Question for web designers: Browser Compatibility: Where do YOU draw the line?

when you enter the professional market and start selling websites for decent money not checking on Mac leaves you open to an irate customer saying "it's got a white line across it on my mac, and looks naff".

If you're building a website for a couple of hundred pounds then there's not enough time to do everything. It's .. get it up and out, move on to the next one.

My company will be investing in a mac mini shortly to cover the Mac front because this is a smaller, but important user base.
 
Not only irate customers. Journalists often use Macs so when a site doesn't work for them they have a tendency to write about it...
 
have you tried this? stops you needing to buy your mac :-)

http://browsershots.org/

good man!

this will be useful.

We've recently been using freelance designers, and they're all working on Mac (through choice). I'm not really that interested in Mac to be honest ... most clients will be on PC ... but I can see some complaints ahead if Mac is not functional and looking the same as on the PC - and for my company i have to forsee that.

I've been speaking to a friend about Mac and I might be able to source an i-mac (the one inside the tele) for a realtively small amount of money (£50). To be honest I only want to check, on Mac FF and Safari ... before I deliver to the customer.
 
We found some javascript that worked perfectly on Safari 2 did not work on Safari 3 which is why we have a Mac Mini with Safari 2 and a Macbook with Safari 3. The page wouldn't refresh after adding to basket when it worked perfectly in every other browser.
 
any reason, out of curiosity?
Different font rendering engines and differences in OS/browser chrome [Pango/Cairo in Linux] can, in some circumstances, cause pixel-perfect layouts to not appear pixel-perfect in the two operating systems. Absolutely positioned elements can be in different places if positioned with ems and the like.

I've never found the differences to be significant enough to be worried about. As MikeTimbers says, the audience isn't big enough to be worth devoting time to it (if you're a Windows-based developer).
 
I heard of a company that develops on IE7 and sells out for big bucks. I took on some SEO from a company that bought one of these solutions and to my amazement it was all broke on firefox. There were divs pushed together, graphics hanging outside the div and it all looked naff.

I rang the developer to tell them there was a problem (my SEO client could be losing business!)

I was told that Firefox compatibility was not part of the quality control and if they were to test it it would cost £500 to examine the problem. I had to pick myself up off the floor. Not only was the quality control completely pants they wanted to charge the customer for just seeing if there was a problem, which I had already told them there was.

My client got a bit mad and to cut a long story short they severed ties with that developer.

So quality control, if done poorly can risk damaging the customers confidence.
 
Different font rendering engines and differences in OS/browser chrome [Pango/Cairo in Linux] can, in some circumstances, cause pixel-perfect layouts to not appear pixel-perfect in the two operating systems. Absolutely positioned elements can be in different places if positioned with ems and the like.
I meant what was his justification for it :)

the audience isn't big enough to be worth devoting time to it (if you're a Windows-based developer).
the same could be said of those with visual/aural impairments.
 
If your site is one that contains a lot of text, make sure it works in Lynx. One of my favourite browsers that.

Also started using Flock recently, but that seems virtually identical to firefox.
 
Different font rendering engines and differences in OS/browser chrome [Pango/Cairo in Linux] can, in some circumstances, cause pixel-perfect layouts to not appear pixel-perfect in the two operating systems. Absolutely positioned elements can be in different places if positioned with ems and the like.

I've never found the differences to be significant enough to be worried about. As MikeTimbers says, the audience isn't big enough to be worth devoting time to it (if you're a Windows-based developer).

Where did I say that? In fact, I said you must check for Mac browsers as they tend to be demographically important (they have money) and shout loudly (fanboys!) when sites don't work.

With Linux users, they tend to be tech-savvy and are prepared to install multiple browsers particularly Firefox and so far we've never identified any significant difference between Firefox versions or OSes.

Unless it's for an Intranet with therefore a single browser/OS combination, not checking browser compatibility is commercially deficient.
 
I meant what was his justification for it :)
the same could be said of those with visual/aural impairments.
I see that now -I misread- and wasn't agreeing with the statement :).

I don't dismiss developing for Linux/Mac browsers, just for me they come lower in my list of priorities and I generally lump them just above edge-cases. In an accessibility audit I'd generally go Core browsers > Search Engines > Impaired Users > Browsers on 'fringe' operating systems (like Fx on Linux or Mac, and Safari).

I work on 'assumed' compatibility and accept the minor differences caused by the host OS. Gecko, Presto and Webkit should behave similarly enough across operating systems and devices, regardless of the host browser, to be safe only checking on one OS i.e. Windows if that's your primary platform.

Of course, if you have the time, a thorough check is a great idea.

Where did I say that? In fact, I said you must check for Mac browsers as they tend to be demographically important (they have money) and shout loudly (fanboys!) when sites don't work.

With Linux users, they tend to be tech-savvy and are prepared to install multiple browsers particularly Firefox and so far we've never identified any significant difference between Firefox versions or OSes.

