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Standardizing Incompatibilities
Chris Eppstein says it’s time for something like Sass to be built into browsers. I sort of go back and forth on whether or not I agree. What do you think?
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Ben Ward on browsers today
“If I mark up a column heading in my code, why won’t the browser allow me to sort the table? To this day, I’m still not sure that there’s a good answer to that.” Some damn good thoughts about browsers from Ben Ward.
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Aaron Mentele Mobile Safari & Media Queries asset download tests
Aaron did some terrific tests with regard to how Mobile Safari downloads assets (images, backgrounds, etc.) on elements which are hidden via media queries. Also, don’t miss his follow up piece.
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HTML5 Readiness
Very cool CSS-powered infographic by Paul Irish and Divya Manian.
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When can I use…
Handy chart detailing “when you can use” various advanced web development techniques.
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QuirksBlog: There is no WebKit on Mobile
PPK details the myth that is the idea that “WebKit on mobile is taking over.” His point, which is totally valid, is that while WebKit is indeed becoming the dominant rendering engine on mobile platforms, each of those platforms has distinctly different versions of WebKit, so the idea that if you build for WebKit, all of these devices will render your site the exact same way is a misconception. His point is well taken, if a bit dramatic. It’s true that there are subtle differences between each version, and it’s also true that most people don’t realize this. But, in the real-world, they’re “close enough” that targeting WebKit will generally get you a very similar experience on all these platforms.
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Jon Tan: @font-face in IE: Making Web Fonts Work
Jon has a good piece on @font-face, and specifically how to make it work in both IE and other browsers. Great stuff.
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CSS Browser Selector
This seems like such a smart, elegant, simple solution to targeting browsers with CSS - I’m surprised no one thought of it before.
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CSS Browser Hacks For Firefox, Opera, Safari & Internet Explorer
A nice selection of CSS filters for many of today’s browsers. While I certainly advocate avoiding these kinds of hacks whenever possible, there are times when you really do need them. Via Inman.
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Dave Shea: Zoom
Dave chimes in on a topic that is very relevant to me lately. He says:
> I wonder whether designing around scaling text is still a skill we need to hold on to, and for how long.
I also wondered aloud whether we still need to be using relative unit for type in my typography talk in Sydney a couple weeks ago, and the Twitter haters came out of the woodwork to say that I didn’t care about accessibility and and I was “not thinking about about my fellow man.” It’ll be interesting to see how they react when Dave wonders the same thing.
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WebKit Web Inspector Redesign
Some really, really nice additions and changes to both the functionality and design of my favorite browser debugging tool.
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When can we stop talking about “supporting” certain browsers?
Even at a progressive, Web Standards-friendly agency like Blue Flavor, the topic of which browsers to “support” comes up. Clients ask us, “Will our site be supported by IE6?,” for example. And even in the Web Standards community, there’s still a lot of talk about “dropping support” for IE6, and the like.
But doesn’t this whole idea of browser “support” kind of go against what Web Standards is all about in the first place? Because of the way we build sites (and by we, I mean me, Blue Flavor, and most readers of this site), our projects inherently “support” every browser, from Lynx to Mosaic 1.0 to Netscape to IE to Safari to the no-name browser on your crappy flip phone.
And yet, we still talk about browser “support.” What we really mean when we ask if a site will “support,” say, IE6, is “will the site look the same in IE6 as it does in the latest and greatest browser?” But we all know this is a silly question. Of course it won’t. And what’s more, it shouldn’t.
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IEBlog: Microsoft CSS Vendor Extensions
Microsoft is moving all their proprietary CSS extensions to the
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Ralf Herrmann: Kerning and OpenType features in Firefox 3
Firefox 3 gets big kudos for its incorporation of kerning and basic ligatures in the new version of the browser. However, these improvements are negated by the fact that it also enables discretionary ligatures by default, which is likely to destroy the look of pages rendered in certain typefaces.
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Targeting Safari with CSS
Safari is probably the most reliable browser out there when it comes to rendering things as a standards-aware developer would expect, but there are those rare times when you need to target it specifically with some unique rules. For those cases, this article will point you in the right direction.
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Apple’s WebKit now supports CSS Reflections
Talk about scratching your own itch…
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WebKit now support CSS Masks
Oh man, this looks sweet. I’ll say it again: the WebKit team is totally doing the right thing here by continuing to innovate with these new features. Dear WebKit: web designers everywhere thank you!
