Consistant look on FireFox and IE?????

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Jan

Jan

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Aug 6, 2006
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www.jansideas.com
It took forever to figure out how to make my first website look the way I want and then I went to IE and it looks different!

Are there sites/books to help me learn how to make my site look the same on Internet Explorer and FireFox? I am very new and just made my first webpage this week with a template. I'm VERY limited on my html knowledge, but know some.

Thank you!
 


IE, Firefox, and Safari render CSS differently
no, there's no book or site that tells you specifically how to make it look the same on both browsers
 
Yeah, if it is the css you need to search each problem independently. There is an idea for a niche site!
 
There is a way to make a site appear the same. Its NOT a good method if your constantly adding content.

You'll need 1 version of your site for Firefox, mdoify it to look the way you want. css etc
Put it in a folder like DOMAIN.net/ff

Do the same thing for Internet Explorer
Pit it in a folder like DOMAIN.net/ie

Then in your public_html root ad index.html that runs javascript -You should be able to put this into real java or find a simple tutorials

Read browser name
if( Microsoft Internet Explorer )
Redirect to /ie

if( Mozilla Firegox )
Redirect to /ff

else
Redirect to /error.html
------
Not in coding at all but its late so im not thinking.
 
Knives, that is just about the worst way to go about "fixing" your code. Not only do you have to write two versions of your site, but you'd be commiting search engine suicide at the same time.

Jan, validating your code is a good place to start for getting your sites to display the same across multiple browsers and platforms. Do you declare the document type at the top of your code? If not, you'll definiately want to start there.

If you don't declare the document type and made an object in css like...
Code: 
#boxone {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  border: 5px solid #000;
  margin: 10px;
  padding: 5px;
}
... it will display differently in IE and FF. In IE, the total width of the box will be 300px because it takes the borders, margins and padding out of the declared width and height, but in FF... the width of the box will be 340px because the borders, margins and padding will be added to the declared width and height. Nest a couple of those inside of eachother and your site will be all out of whack.

Anyways... that's just one example of what your problem could be. There are also quite a few CSS quirks within IE6 even with proper code that just doesn't display right, which can make writing code to work the same in all browsers quite a pain in the ass. But coding to standards is a good place to start.
 
i say design it for firefox...

if it looks broken in IE, slap up a ff refer ad, and over the ad put

if this page looks broken,
you're not using firefox 1.5
get it here!

i've done that on a site before after i gave up on getting it right w/ IE-
when life gives ya lemons, you know the rest...

the stats on the site actually show 68% of visitors using ff anyway!
maybe i can get some of the other 32% and get some clicks!

i know it's a pain sometimes, sorry i have no other advice. good luck.
 
kr338r said:
i say design it for firefox...

if it looks broken in IE, slap up a ff refer ad, and over the ad put

if this page looks broken,
you're not using firefox 1.5
get it here!

i've done that on a site before after i gave up on getting it right w/ IE-
when life gives ya lemons, you know the rest...

the stats on the site actually show 68% of visitors using ff anyway!
maybe i can get some of the other 32% and get some clicks!

i know it's a pain sometimes, sorry i have no other advice. good luck.
Click to expand...

That has to be one of the dumbest things I've heard someone say. Until Firefox takes complete market share from IE, you should be designing for IE first and Firefox second. I'm not saying that IE is a good browser. I'm saying that as a developer, you will be limiting your market penetration if you only develop for Firefox.

You gave up on getting it right with IE? Then you clearly don't have the skills to cut it.

Web developers who are worth their salt develop for every major web browser. Telling another developer to just "slap up a ff refer ad" promotes laziness and shows that you and the developers who follow this line of thinking are not good enough.

Edit: I said above to code for IE first, this is generally how I think. However, kyleirwin is very correct in saying to code to standards (which is something I do). Code your site to standards and then modify it to look correct in the different browsers. If you can't develop a site to look right in the browsers, learn!

