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This post is not so much about a question, but a reaction.
Quite
often people new to creating CSS-only layouts will say: My site looks
fine in IE...to which there will often be the reply: Don´t use IE as
your primary testing browser, you should use a browser with more
up-to-date CSS support, like Firefox.
And just
sometimes this will provoke a strong reaction from someone along the
lines of: "Internet Explorer is used by more than 90% of all web users!
You can´t just ignore it!!"
No-one´s suggesting that IE be ignored
The
problem appears to be that the person who has reacted this way has got
as far as Don´t use IE and stopped reading. Or maybe they´ve kept
reading but been unable to take in the rest of the words due to the
shock they´ve been induced into by such an outrageous statement until
they get to the end of the sentence and see the word, 'Firefox', at
which point they think it's another IE v Firefox issue and jump in to
defend IE.
The reality is that no-one´s suggesting
that developers not test in IE. Nine times out of ten the person
suggesting using a browser other than IE to test in has a better
understanding of CSS cross browser issues (which means making layouts
look right in all browsers) than the person getting upset. The
suggestion to not use IE as a primary testing browser has nothing to do
with personal browser preference or about Firefox trying to win the
browser war (if one really exists) with IE; it's all about simple
common sense.
I wonder if these people defending the
use of IE would seriously consider developing their sites first in IE5.
Of course they wouldn´t because IE5 is an old browser. Well, so is IE6,
having not received a non-security update in more than five years! And
as such, IE6 has less than complete support for CSS2 with numerous, well-documented bugs.
Using a 'newer' browser
Maybe
these sort of misunderstandings could be avoided if people suggested
using a browser newer than IE6 as their primary testing browser. Even
IE7 would be a much better choice for a primary testing browser than
IE6 as it has better CSS2 support and has fixed a whole raft of the
bugs that plague IE6.
Because the reality is, if you
develop your site in IE6 and get it how you want it, when you come to
look at it in other browsers, you´ll more than likely encounter a whole
series of problems that require some serious reworking to overcome. If
you start off with a non-IE6 browser first, the chances of your site
looking right in nearly all other modern browsers (which includes the
Gecko-based family - Firefox, Mozilla, Seamonkey, Netscape and Camino -
Opera, Safari and Konqueror) is very high with the only additional work
required to add a few special rules to overcome bugs in IE6 and the
broken box model in IE5.
Using a browser with
up-to-date CSS support means you will spend less time developing a site
and if you´re a professional developer, saved time equates to saved
money. If you´re a hobbyist, you might find it a useful learning
exercise to use what I consider the 'backwards' approach and start your
design in IE6 and then try to get it right in the others. I doubt many
would want to continue with that approach for too long though. I mean,
who wants to do twice the work every time they create a layout?
Browser testing suite
I´ve
been referring to 'primary' testing browser throughout this post and
that's because a lot of developers will work mainly in one browser when
developing their site and then check it in others at the end to make
sure it looks OK.
While this is an acceptable
practice, an even safer one would be to actually have a four-pronged
testing suite consisting of Firefox, Opera, IE6 and IE7 and testing
periodically in all of them as you go along.
You will
find that Firefox and Opera will be mostly the same but checking in IE
as you go will enable you to catch the potential problems (quite often
caused by hasLayout)
and find ways to fix them that may be able to be incorporated into your
main stylesheet without having to add too many hacks or rules to an
IE-only stylesheet.
Even though I´d recommend using
those three (or four) browsers when developing a site, I do have a
personal favourite for the job, and I explain which and why in Developing your site using Firefox
John Faulds is a freelance web & print designer based in The Gap,
Brisbane, Australia. He specializes in web standards and building
accessible websites. You can find John's site at: Tyssen Design
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