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Apple releases Safari 3.1
The new Safari build includes several items of interest to cutting-edge web designers and developers: CSS animations, HTML 5 audio and video elements, and downloadable fonts.
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Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit
Chris Wilson and his team at Microsoft release a “readiness toolkit,” for IE 8, which includes (among other things), a beta of the application and a new debugging tool long the lines of Firebug. Nice.
As of today, the Web Standards movement is over. We won.
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Microsoft changes stance on version targeting default behavior
> “We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can.”
So there you have it. This should make a lot of standards-oriented developers happy, as it makes out jobs easier. I think this is the right move by Microsoft, although I never could quite figure out very firmly where I stood on the whole topic. At the very least, it prove MS is listening to the developers, and that can only be a good thing.
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Eric Meyer: Almost Target
Eric shares a story about a time in his days at Mozilla when they were faced with a similar situation to that which led Microsoft towards version targeting.
I feel sorry for the guys on the IE team. Having talked to a few of them personally about this, I know they’re smart people who want to do the right thing for the web. But the right thing, for Microsoft, is not necessarily the same as the right thing for the web. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and they’re trying to make the best of it. Debate the pros and cons of Microsoft’s version targeting proposal all you want, but do keep in mind that these are genuinely good people, working hard at bringing IE up-to-par with web standards (no easy task, as far behind as it had gotten). They’re not the evil Microsoft borg — they’re regular people. They’re doing the best they can in a no-win situation — give them a bit of a break.
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The B-List: X-UA-8-Ball
James Bennett talks again about X-UA-Compatible (Microsoft’s IE8 version targeting mechanisim). This one is funny, and probably accurate — but it still doesn’t make me get that up in arms over the fact that I have to add a meta tag to my documents. Even if I have to do something similar again in a few years with MS releases IE9, I’m not that upset about it. Why? One, because getting up set isn’t going to change anything, and two, because in the time it takes people to write ALA articles about this stuff, I could re-jigger 150 sites for IE8 and move on with my life. To put it bluntly: I disagree with with MS is doing, here, but not passionately enough for me to spend a lot of time fretting over it.
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A List Apart: Version targeting, take two
Jeremy and Jeffrey have a bit of a shoot-out regarding the IE version targeting mechanism in the latest ALA. For what it’s worth, I come drown more on Jeremy’s side of this one — the version targeting was a good idea; defaulting to the IE7 rendering engine was not. But, I also think this is ultimately not that big a deal. All we have to do is add a single meta tag to our documents, and all is well. No, we shouldn’t have to, but we do, and it will take us no time at all to do it. I just don’t see this as the end of the world. The only part I disagree with Jeremy on is that MS’s plan is “doomed to fail.” It’s not. Yes, people will object to adding the meta tag, but they’ll do it anyway, because the alternative is writing pages for the IE7 rendering engine.
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The B-List: X-No-Thanks
For anyone trying to make sense out of the whole IE8
X-UA-Compatiblenonsense, James Bennet’s explanation is almost certainly the most well-thought out and easy-to-understand one you’re going to find. I now have an opinion on this matter. I’m with James: X-No-Thanks.But even though I have an opinion, it’s not a very strong one. Why? Because, quite frankly, I’m just not that interested. If
X-UA-Compatiblelands in IE8, I’ll suck it up and spend 20 minutes putting the tag in all my sites, toss a few more curse words Microsoft’s way, and move the fuck on. Ultimately, for those of us doing standards-based work, this isn’t that big a deal. If we’re doing things right, and this actually happens, it means we have to put one measly meta tag in our code form now on. Big f’ing deal.Here’s hoping it doesn’t ever happen, though.
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WebKit gets Native getElementsByClassName
Here’s to innovation among browser makers! Nice work, WebKit. Mozilla and Opera, where you at?
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Stuart Langridge: Reigniting the browser wars
Stuart responded to the same Alex Russell piece I did, only less positively. Stuart makes good counter-arguments to many of Alex’s points. Alex then shows up in the comments and the two politely debate back and forth — it’s a really great discussion. The conclusion? Stuart seems to be coming around to many of Alex’s ideas.
It’s tough to talk openly in this community about things that aren’t “compliant.” The second you mention trying something outside of the standards world, you get clubbed with the giant Internet stick, even if you’re a standards advocate 95% of the time. I’m glad people are starting to talk openly about what’s really important — innovation and moving forward — rather than just about how we can all fall in line and be compliant* all the damn time.
