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Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 12:39 PM

Yup, on my website, clayshaker.com I've now put in the Intro graphic:
Designed for Firefox and Safari. A good half of our users use Firefox or Safari already, actually probably more of them than I realize. So I'm going to try and get the word out better, I'm sick of not being able to throw in transparent PNGs and what not. So screw it if they want the page to render propperly they'll use the right type of browser.

skalie · Oct 2, 2004, 12:41 PM

or click away

Landos Mustache · Oct 2, 2004, 12:46 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
A good half of our users use Firefox or Safari already, actually probably more of them than I realize.

So all 5 of you?

Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 12:52 PM

thinking about it I really don't want most of you visiting my site

But uhh, no we have about... actually I just counted through the member list we have over 20 regularish users. That said the last few days it's been dead as all get out. This is the bad thing about having your user base grow up and hit college ages. That said back in March before the site was shut down we were hovering over 50 users who were regularly on, at least once every two weeks. And we probably have a good deal over 100 who have considered themselves regular users (significantly over 500 posts).

For a site not attached to a band, computing platform or something else, it was pretty good. It's a strange community but good. And I only really run it for fun now.

george68 · Oct 2, 2004, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
So all 5 of you?

hahahah

wataru · Oct 2, 2004, 01:01 PM

Nobody cares about your crappy website, or what browser you "code" for.

BlueSky · Oct 2, 2004, 01:12 PM

Originally posted by wataru:
Nobody cares about your crappy website, or what browser you "code" for.

I care. I run a crappy website myself

and have been waiting for IE for Windows to die so I can use transparent PNG's. It's a drag when the largest browser is so behind everyone else, at least in that respect.

Here, have some happy dust:

Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 01:25 PM

Originally posted by Bluesky:
I care. I run a crappy website myself and have been waiting for IE for Windows to die so I can use transparent PNG's. It's a drag when the largest browser is so behind everyone else, at least in that respect.

Agreed, I'm surprised I haven't seen more people put stuff like this on their sites, remember the days of this site does not support Netscape only IE. Well I think those of us in the know should start putting things even on sites that technically support IE to start saying stuff like "This site does not officially support IE, use Firefox or Safari for best results."

MaxPower2k3 · Oct 2, 2004, 01:44 PM

the JavaScript that loads some kind of IE plugin thing works pretty well to make PNGs transparent, although it doesn't work with background images. Also, it waits until the page finishes loading to make the images transparent, so until then the images have a light grayish-blue background. if you can live with that, it's a much better solution than leaving out IE (and 90% of your visitors) altogether.

Landos Mustache · 02:51 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
thinking about it I really don't want most of you visiting my site

But uhh, no we have about... actually I just counted through the member list we have over 20 regularish users. That said the last few days it's been dead as all get out. This is the bad thing about having your user base grow up and hit college ages. That said back in March before the site was shut down we were hovering over 50 users who were regularly on, at least once every two weeks. And we probably have a good deal over 100 who have considered themselves regular users (significantly over 500 posts).

For a site not attached to a band, computing platform or something else, it was pretty good. It's a strange community but good.

Jesus doesn't count as "something else"?

So by strange community you mean teenage Christians right?

Earth Mk. II · Oct 2, 2004, 01:49 PM

oh god... not more browser wars...

Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
Jesus doesn't count as "something else"?

So by strange community you mean teenage Christians right?

Well somewhere between teenage and 20 somethings, and it's not your typical Christian one either... most of us aren't irritating twits who have no clue what we believe and are looking for an online boy friend/girl friend.

CD Hanks · Oct 2, 2004, 02:04 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Well somewhere between teenage and 20 somethings, and it's not your typical Christian one either... most of us aren't irritating twits who have no clue what we believe and are looking for an online boy friend/girl friend.

asl?

Jokes aside, it's pretty asinine to completely shut out what makes up 4/5ths of browser people use to get online, to accommodate a VERY small minority.

yukon · Oct 2, 2004, 02:47 PM

Developing for IE is a pain in the ass, I haven't bothered for a long time, and I advise others not to as well. The browser breaks standards and sites developed specifically for IE don't work in other browsers. I'm not doing extra work because MS didn't.

Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 03:30 PM

I'm going to leave this message up for the next few months and then begin designing the next version of the site which will have a few features that IE won't support. Thus users will complain the site is ugly unless they switch... or I do work arounds for IE users. I can check the compatibility in Camino and Safari, aside form that screw it. Opera should work but I won't bother checking, I also won't bother getting a PC to check. I don't have time to waste on that.

Landos Mustache · Oct 2, 2004, 03:33 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Thus users will complain the site is ugly unless they switch...

What do I need to switch to as I think it looks ugly now.

Superchicken · Oct 2, 2004, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
What do I need to switch to as I think it looks ugly now.

A new location, I hear everything looks ugly in Toronto.

storer · Oct 2, 2004, 04:10 PM

Congratulations! One day I hope we can all break free of IE!

mdc · Oct 2, 2004, 04:16 PM

i agree, i hope microsoft gets its act together with IE or the internet masses start using a proper browser.

my site has 2 styles, and +/- 9 color themes for each style. it relies on transparent pngs (in backgrounds) and fixed positioning.

i made an ie specific css style sheet that makes the site look like the proper version without the transparency and the positioning. it is nowhere close to as nice, but i refuse to sit there and mess with it anymore, and i refuse to have two different sites anymore.

storer · Oct 2, 2004, 04:28 PM

Originally posted by mdc:
i agree, i hope microsoft gets its act together with IE or the internet masses start using a proper browser.

Most internet users aren't smart enough to know how useless IE is (or risky). So they really need to fix it ASAP.

mdc · Oct 2, 2004, 04:36 PM

as unfortunate as it is, you are so right.
most internet users just think, "i got internet explorer right here on my desktop and it works fine for me." yeah, it works because web developers are going nuts making it work.

what gets to me is that every time there is an article on some news site about firefox gaining on internet explorer, they never mention that ie is not standard compliant, how it does not display transparent png files, how it sucks with new css. they always talk about security, and then microsoft says, "we just released xp sp2 which takes care of the security." then average joe internet user is all happy because microsoft must know best right?

grab microsoft by the balls about the compliancy.

The Godfather · Oct 2, 2004, 05:20 PM

Superchicken: your website should generate a pop-up for IE users. Something to actively drive away the IE users, or make them download safari or Firefox.

Anyways, I visited your website and I could not find any content. Where do I find the content?

Demonhood · Oct 2, 2004, 06:22 PM

Originally posted by MaxPower2k3:
the JavaScript that loads some kind of IE plugin thing works pretty well to make PNGs transparent, although it doesn't work with background images.

use bgsleight.

Mediaman_12 · Oct 2, 2004, 06:24 PM

Originally posted by mdc:
i agree, i hope microsoft gets its act together with IE or the internet masses start using a proper browser.

The best news is that MS won't be bringing out the next version of IE for XP (sure it will still get security updates, but no 'fixes') The next version will be 'Longhorn' only. So even if MS decided to (unbelievably) develop a nice standards compliant, rendering bug free version of IE, developers would still be stuck developing for THIS crapy version for years and years to come (look how many people still use Win 98/2000 and XP has been out for how many years now).

Zimphire · Oct 2, 2004, 06:28 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:

Nice.

MaxPower2k3 · Oct 2, 2004, 06:50 PM

Originally posted by Demonhood:
use bgsleight.

excellent, thanks!

mdc · Oct 2, 2004, 07:04 PM

i think the best thing i have read is this:

" If Daring Fireball looks like s**t in your browser, you�re using a s*****y browser that doesn�t support web standards. Netscape 4, I�m looking in your direction. If you complain about this, I will laugh at you, because I do not care. If, however, you are using a modern, standards-compliant browser and have trouble viewing or reading Daring Fireball, please do let me know. "

storer · Oct 2, 2004, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by mdc:
i think the best thing i have read is this:

" If Daring Fireball looks like s**t in your browser, you�re using a s*****y browser that doesn�t support web standards. Netscape 4, I�m looking in your direction. If you complain about this, I will laugh at you, because I do not care. If, however, you are using a modern, standards-compliant browser and have trouble viewing or reading Daring Fireball, please do let me know. "

you tell em, daring fireball.

