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Web Standards Browsers And Designing For The Future
t present, a vast majority speak.
of webmasters are designing
for IE (Internet Explorer) Internet Explorer 7 will be more
6, which is not as W3C standards standards compliant and your HTML
compliant as is FireFox, code will be subject to much more
Netscape, Safari and Opera. rigorous interpretation than is
the case with IE 6, consequently
In my article - "The importance some web pages that look fine in
of sound website design & search IE 6 might not look the same IE
spiders to Internet Marketers," I 7.
mentioned the importance of a
designer being cognizant of the In IE 7 Microsoft has made a
fact that web browser standards solemn effort to fix the browsers
are not yet fully harmonized - a acquiescence to W3C standards and
web page that looks great in CSS(Cascading Style Sheets)
Internet Explorer (6) might look compatibility. CSS interpretation
hideous in a Mozilla based as recommended by W3C has been
browser like FireFox or Netscape. improved tremendously giving
designers and developers more
I also noted that with the leverage in functionality for
explosion of devices with which cross-browser design.
to serve Internet applications,
compliance with W3C standards has Microsoft asserts that they are
become critical. taking W3C compatibility issues
seriously.
When the final release for IE 7
for Windows XP, Server 2003 & Concisely what this means is that
Vista is launched, hopefully IE 7 will tend to interpret your
before the end of 2006, the web page code more scrupulously
tables will be turned, so to than before.
market with almost 80% of the
Therefore, if you have been market, but in a bid to force the
designing your pages and have not issue culminating with
bothered to check how they render proprietary goofs by AOL to whom
in W3C Standards Compliant Netscape sold out, they screwed
browsers like FireFox, you may be up big time with versions 4 up to
in for a rude shock when IE 7 6. A bitter war of attrition with
finally rolls out. Microsoft in the late nineties
did not help either.
If you have not been
incorporating W3C Web standards Microsoft grabbed the opportunity
in your design strategy you may and gobbled the Browser market
need to re-design for IE 7. overnight.
How should you go about With version 7+ Netscape has been
it? revived. How well it will compete
with IE and FireFox remains to be
Design for "strict" browsers like seen.
FireFox first. Not only is
FireFox a more I will be the first to admit that
standards-compliant browser but most the web pages I have built
it is also the primary competitor in the last several years are not
to Internet Explorer. A contender always standards compliant...and
backed by Google's marketing so are ninety five percent of
machine -- and therefore, is not other web pages -- as I stated in
likely do "a Netscape" on my previous article, "if strict
designers. W3C standards were to be enforced
in browsers, most websites would
Prior and up to IE 4.x, Netscape go out of business."
was the leading browser in the
To design for FireFox a designer Dreamweaver of FrontPage have
needs to combine Valid CSS built in modules with which you
(Cascading Style Sheets) for can automatically generate CSS
"look and feel" and W3C compliant code, which you can then view in
HTML for web page structure. a plain text editor for study
purposes.
The combination of these two
design strategies is powerful in To aid you in your CSS endeavor
that it elicits tremendous you need the following developer
flexibility, ease of maintenance tools: Web Developer Extension
and opens up extensive for FireFox and the Internet
possibilities in website design. Explorer Developer Toolbar. Great
The benefits are rewarding, and time-saving tools for creating,
every webmaster should attempt to understanding, and
utilize this two pronged scheme troubleshooting Web pages.
in their design routine.
As a matter of fact, by
Making changes to and/or styling installing some of the 1,500+
a site designed with CSS is much available FireFox extensions you
easier and more elegant than can eliminate the need for quite
messing around with a traditional a chunk of standalone desktop
table-based design. applications.
CSS may look intimidating to a After designing your Web page
first-timer but once you remember to us a MarkUp
familiarize with the basics you Validation Service to check
can progressively harness the whether your Web page conforms to
power of CSS to your full W3C recommendations. If there are
benefit. In addition, most web errors, the validator will notify
page design tools such as you of them and suggest
corrections. DTD supplies Web browsers with
information about which (X)HTML
Also, remember that when specification your web page is
designing using W3C standards built upon, which instructs the
guidelines a lot of code(tags) Browser how to render the page
that were very valid in the for viewing.
"Pre-Standards" era have
completely depreciated and will In the example captioned above a
be ignored completely by standards compliant browsers will
browsers. If you ignore these interpret your web page as an
errors during validation, your HTML 4.01 document, and because
web pages might not render it is marked as "Transitional,"
correctly. it will display it in "quirks
mode," meaning that the browser
In many instances, you may never will forgo the strict standards
be able to achieve 100% HTML or mode, and display your page like
XHTML validation. In such cases it would be displayed in older
you may want put the following "non-strict" browsers, while
DOCTYPE declaration in your still supporting any tags
document -- at the top of your developed after IE 4, Netscape 4
web page before the tag: and others.
< !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC On the contrary, the following
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE declaration tells the
Transitional//EN" > standards compliant browsers that
your web page should be displayed
Note: remove space after " < " in strict compliance with the
and before " > " DOCTYPE declaration.
A "Document Type Definition" or < !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" > adjustments here and there.
However, I think a realistic
A complete list of recommended designer should at least make a
DTDs can be found at the W3C meaningful attempt to follow W3C
Website. guidelines for it is the correct
way forward.
If you leave the DOCTYPE out, the
browsers automatically switch to Do it now so that you will ready
"quirks mode," therefore, it is for the future...re-designs and
important to include the DOCTYPE total overhauls are a time
declaration on every web page consuming and painful process. A
that you build in order for it to process, which becomes much
be rendered correctly. easier if your initial design
incorporated structurally clean
If your Web pages render well in and modular (X)HTML with CSS
FireFox at present you probably compliance.
will not encounter any major
problems in IE 7 other than minor
About the Author:
James Opiko writes for AfroArticles.com . Get free Online Coding Tools & Audio Code Generator Software.
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