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WebKit (a.k.a. Safari) now supports @font-face
I continue to loves me some WebKit. These guys are the designer’s best friend — they are really focusing on implementing the parts of CSS that really matter to designers, which is awesome (unless, of course, you’re a JavaScript programmer). :)
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IE NetRenderer: Shows screenshots of your sites in IE
Free online HTML tool that shows instantly how your website looks like in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, 6 and 5.5. Handy indeed. Could be better, though — it doesn’t show full page screenshots (only like 1024x768 windows) and it’s only a screenshot, not anything you can test interactivity with. But still — pretty useful for CSS authors.
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CSSVista for Windows
An app that lets you edit CSS and see the results live in both IE and Firefox at the same time. Clever — could be a very useful app.
I presume this is possible because both IE and Firefox have their rendering engines separated from the browser itself and embeddable in other apps (Apple does the same thing with WebKit on the Mac). I said it in Pro CSS Techniques, but I’ll say it again: I really think the separation of browser and rendering engine is one of the single greatest technology advancements in quite a while from the perspective of the web designer/developer.
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Molly: Working Together for a Better Web
Molly has signed on at Microsoft to deal with “standards & interoperability education and outreach” for the Web Platform and Tools division. This can only be a good thing. Thank you, Molly.
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Internet Explorer and the CSS box model
Roger Johannson details various methods of dealing with the incorrect CSS box model used by older versions of Internet Explorer for Windows. There’s nothing particularly new here, but this is still a major hurdle for people new to CSS, and Roger does a great job of outlining the problems and solutions.
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Opera browser now available for download on Wii
I’ve not downloaded and tried it yet, but the video makes it look darn good. Almost certainly the best from-your-couch web browsing experience available, anyway. Go to the Wii Shop channel and then Wii Ware to get yours.
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Inman: Mixed and Mashed
“When I redesigned ShaunInman.com a lot of bile found its way into my inbox and Mint referrers feed. All that unsolicited aggression is demotivating. And this is just a personal site. Imagine having to sift through that as a member of a team responsible for the most common browser in the world. ” Well said, Shaun. All too often on the Internet we forget that there are real people on the other end of the line.
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Rutter on Mac browser font rendering
Just recently Jeffrey Zeldman has been bemoaning the sub-standard state of text rendering in Firefox on a Mac. And the sad truth is he only skimmed the surface; Firefox, Safari, Opera and Camino may render even the same font differently.
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Jon HIcks: Cairo beats Safari
Jon Hicks points out that new versions of Firefox and Camino will use Cairo, a improved graphics library that makes text rendering far, far better than the current Gecko engine — and maybe even better than WebKit. This may just be the thing that finally convinces me to switch to Firefox or Camino full time.
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Browser Smackdown: Firefox vs. IE vs. Opera vs. Safari
“Four experts go head-to-head (to-head-to-head) to defend their Web browser of choice in an opinionated free-for-all.” Decent article. I’m still firmly in the Safari camp for everyday browsing, but I often switch to FF when in development mode.
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Opera Mini™ 3.0
By far the best thing to happen to your mobile phone since, well, phone calls. Go get it. It works on almost every phone out there.
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Zeldman: Safari better than Firefox?
I’ve been saying for years that Safari is a better day-today browser for the typical Mac user than Firefox — largely because of it’s glorious text rendering. Nice to see the Z agrees. That having been said, there’s no doubt that Firefox has some available development tools (Firebug, in particular), that makes it a must-have for the web developer. Also, Safari still sucks at Javascript, compared to FF.
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Opera Mini™ 3.0 Beta
Just get it. The best thing to happen to your phone since…well, phone calls. Now with RSS feeds.
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IE7: Were they ready?
An analysis of several major corporate sites and their performance in IE7. Interesting, and basically shows that most sites work fine, or with relatively minor quirks in the new browser. The author insinuates that standards compliant sites perform worst in IE7 — but this is inaccurate. Instead, sites which break away from standards by using ugly hacks and filters in order to achieve the desired results in IE6 perform more poorly. CSS hacks and filters are often necessary, but you’re fooling yourself if you think they’re anything but ugly hacks — and if you think they won’t come back to bite you in the ass later on. They will — but unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it.
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Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
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