Help - page stinks in NN4.79

[jimoblak]

Can anyone explain why the top horizontal grey image does not want to stay in the top cell in NN4.79? It keeps hovering over the black bar and white text below.

http://www.stivers.org

The page appears fine in every other browser. The problem is that the majority of users at the school use NN4.79 for some twisted reason. Upgrading to a newer, 20th century browser does not seem to be a welcome option.

- - picklefish - -

 

[deecee]

ummm honestly NN 4.7ish is not even in my vocab!

[Hammer]
Nike Failed Slogans -- "Just Don't Do It!"

 

[jimoblak]

...not in mine either, but apparently 6% of visitors do not know how to update their browser.

- - picklefish - -

 

[spewn]

Help - page stinks in NN4.79

should read:

Help - NN4.79 stinks!!

NN4x users represent less than 1% of the market...

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

- g

 

[jimoblak]

Thanks for spew'n out that link. But it only serves to show how out of date the school's browsers are...

- - picklefish - -

 

[spewn]

put a page up that if the browser is =< NN4x it defaults to a page where it encourages them to upgrade.

- g

 

[ChrisHunt]

DON'T replace the requested page with &quot;a page where it encourages them to upgrade&quot; - the user may not be able to upgrade (because they work for a luddite organisation) and will simply not be able to see your pages.

DO decide on a policy, either to make your pages REALLY basic, but looking good on NN4.7 (albeit forgoing such useful tools as CSS), or make pages that look good on modern browsers (using CSS etc.) and are simply legible (if ugly) on NN4.7 and other ancient browsers. I recommend the latter choice, perhaps with a page explaining that your pages will look a lot better with an up-to-date browser.

-- Chris Hunt
Extra Connections Ltd

http://www.extracon.com

 

[mwolf00]

One other option (if you REALLY care about NN4.7 users) is to develop pages (or a mirror site) just for them. I know, I know, what a pain - but like I said, only do it if your REALLY give a darn about them....

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rich Cook

 

[zoobie]

6% one month...and .004 the next...C'mon...Get with the program.

 

[mwolf00]

I agree zoobie, but .004% could be 10,000 ppl (.004% of what?). But let's say, for the sake of the arguement, that 400 of them are at the school w/ jimoblak - it is no longer an insignificant number...

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rich Cook

 

[jimoblak]

Someone lost me with the percentages. Where did .004 come from?

6% is higher than normal because this site is heavily accessed by those in the school, running the old browser. If everyone in the school updated their browser, the percentage would drop to the global average of 1%.

I have resolved to ignore NN4.79. It may tick off enough people at the school that they will voluntarily update their own browsers. The IT policy has been not to fix what isn't broken. The site's incompatibility with NN4.79 will hopefully demonstrate that something is broken.

I was just frustrated with explaining to so many folks why things look odd on their screens. As a designer/creator, you feel overly responsible for this kind of junk.

I have issues I need to get over.

Hi, my name is Jim and I can't please everybody all of the time.

...hi Jim

Let the healing begin...

- - picklefish - -

 

[xutopia]

I hate leaving people out as well but here there is no excuse. Netscape 4 is 5 years old. We are now at Netscape version 7, Internet Exploder verseion 6, Opera 7.0 etc...

Netscape 4.x does not support any of the proper web standards in use today and if we use it as a common denominator we'll never make the internet advance.

So I don't feel bad when I exclude NS4.x browsers. I don't care who I exclude nor how many people I exclude by making my pages compliant only with the latest standards (XHTML, CSS, DOM).

Think of it this way. Even if there were 20% of the population in a said area that preferred using a horse and carriage instead of a car we would not allow them on the highway right? Why? Because it would slow everyone down that is why.

Well building pages that work with NS4.x slows down everyone and causes enormous amount of pain to the developers (like you and me).

Test your pages for Mozilla 1.x, IE6 and Opera and make sure you keep a message for people with that horse and carriage to move out of the way and upgrade to something with headlights and a windshield!

No excuse to NS4 users! (boy I feel better now that I got that out of my system)

Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
==========================

 

[deecee]

what? i get on the freeway in my horse and buggy just fine with no issues.....

[Hammer]
Nike Failed Slogans -- &quot;Just Don't Do It!&quot;

 

[ChrisHunt]

Take a look at

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/tohell/

for an article on this matter (discussed in the designers' forum at thread253-311331 ). Somebody also recently posted a link about a prominent sports news site that had decided to abandon support for version 4 browsers, but I can't find the thread.

Basically, NN4 is dead - or should be - as long as your site is legible to users of that browser you don't need to worry about it being pretty. After all, content is king right?

-- Chris Hunt
Extra Connections Ltd

http://www.extracon.com

 

[xutopia]

Chris,

You must be reffering to ESPN's upgrade! I cannot find the thread anymore myself but we can read about it here :

http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/espn-interview/01/

http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/espn-interview/02/

http://espn.go.com/browserupgrade.html

Wonderful reading material!



Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
==========================