Cross Browser Compatibility - Part1 (Overview)
What is Cross Browser Compatibility?
In a layman’s language, if we use different browsers i.e. user interface, the design and layout of different web pages will be different for different users. The web designers thus have a lot of difficulty in trying to find the code that will make sure that the web page looks the same in all the browsers or at least the maximum number of browsers.
When a web page is fully compatible with a number of browsers, i.e., across browsers it will look the same in various commonly used browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Netscape Navigator.
Each of these use similar cosmetic techniques creating differences only in the appearance, each browser makes use of the same technique only in a slightly different way. To make matters worse each browser can implement “enhancements” to W3Cversion of these formats each.
Web designers worst nightmares are when u add this to different versions of the browsers and that the machines operating systems also affect how a web page is displayed.
Dilemma of the web designer
To achieve a 100% positive result with all the browsers is an impossible dream, but to get close to that, it is possible to make it compatible with most browsers by writing a code that conforms to the W3C standards, so that if all the browsers also conform to the standards it is possible to be consistent with the results.
The biggest challenge is conforming as it limits some of the edge display effects given in certain specific browsers. Online code validators can be accessed at http://validator.w3.org , for HTML, CSS and links and it is totally free to use.
This checks the DOCTYPE and the code based on it and that tells the browser what version the web page is using of CSS or HTML.
The next part will contain more info on HTML editors, CSS Style sheets, Flash and Graphic links
Filed under: Browsers, Website Design
