Browsers

[Euro-commuter]

I've started using Opera and Mozilla instead of Exploder for most browsing, but I've found that very many sites do not display correctly: for example CUK forums, where this very page has the CUK Navigation menu at right overlaying the Smilies by 1/3.

What is wrong here? Is the CUK site (and others) syntactically incorrect, and Mozilla correct but possibly overly pedantic? Or is the site correctly written but the browser unable to handle it?

Surely one or the other is actually in error? Or is page rendering a personal artistic matter, where browser and page may legitimately have completely different ideas about what to draw?

(PS in Opera at least, I do know how to fool the site into thinking that I am using IE, but the question is why I should have to)

 

[chicane]

Mozilla tends to render according to W3C standards, which have a habit of seeming a little bizarre from a web developer perspective until you get used to it, when some of their decisions start to make sense.

IE tends to render in a common-sense(ish) manner, according to how one might expect the standards to behave. However, it gets things many things wrong in the eyes of the standards.

I'd imagine whoever's looking after this website tested only in IE, and assumed that anything else would work fine.

 

[Euro-commuter]

Mozilla tends to render according to W3C standards, which have a habit of seeming a little bizarre from a web developer perspective until you get used to it, when some of their decisions start to make sense.

IE tends to render in a common-sense(ish) manner, according to how one might expect the standards to behave. However, it gets things many things wrong in the eyes of the standards.

I'd imagine whoever's looking after this website tested only in IE, and assumed that anything else would work fine.

Thanks. So, (for dummies)
- W3C standards say that if you code X the user will see Z.
- in Mozilla, if the developer coded X I will see Z
- in IE, if the developer codes Y the user will see Z;
- so developers often do code Y when the requirement is to see Z
- but in fact if the developer codes Y, the standards say the user will see W (not Z), and Mozilla shows W.

Hmm, yes, the word "wrong" does indeed come to mind for one of those cases.....