Designing for Opera

J

John Brandt

Until recently I had not paid much attention to Opera, but on a lark I
downloaded and took a look at some of the pages that I have designed.
Yuck.

What's the scoop? Any insights or workarounds for designed for this
browser?

jeb
 
C

chris leeds

noticed the same thing when testing some .css stuff. I think they have a
newsgroup and some kind of an anomaly list. you should check their site.
don't forget the mozilla firebird.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/
it's a little closer to rendering like internet explorer. it's not a bad
browser and there are some cool plug-ins for it if you're into .css and
whatnot.
 
C

Chet

<John Brandt> wrote in message

<snip>
| What's the scoop? Any insights or workarounds for designed for
this
| browser?
</snip>

In some cases Opera displays a page correctly when IE doesn't,
even though IE's version looks better!

It's not really a "workaround", just make sure that your html and
css validate. That will eliminate quite a few cross-browser
compatibility problems. You can validate your pages at W3C's
site:

HTML Validator
http://validator.w3.org/

CSS Validator
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Also, if you'd like to see what your site looks like on Apple's
Safari browser on an Apple iMac check out iCapture at
http://www.danvine.com/icapture/ (it's free).

hth
 
D

David Baxter

That's a good point... in fact, most web stats will tell you that
Internet Explorer accounts for at least 90% of visitors, and on many
sites it's as high as 95%. That means that ALL other browsers are
sharing the remaining 5 - 10%.

The decision really depends on who you believe your market is - and in
my opinion making sure that other browsers can at least use your site
(e.g., don't use navigation scripts that won't work in Netscape 4.x
because there are a few people still using that browser who then won't
be able to use your site at all.

The question really is one of "diminishing returns" - a couple of years
ago, I made the decision to stop trying to work all those extra hours to
make my site look pretty in NS4.7 (I keep a copy of that around as a
worst case scenario). Instead, a put a little notice on each page that
says "this page is optimized for Internet Explorer and may not display
as intended in other browsers", but then I also make sure the site is
usable in NS4.7 - it ain't pretty but it's usable.
 
C

chris leeds

I found a nice way to make it so the "warning" is displayed to "old"
browsers and not to new.
the trick is to use an @ import rule to keep nn 4.x from seeing it.
then at the foot of each page <span class="warning">Notice! you're seeing
an unformatted version of this site........blah, blah, blah</span>
then on the style sheet i just have the span class "warning" set as display
none.
works like a charm and no need for detection scripts or any of that.
 
C

chris leeds

Absolutely!
I'm glad someone with the experience you've got would be interested in my
"stupid trick".
basically what I've done is put a line on every page that, if the style
sheet is loaded, gets the display property of "none", not hidden (taking up
space).
then instead of a "regular" style sheet link I'm linking in a way that old
browsers can't comprehend and therefore don't load the sheet thereby
exposing my not usually displayed warning.
you can look at my source here: http://nedp.net where you'll see the style
sheet link and you can download the style sheet to see it how the span
..warning is written.
 
C

chris leeds

I've always wished everyone who made a website would do it with absolute
disregard to "old" browsers. that way the users of these dinosaurs would
finally get new ones. I've always thought when looking at my stuff with nn
4.07 that if it's messed up on my site it's gotta be messed up at other
sites. so I guess I don't look "comparatively" worse than others ;-)
 
J

John Brandt

I guess my question is why Opera would render a page so differently
than other browsers. One page in question is XML and has validated on
W3C.

Basic problem is the the tables are all left justified although I've
used style code to center them. This seems to work fine in NS and IE,
but not Opera.

URL: http://www.mainecite.org/

Thanks for any advice. Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

jeb
 
K

Kathleen Anderson [MVP - FP]

John:
In Opera 7.23, the first table is centered, the second one isn't. The first
one has style="text-align: center" as an attribute of the Table tag, the
second one doesn't. Does that help?
 
C

chris leeds

if it validates, and the css validates I wouldn't give it another thought.
the opera people will fix it eventually or people will resist their browser.
</IMHO>
btw the logos and paragraph on the bottom of the page float a little left in
mozilla firebird. in netscape 4.07 it's a little beat up too but in each
case it was still usable.
HTH
 
J

John Brandt

Thank you, Kathleen. But the problem is that ALL of the tables are
showing up as left justified. I tried putting the style in a <DIV> and
in the Table style, but it does not appear to make a difference in
Opera. I understand that there are no true CSS elements for Tables,
but the <DIV> has always worked. The <CENTER> tag, which is the native
method that FP uses to center text or Tables, is deprecated code so I
am trying to avoid this.

I don't really care if it looks this way in Opera - I'm just trying to
find out if it is my code, a "problem" with Opera, or a combination of
both.

jeb
 
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