Unless it's for an Intranet with therefore a single browser/OS combination, not checking browser compatibility is commercially deficient.
Ah, my apologies. I assumed sarcasm where there wasn't any -that's my own opinion coming into play :). Those are fair points, and I think it's certainly worthwhile ensuring there's an acceptable experience in those browsers. But still, I've not seen significant enough usage to make them priority browsers for development. 10,000 IE users spending £5 beats 100 Safari users spending £10, and the average consumer isn't likely to be reading TechCrunch or Slashdot.

Having said that, Safari is a browser I'm more inclined to check properly (I'm required to at work!), but I don't lose that much sleep over it. Incidentally, does anyone know the split of Safari vs. Firefox users on OSX? I thought most Mac users have ditched Safari in favour of Firefox. I'm happy to be enlightened!
 
I tend to draw the line at developing software for any web browser these days. I used to be a web developer for a number of year and developed many large and successful sites, but got generally ****** off with spending so much time working around the problems created by browser/platform/device incompatibilities. The fact they tend to update browsers and standards every few year just adds insult to injury.

I'll consider moving back over to web (from desktop apps) when the powers that be pull the fingers out their backsides and agree a way forward. I'm yet to see anything that will deliver this soon though. Infarct every new generation of browser/css/javascript etc just seems to introduce yet more problems.

Web development is about compromise and lowest common denominators, which for a self confessed perfectionist can be hard to take.
 
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<smug>True but when you have £400m p.a. turnover on your site and 10% are Mac users, that's £40m! That's why we check so many combinations.</smug>
Sure, I can understand 10% of your consumers is enough to make it worthwhile. But what if the developer hours spent checking on Mac and Linux browsers, and tweaking pixel perfect layouts, means time is lost that could be devoted to developing new features. Features that could generate twice the turnover? - the law of diminishing returns.
 
<smug>True but when you have £400m p.a. turnover on your site and 10% are Mac users, that's £40m! That's why we check so many combinations.</smug>

Yeah but at that point you can afford a whole army of code monkeys dedicated to the task of making the site work on minority platforms. The vast majority of businesses can't afford that luxury without seriously compromising functionality.

Sure, I can understand 10% of your consumers is enough to make it worthwhile. But what if the developer hours spent checking on Mac and Linux browsers, and tweaking pixel perfect layouts, means time is lost that could be devoted to developing new features. Features that could generate twice the turnover? - the law of diminishing returns.
Actually, also what he said. :o
 
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Sure, I can understand 10% of your consumers is enough to make it worthwhile. But what if the developer hours spent checking on Mac and Linux browsers, and tweaking pixel perfect layouts, means time is lost that could be devoted to developing new features. Features that could generate twice the turnover? - the law of diminishing returns.
Depends entirely on your client needs. On a side note, I'm yet to see one problem between linux and windows. Fonts are an issue, but if you are sensible and choose a font like Verdana, there is no issue. Besides which, every popular distro has the "MS Fonts" package included, so they have all the same fonts as Windows anyway.
 
I've just about finished my own website for my web design business at long last.

It's been on the "back burner" for months as I've been far too busy with other individuals web sites.

But recent events meant I really needed to get it updated and finalised, so its almost done.

Anyway, here's a question for anyone in web design that has been bugging me for a while.

At what point do you draw the line when it comes to browser compatibility?

Do you really care that someone still running IE 5.5 or lower cant display your website at its full effect?.

I try and make mine display pretty much exactly the same within anything from IE 6.0 upwards as well as Firefox. Not always easy as a task, as I'm sure you will all agree, but a valid concern nonetheless. But how far "backwards compatible" do we go in this day and age?.

Its kinda strange though.

My newly built site displays fine in IE 6.0 upwards as well as FF, but I was at work today ( Fire Service ) and when I tried viewing my site and another recent one I've completed, the Flash animation "fading" images didn't appear. Just the placeholder with the "red x" within.

I'm wondering if its something to do with the set up of the brigades network PC's themselves. We are subject to various restrictions such as image displaying and downloading files. I could not download the Active-x to get the Flash to display on my site.

However, various other sites with Flash anim's contained within display fine on the work network PC's?. I know Flash has its own issues when used as part of a site's content, there are probably alternatives I should think about exploring and if anyone can suggest any, I'm all ears.

So two questions really. Why is my Flash not displaying but other Flash is and what do you think about the first question about how far back to go to ensure compatibility with certain older browsers?.

Thanks.

My websites have to work in Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox and Opera at least.
 
Infarct every new generation of browser/css/javascript etc just seems to introduce yet more problems.
Actually, the opposite is now true. IE7 was a vast, vast improvement over IE6 - it pretty much matches FF / Safari / Opera rendering for the most part.

As long as you develop to web standards then you can be fairly confident there will only be a few minor tweaks for everything other than IE6 (assuming you've ditched IE < 6 support completely).
 
It's the most important, and in reality, the only factor. If you're making a proprietary app. for off-the-shelf, then you're best complying with as many browsers as you can think of. If you're making an intranet based app for internal use only, then just stick to the corporate chosen browser (IE) and perhaps firefox/opera to satisfy those awkward geeks in the midst who like to use other browsers to keep lying to themselves they are not corporate monkeys (like me! :D)
 
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