Also, don't limit yourself to one stylesheet. Load your main stylesheet up first, and check the browser. If the user agent is for IE, load a separate stylesheet for IE-only styles and behaviors.

To do this, just throw in a check before you include the stylesheet:
<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie.css" />
<![endif]-->
 
DavidR said:
That has to be one of the dumbest things I've heard someone say. Until Firefox takes complete market share from IE, you should be designing for IE first and Firefox second. I'm not saying that IE is a good browser. I'm saying that as a developer, you will be limiting your market penetration if you only develop for Firefox.

You gave up on getting it right with IE? Then you clearly don't have the skills to cut it.
Click to expand...

i'm no web "developer: true, i've got over 60 domains of my own at the moment(with more being purchased daily), so if one doesn't look 100% perfect, i can live with that. i've changed the template, but this is the site i used to refer ppl to ff on (looks like shit i know, but i'm ok with it):
AXSS technology online - Home
my time is more important to me than be able to "cut it".

sometimes "developers" get so caught up in the details, they can't see the forest for the trees. some people enjoy coding more than others, i don't, there are a million things i'd rather do first.
i know enough to be dangerous, i guess.
i was trying to be lighthearted, i guess i'm not a "true" geek,
just a part time one.

this is a marketing forum. have you seen some of the absolutely downright ugly & broken sites that bring in boatlads of cash on a daily basis?
i'll give you an example of an ecommerce site i am building a new website for:
Miele vacuums, bissell vacuum, vacuum cleaner belts, nilfisk vacuum
i just got $3800 from this guy to buy a new domain for 10 yrs.(his former webmaster got this one blacklisted in google) and install a shopping cart for him. he was doing about $2-3,000 in business a day from that godawful 80's looking site before he dropped out of google! it will take me weeks to get the inventory listed alone! (that price only includes the first 50 items). i sure hope i can "cut it".
his new site is @
Discount Vacuums;)

but i have two kids, a computer business, a website & graphics business, i'm an ebay powerseller, and oh yeah, i am taking a stab at aff. marketing now(coz i heard it was pretty easy money and i have some unused domains; i have to actually WORK for my other jobs). my time is very important to me.


btw, if that is one of the dumbest things you've heard, as you stated above, you must not get out much.
i deal with people on a daily basis for a living, i hear much dumber stuff than that daily in actual conversations, not forum threads.

good luck ,jan. all i'm saying is don't let it get ya down. if you enjoy coding, then you will eventually figure it out.
 
Last edited:
Ye the way IE handles the box model makes a big mess. (What kyleirwin talked about). Then there's also a 3px margin bug or something in IE which basically means there is an invisible margin left or right? to floating divs or something like that so you can't always put a 300px wide div + a 400px wide div inside a 700px wide div because one of them will have that 3px invisible margin and squeeze the other down. Something like that ^^
 
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Goto http://www.w3c.org and run your webpage though the html validator as well as the css validator. You have 2 options in general - I find that making my sites validated allows it to look good in all browsers. The other option is to post in Sitepoint and ask them if they can tell you what is causing the difference in view - some posters there seem to be just waiting for questions like this.

In all seriousness, do not design a website just for FF - that is not a smart thing to do as most of your visitors will be using IE.
 
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claudek said:
Goto http://www.w3c.org and run your webpage though the html validator as well as the css validator. You have 2 options in general - I find that making my sites validated allows it to look good in all browsers. The other option is to post in Sitepoint and ask them if they can tell you what is causing the difference in view - some posters there seem to be just waiting for questions like this.

