Web browser

Hi guys

Great to see progress on the new site. Surely it should be designed for ALL browsers /OS etc...TBH to have a preferred browser is not the way to go.

Not really possible, you need to make a cutoff or you'll be stuck using legacy technology for ever.

Hi Bart, I have not a clue what you mean by legacy technology and TBH I dont want / need to know. I just think it is wrong to have preferred browsers, os, screen sizes etc. I know you guys need a common ground but is it not possible to design the site for all the browsers mentioned in the poll.

This site needs to be accessible to all, irrespective of what browser people use. If the design and technologies are kept simple then surely this should not be an issue.

Firefox through and through...

Hi Bart, I have not a clue what you mean by legacy technology and TBH I dont want / need to know. I just think it is wrong to have preferred browsers, os, screen sizes etc. I know you guys need a common ground but is it not possible to design the site for all the browsers mentioned in the poll.

This site needs to be accessible to all, irrespective of what browser people use. If the design and technologies are kept simple then surely this should not be an issue.

Web technology is constantly changing. It is easy to suport all current borwsers (which we will of course do) but you siumply have to draw a line at some point and say "we don't suport broswers that are older than X". Unless you do that you simply cannot develop a modern web page. This is no bad thing because old browsers are full of security holes and a danger to use so people should be encouraged off them for their security and that of all internet users.

There are a set of standards that define how web browsers SHOULD behave. Our site will comply with those standards. Unfortunately not all browsers comply with all of the standards so you have to pick a sub-set of the standard and use that. The further back in time you decide to go the less you are left to work with. FireFox is the best at being standards compliant, IE the worst. The older versions of IE are much much worse than the newer ones so we want to see how far back we can cut off to maximise the amount of the standard we can use.

The thing to bear in mind is that the site will 'fail gracefully', i.e. non-suported borwsers will still be able to use the site and get the information etc, it will just not look as pretty. You really can't say fairer than that!

As for screen resolutions, you have no choice but to pick a target. Not picking a target is like trying to buy wall paper for an un-known size of wall while not wasting money and not leaving bare patches on wall, it can't be done! Again, the site will 'fail gracefully' for people who are not in the range that is targeted so that they can still use the site but again it will not look as nice to them.

It's all well and good to say that there should be no browser or screen resolution targeted but we live in the real world not an ideal one and we have to make these decisions. We are asking people for feedback to try to make the best decisions we can, that's all that can be done unless you'd like a site with just text, no formating and not images, in which case all resolutions and browsers will be perfectly supported.

Hi Trevor,
the problem we (the web team) are having is that we can create a nice layout and template for this site's new look, that pretty much works in all the browsers PERFECTLY except for IE.
But, we can create the same template, but using a different format of design (tables) that works in all the browsers, but is a bit harder to edit.

We wanted to see what the majority of users to this site use, and hoping that it would be Firefox - so far, so good.

That way, if we do get a great design structure going for the new look, all that needs to be added at the bottom of the page(s) as a footnote is "Optimised for Mozilla Firefox using a 1024 X 768 screen resolution. Some changes may occur in other browsers"

Just because IE appears to be the most commonly used browser, doesn't mean we have to make our websites look compliant in only IE. Its a cheeky engine to use anyway, creating its own CSS standard away from the rest of the browsing world!

Seanie.

I'm an avid fan of firefox because of the brilliant idea of using tabs across the top of the screen for individual pages, while IE has to have seperate windows which clutters the screen. If IE was actually a better browsers, then I'd use it.
I dont avoid IE just because its from MS.

All you (the team) can do is make the site work on the most popular browsers and if its not "pretty" in IE, what can you do ?!?