2004

I have spent a lot of time creating a site using only CSS positioning,
which looked exactly the same in FireFox, Safari, IE Windows, and Opera.
Unfortunately, all looked wrong in IE5 Mac (really wrong, not slightly).
Since my default browser was IE5 Mac then, as it is for tons of graphic
designers, fashion designers, advertising/marketing companies -i.e. my
clients-, I figured I'd stick to tables layout.
I'd rather deal with simple tricks that make table layout cross-platform
perfect, than "hacks" that give three different styles expressions
according to which browser they target.

persistent layers (JS extension) don't work in Safari (don't remember
about Opera).
Just so pictures (JS extension) don't work in Safari and Opera.
And I've noticed other disfonctionalities which I didn't investigate
further.
In general it seems that Safari and Opera JS support is weak.

Murray *TMM* replied to seb on 21 Jul 2004

As I said, it's quite possible to use good coding techniques to make bad
pages. I can't see your pages or their code so I can't comment. But I
don't think it's a fair generalization to asset what you are asserting here.

But this is not javascript support, it's javascript usages, no? Besides,
who do you know that uses good coding methods that uses such bells and
whistles?

I don't know about Opera, but the current version of JSPW works just fine in
Safari. Prove it to yourself here -

http://www.therobertshouse.com/r_area.asp (click on the room pictures)

By the way, that site is all CSS-P. Do you see any problems with it?
It is valid HTML4.01....

I don't count this as a specific example, however.

Perhaps Opera, but you are completely wrong about Safari.

darrel replied to seb on 21 Jul 2004

IE5 is pretty old. It's rendering engine hasn't been updated in years. While
it certainly has problems, and is still used by a lot of mac folks, I don't
know if I'd group it with Murray's group of "CONTEMPORARY browsers".

I agree, though. Sometimes simple tables is better than complex CSS hacks.

I'm guessing that is due more to poorly written scripts than poor javascript
support. NN4 and IE both have custom/proprietary ways to call objects in the
DOM and I'd bet the script is using those proprietary ways instead of more
universal methods.

-Darrel

Joe Makowiec replied to Jenna on 21 Jul 2004

Does she have to do it every time, or was it only once? Also, was the
operation performed on her computer or on the server?

If it was only once and on her computer, it could be that the site used
Java (not javascript), Flash or some other such which requires a plugin
which her Mac didn't have.

Jenna replied to Joe Makowiec on 21 Jul 2004

Thanks, Joe. However, we'll never know the answer to that one because this
poor lady was so clueless that I doubt she'd know what "flash" meant. I
couldn't even get out of her specifically what she wasn't able to see, so
I'm going to chalk it up to something isolated on her end of things and not
worry too much about it.

You know, it's really pretty impossible...and pretty impractical...to try
and develop things so that all these tiny groups of people can see them. I
know a lot of people don't like Microsoft, Windows, and/or Internet
Explorer, but the blunt truth of the matter is that those ARE the
mainstream, and we shouldn't be put in the position of trying to plug holes
in every weird computer configuration and browser oddity as it would take
far too much time and effort and money to buy all the various equpiment and
software just to make that happen.

"Joe Makowiec" <makowiec@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
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James Loudon replied to Jenna on 21 Jul 2004

If you are going to be developing websites on a professional basis, then get
a Mac as well just to check. You can pick up an old Blue iMac for about
$200. Plus you'll get to learn a bit about "the other side" which is A Good
Thing.

middletree replied to James Loudon on 21 Jul 2004

Not sure I agree with buying a Mac just for site viewing. Considering that
most stats show Mac users between 1%-5% of users out there. And most of
those are web developers.

"James Loudon" <james@blahblahfatgraphics.com> wrote in message
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darrel replied to middletree on 21 Jul 2004

There's no such thing. Once you buy a Mac, you end up using it for
everything. ;o)

Stats like that are fairly meaningless aren't indicitive of actual user
preferences.

Not at all.

If you're targetting graphic designers, you'll probably find 50% + use macs.

If you're targetting lawyers, you'll fine up to 30% use Macs.

Households? Easily 5% - 10%.

Middle managers in banks? Probably .000001%

Fortunately, the common browsers on the Mac these days (firefox, Safari) are
fairly standards compliant. You still should consider IE/5 mac, which has
major issues, but a suitable solution for that is something like browsercam:

http://www.browsercam.com

So you don't really need to OWN a mac, but you should try to test in one.

BTW, you can (sort of) run OSX on Windows now:

http://weblogs.asp.net/mikehall/archive/2004/07/03/172677.aspx

;o)

and don't forget linux users!

-Darrel

Jenna replied to darrel on 21 Jul 2004

Thanks to everyone for their input!!! I appreciate it.

"darrel" <notreal@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Archived message: Possibly a dumb question (Macromedia Dreamweaver)