OreoCookie · Oct 2, 2004, 08:05 PM

Yup, my website looks really sh!tty in IE, too. Since there is no fixed tag in IE's world of CSS, I didn't even bother fixing. Works as expected in Gecko-based browsers and Safari, presumably also KHTML.

Wiskedjak · Oct 2, 2004, 08:28 PM

Originally posted by CD Hanks:
asl?

Jokes aside, it's pretty asinine to completely shut out what makes up 4/5ths of browser people use to get online, to accommodate a VERY small minority.

I don't think it's asinine at all. Most people simply need to be made aware of Firefox in order to be convinced to switch over. It's a small download and an easy install. When I'm doing tech support (mostly windows boxes), the first thing I do to any machine I'm working on is stick Firefox on it and import the user's IE bookmarks over to it. They're usually sold at the built in pop-up blocking and google search bar ... but tabbed browsing and built in theming are the deal closers.

MilkmanDan · Oct 3, 2004, 10:30 AM

I tried not to care when IE broke my webpage, but then I realized that half my viewers used IE, and that unless I spent some time fixing my code, they couldn't navigate. So who really suffered here. The people.

And the children. Think of the children.

theolein · Oct 3, 2004, 11:17 AM

I agree that one should try at least, to accommodate IE users if one really has to use transparent pngs. Frequently, though, I find that one can design around the issue if one really tries. I personally try to avoid Javascript as much as possible and simply markup around IE's css bugs. I find that dynamic menus and such simply break too often in the various browsers out there (Mozilla based, IE5.5, IE6, Safari, Opera etc) to be of much use, and they almost certainly break if the users turn off javascript, unless you've catered to that as well. I think that's possibly the reason why almost none of the big CMS using sites use these things, i.e. they try to make the pages break gracefully in case of css, no javascript etc.

Flash is also an answer for dynamic menus sometimes, but then again, you might have a user who doesn't have the plug-in, so you have to make an html version anyway.

But sometimes, you just have to go overboard and do all the bells and whistles because a client wants them. I had a site a few months ago that I would have killed to have been able to use transparent pngs with, but the client specified no javascript. That site was a painful experience and bad hack mix of tables and divs.

brapper · Oct 3, 2004, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by wataru:
Nobody cares about your crappy website, or what browser you "code" for.

.....relax

phoenixboy70 · Oct 3, 2004, 01:09 PM

i.e. for windows. you will never find a better defined target group, - in any kind of business.

/it's still way above 85%

effgee · Oct 3, 2004, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
... I'm sick of not being able to throw in transparent PNGs and what not. ...

Just out of curiosity - what part of your site actually requires the use of transparent PNG's? I poked around a bit and couldn't find anything that would/should not display properly even in IE as long as its coded thorougly - not even seperate style sheets would be necessary for that. A header, a container with three columns and a footer - could be as simple as that.

Originally posted by theolein:
... Frequently, though, I find that one can design around the issue. ...

Genau!

olePigeon · Oct 3, 2004, 01:42 PM

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sincerely,

Microsoft

olePigeon · Oct 3, 2004, 01:42 PM

Double post. First one for me.

Disgruntled Head of C-3PO · Oct 3, 2004, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
A new location, I hear everything looks ugly in Toronto.

Oh I get it, I say the site is ugly so you say the town I live in is ugly. Neat.

I hear where you live is where the party is at.

Superchicken · Oct 3, 2004, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by The Godfather:
Superchicken: your website should generate a pop-up for IE users. Something to actively drive away the IE users, or make them download safari or Firefox.

Anyways, I visited your website and I could not find any content. Where do I find the content?

