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Jeepaholic
Average Member
USA
697 Posts |
 Posted - 05 July 2001 : 14:44:40
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I'm toying around with these some. What's everyone's thoughts on them? I like what they do, but I'm concerned with how well they're supported by various browsers and versions.
Any real-world experience on this? For an older browser, how does one make sure that regular HTML rules are applied while preserving the CSS rules for those that do support it?
Al Bsharah
Jeepaholics Anonymous |
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work mule
Senior Member
USA
1358 Posts |
Posted - 05 July 2001 : 15:49:32
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I use stylesheets on The Writer's Forums. No problem so far. 
Older browsers? In my opinion there aren't so many (anymore) that don't support the basics of CSS - 4.x and newer.
Checking the stats on one of our sites (which gets about 4 million page hits/month) this is what I found:
Total Hits Visits
MSIE 76.97% 289,159
Netscape 18.53% 46,453
Combined 95.50%
Browser Hits Visits
1 Explorer 5.x 88.11% 260,094
2 Explorer 4.x 9.54% 20,839
3 Explorer 3.x 0.36% 4,667
4 Explorer 6.x 1.94% 3,314
5 Explorer 1.x 0.00% 123
6 Explorer 2.x 0.02% 120
7 Explorer 7.x 0.00% 2
CSS compatible - 99.59% (Hits) - 98.30% users of MSIE
Browser Hits Visits
1 Netscape 4.x 93.10% 44,184
2 Netscape 6.x 5.25% 1,343
3 Netscape 3.x 1.32% 772
4 Netscape 5.x 0.29% 115
5 Netscape 2.x 0.01% 17
6 Netscape 1.x 0.00% 17
7 Netscape 0.00% 4
8 Netscape 8.x 0.00% 1
CSS compatible - 98.64% (Hits) - 98.25% users of Netscape
Keep in mind that we believe that our demographic, at least for the magazine(s) that the site supports, aren't going to be on the cutting edge of Internet technology.
Platform %Unique Visits
Windows 98 - 48.22%
Windows 95 - 14.06%
Windows ME - 13.11%
Windows NT - 8.53%
Windows 2K - 4.66%
Windows 3.1 - 3.48%
Macintosh - 1.13%
With numbers like this, I think it's safe to say that for the great majority, we can rely on using CSS and for the rest, we will keep them in mind and if anything, they'll get a plain looking site, but they'll still be able to read/use the site. Now just like javascript, with the numbers above, we don't know how many actually have stylesheets disabled/overridden (without using a component like Browserhawk).
I pretty much stick with basic stylesheet stuff so that if an older browser hits the page, it'll still look okay. I don't use CSS to replace tables for positioning elements on a page. Too much quirkiness between platforms and browsers. Even in CSS there are differences between how something is displayed between MSIE, Netscape and Opera. 
In the forum, I use CSS for the table backgrounds and text. If someone turns off CSS, then they'll see the HTML default colors (page background, links and text) set in the body tag. I don't believe in using both font & bgcolor tags in conjunction with CSS.
The Work Mule Forums
The Writer Community
Edited by - work mule on 05 July 2001 15:53:39 |
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Jeepaholic
Average Member
USA
697 Posts |
Posted - 05 July 2001 : 18:51:02
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Thanks for the comments, WM. My browser statistics look very similar to yours as far as usage (even over the past years worth of visitors). The reason I asked about older browsers is because there seems to be a lot of varying interpretations (even between v4, v5, v6 of MS/NS). However, I only planned on using it for links, text, and table coloring - similarly to what you're doing.
So, I haven't done that much experimenting yet...but what DOES happen when both HTML tags are intertwined with CSS tags? Who wins? I'm asking because the new layout for the site will have two types of links that are not interchangable due to color schemes. So...Hmmm, might have to pick a 3rd color for the default HTML tags I guess, huh?
Al Bsharah
Jeepaholics Anonymous |
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work mule
Senior Member
USA
1358 Posts |
Posted - 05 July 2001 : 20:42:17
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quote:
The reason I asked about older browsers is because there seems to be a lot of varying interpretations (even between v4, v5, v6 of MS/NS). However, I only planned on using it for links, text, and table coloring - similarly to what you're doing.
Using CSS for what you referenced above is fine with v4.x of both MSIE and Netscape and also Opera. Even the Macintosh 4.x browsers should be fine (I think).
quote:
So, I haven't done that much experimenting yet...but what DOES happen when both HTML tags are intertwined with CSS tags? Who wins? I'm asking because the new layout for the site will have two types of links that are not interchangable due to color schemes. So...Hmmm, might have to pick a 3rd color for the default HTML tags I guess, huh?
I believe that CSS wins.
Also when working with links, make sure you use the correct order in your stylesheet.
link
visited
active
hover
If you put visited after hover, then if you mouseover a visited link, you would get the style for the visited link and not a hover link. Everything cascades and the style spec closest to the element will win.
Also, in case you haven't thought 'bout this, you can make an external stylesheet by dynamic by using asp like I do with The Writer's forums. So theoretically if you wanted a larger font for a Macintosh browser, you could check and adjust the stylesheet accordingly.
response.write ("/* Link Style Properties */" & vbCrLf &_
"a:link {color:" & strLinkColor & ";" &_
"text-decoration:" & strLinkTextDecoration & ";}" & vbCrLf &_
"a:visited {color:" & strVisitedLinkColor & ";" &_
"text-decoration:" & strVisitedTextDecoration & ";}" & vbCrLf &_
"a:active {color:" & strActiveLinkColor & ";" &_
"text-decoration:" & strActiveTextDecoration & ";}" & vbCrLf &_
"a:hover {color:" & strHoverFontColor & ";" &_
"text-decoration:" & strHoverTextDecoration & ";}" & vbCrLf &_
" " & vbCrLf)
(I broke up the lines above more than I normally would have so it would fit without scrolling)
The Work Mule Forums
The Writer Community
Edited by - work mule on 05 July 2001 20:44:45 |
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Freeman II
Junior Member
232 Posts |
Posted - 06 July 2001 : 21:29:30
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can you use CSS to change font and font color?..
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Jomehe
Starting Member
Germany
2 Posts |
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work mule
Senior Member
USA
1358 Posts |
Posted - 07 July 2001 : 10:51:58
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quote:
can you use CSS to change font and font color?..
Yes, you can use CSS to change fonts, colors, font weights, you can use CSS to force text into uppercase or lowercase, you can set margins, positioning, letter spacing, and much, much more.
The Work Mule Forums
The Writer Community
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
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blackinwhite
Average Member
Turkey
657 Posts |
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