From: mvale…@draco.lnec.pt ()
Subject: Re: Webmasters: How cope with non-Netscape browsers?
Date: 1995/08/03
Message-ID: #1/1
X-Deja-AN: 107444032
distribution: world
references:
organization: Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil
newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc
Andrew DeLancey (delan…@herbie.unl.edu) wrote:
: Elizabeth M. Gardner (exd00…@interramp.com) wrote:
: : I’m working on an article about whether and how commercial Web sites are
: : planning to adapt to the onslaught of new Web users from commercial
: : services (prodigy, aol, compuserve, msn) who will be using non-Netscape
: : browsers, especially sites now optimized for Netscape. I’m interested in
: : any thoughts from you who design and maintain those sites. Will you
: : create a non-Netscape alternative that looks OK with other browsers?
: : Adapt your site to less advanced browsers? Tell people to go download
: : Netscape? Ignore the new folks? I’ve seen all these tactics in use, and
: : would like to know people’s thoughts on the pros and cons of each.
: The questions you pose are phrased in very misleading ways. “Adapt your
: sites to less advanced browsers?” implies that Netscape is an advanced
: browser, when in reality it is merely competent. There are many truly
: advanced browsers. Netscape isn’t one of them.
Precisely.
How do I cope with the problem ? I just dont use Netscape extensions.
This is not downgrading for the sake of other (supposedly) less
advanced browsers. This is conforming to the HTML standard and not
going along with the Microsoft moves of Netscape.
Now I’ve been using WWW since the first times ( Jan 94 ) and I used
to apprecciate the work of Marc Andreessen. And I think that he/Netscape
have all the right to experiment and develop new extensions as testing
ground. But to try and force them on all of us as a standard as a way
to sell more server software just doesnt cut it with me.
Let me put this another way: I’ve been creating some pages with HTML 3.0
(which is the new standard and does all that “netscapisms” does ) and viewing
the pages with a wonderfull browser called UdiWWW ( get it from the URL
http://www.uni-ulm.de/~richter/udiwww/index.htm ). What is Netscape going
to do about it ?
: The *best* answer to all of these confused questions is also the simplest
: answer. Maintain sites that use *correct* HTML, and don’t stray down the
: “enhanced for Netscape” path. Ever. If anything, I’d attach a little
: header that instructs users to delete Netscape from their hard drives,
: and download *any* other browser.
I completely agree.
And I tell my users to download UdiWWW. They get a fine WWW browser with
support for HTML 3.0 and yes it even supports “netscapisms”…
: The notion of a site that is “optimized for Netscape” is very intriguing.
: What this phrase seems to mean (at least where I’ve observed it in practice)
: is that those sites use incredibly annoying and hideous background patterns,
: flashing text in colors that clash badly with the aforementioned backgrounds,
: and ugly simulated small caps and large initial caps created with .
I also agree.
C U!
Mario Valente
—
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
Et in Arcadia Ego