Content... on ClayShaker? hahaha you mistake us for a site that has a point. We lost our point a while ago. We're supposed to be running on a kinda Christian satire direction... but really we're all pretty lazy... not to mention I'm supposed to be working on modifying the CMS to actually work well and junk... it's just not working out that well

Superchicken · Oct 3, 2004, 02:12 PM

Originally posted by effgee:
Just out of curiosity - what part of your site actually requires the use of transparent PNG's? I poked around a bit and couldn't find anything that would/should not display properly even in IE as long as its coded thorougly - not even seperate style sheets would be necessary for that. A header, a container with three columns and a footer - could be as simple as that.

The CMS and forum support themes, and in the future I'll actually be moving to a GeekLog+phpBB model. In which case users will have custom ranks awarded after they've kinda seriously joined the community and what not, and those are difficult to change by theme, not to mention I wouldn't want to do all that work. But unless I keep the BG colour the same in every theme for the ranks then it gets lame. There's also other aspects I'd like to change.

effgee · 07:57 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
The CMS and forum support themes, and in the future I'll actually be moving to a GeekLog+phpBB model. In which case users will have custom ranks awarded after they've kinda seriously joined the community and what not, and those are difficult to change by theme, not to mention I wouldn't want to do all that work. But unless I keep the BG colour the same in every theme for the ranks then it gets lame. There's also other aspects I'd like to change.

Heh, I thought so

Maybe the CMS along with its associated themes/templates could use a bit of an overhaul?

Most table-based layouts are a humongous pain in the bootie to fix up/customize/work with.

I don't know too much about GeekLog but I'm currently working on redesigning a phpBB site and I do know for sure that there's no "modern" frontend code in any of the templates - don't get me wrong, phpBB is a wonderful app but the frontend is shite.

Superchicken · Oct 3, 2004, 04:56 PM

I don't use CSS, I'm really bad with it. I just, can't wrap my head around how some of the formatting works and what not. html tables and what not I'm quite good with though so I just stick with that.
I know there are some powerful things you can do with CSS but yah... as per the layout of my site, I really like it, I've done far more complicated layouts in the past, but this one is my fave by far cause it's so simple.

storer · Oct 3, 2004, 05:01 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
I don't use CSS, I'm really bad with it. I just, can't wrap my head around how some of the formatting works and what not. html tables and what not I'm quite good with though so I just stick with that.

I'm the same. i just can't understand it. so tables will do!

mdc · Oct 3, 2004, 06:50 PM

i think that the freedom that css gives you is just so much better than tables. i swore a while ago when i learnt css to never use a table or frame again. i really do not like them.

the positioning of css is great, and the fact that you can do site wide changes in one place is too great.

effgee · Oct 3, 2004, 08:07 PM

As long as you're doing a bit of site development as a hobby, not wanting to learn CSS and sticking with table-based layouts is perfectly fine - even though I'd still recommend taking the time to look at CSS, it's worth it. And once your brain "made the switch", you'll never look back

If site development is part of what you earn a living with, you'll have to at least get a basic understanding of what CSS is all about - otherwise your clients will think of you as "the guy who refuses to sell them a color TV - because black and white works better".

kmkkid · Oct 3, 2004, 08:19 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:

You need a better graphics designer who knows how to position shadows properly. Browser compatability is the least of your problems.

Chris

Brass · Oct 3, 2004, 09:23 PM

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Agreed, I'm surprised I haven't seen more people put stuff like this on their sites, remember the days of this site does not support Netscape only IE. Well I think those of us in the know should start putting things even on sites that technically support IE to start saying stuff like "This site does not officially support IE, use Firefox or Safari for best results."

Actually, rather than saying the site doesn't support IE, you should say that IE doesn't support the standards used for the site. Lay the blame where the blame is due. (you are coding according to standards, right?)

MrBS · Oct 5, 2004, 04:33 AM

No?

I try to make my site degrade gracefully but I don't make choices on whether or not things look good in IE. Instead I just add a little disclaimer to the top right if the browser identifies itself as IE. If you're going to put a browser preference up though I think it's important to make it a two stepper.... 1) Site Designed for the Standards and 2) The following browsers are good with the standards.

~BS