In all seriousness, do not design a website just for FF - that is not a smart thing to do as most of your visitors will be using IE.
Click to expand...

thanks for that

the reference to ff was just a joke, i'm well aware of it's number 2 position in the browser market.
it is just aggravating that IE breaks so many sites or renders features useless.
the newest- IE7, even renders some large corporate sites broken in its' current stage!
 
kr338r said:
i'm no web "developer: true, i've got over 60 domains of my own at the moment(with more being purchased daily), so if one doesn't look 100% perfect, i can live with that. i've changed the template, but this is the site i used to refer ppl to ff on (looks like shit i know, but i'm ok with it):
http://axss.us/index.php
my time is more important to me than be able to "cut it".

sometimes "developers" get so caught up in the details, they can't see the forest for the trees. some people enjoy coding more than others, i don't, there are a million things i'd rather do first.
i know enough to be dangerous, i guess.
i was trying to be lighthearted, i guess i'm not a "true" geek,
just a part time one.

this is a marketing forum. have you seen some of the absolutely downright ugly & broken sites that bring in boatlads of cash on a daily basis?
i'll give you an example of an ecommerce site i am building a new website for:
http://discountvac.com/
i just got $3800 from this guy to buy a new domain for 10 yrs.(his former webmaster got this one blacklisted in google) and install a shopping cart for him. he was doing about $2-3,000 in business a day from that godawful 80's looking site before he dropped out of google! it will take me weeks to get the inventory listed alone! (that price only includes the first 50 items). i sure hope i can "cut it". ;)

but i have two kids, a computer business, a website & graphics business, i'm an ebay powerseller, and oh yeah, i am taking a stab at aff. marketing now(coz i heard it was pretty easy money and i have some unused domains; i have to actually WORK for my other jobs). my time is very important to me.


btw, if that is one of the dumbest things you've heard, as you stated above, you must not get out much.
i deal with people on a daily basis for a living, i hear much dumber stuff than that daily in actual conversations, not forum threads.

good luck ,jan. all i'm saying is don't let it get ya down. if you enjoy coding, then you will eventually figure it out.
Click to expand...

Since you aren't a developer, don't you think you should let the developers give development advice? That's all I'm asking. Non-developers can be quick to give solutions that are not very good at all.

I don't care how much money you make from being a business owner, it doesn't give you the right to give development advice unless you can do it.

That being said, congratulations on your business. I like how you try and put me down because I can code and you run a business. Let me get one thing straight: I also run an online business.

As for "getting out much", you're right, I don't get out much. I work my ass off as much as possible.
 
Lots of good info and I have learned more as I venture into a new area. Thank you everyone for your time, it really is appreciated.

kyleirwin-Thank you very much for the input, will be working on that.

claudek-will check out the site, that looks really helpful.

kr338r-those are good ideas to just get a site up and going, but I've chosen to go slower and focus on learning at this time. PS: I've had to turn sigs off to be able to be on WF more often when my girls are home (as others have had to do to be on WF at work or in public), now I need to turn off advatars! I'll miss that too! WF you are still very worth visiting even without pictures! :)

I put in a bunch of wage earning hours right now, but will work on my site the beginning of the week and update with what worked best for an extreme noob like me! I wasn't even sure if I was using css...I found out I am! lol.
 
kr338r... jump in a lake.

Everybody is making it sound like it's impossible... it's frustrating and a pain at first... but once you learn the quirks of each browser, it's not too difficult.
 
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kyleirwin said:
Everybody is making it sound like it's impossible... it's frustrating and a pain at first... but once you learn the quirks of each browser, it's not too difficult.
Click to expand...

I haven't figured it out yet, and won't even try till Mon, when I have a less wage earning hours (too burnt out over the weekend), but I agree with the way Kyleirwin thinks.

I could barely figure out blogger a few months back! It was a pain and fustrating. As of today, not only have I graduated to WP and hosting my own domains.....I made my first webpage last week! I even help other people w/blogger and encourage people to graduate to WP! It has been well worth the pain and fustration and time to learn :)
 
Knives said:
There is a way to make a site appear the same. Its NOT a good method if your constantly adding content.

You'll need 1 version of your site for Firefox, mdoify it to look the way you want. css etc
Put it in a folder like DOMAIN.net/ff

Do the same thing for Internet Explorer
Pit it in a folder like DOMAIN.net/ie

Then in your public_html root ad index.html that runs javascript -You should be able to put this into real java or find a simple tutorials

Read browser name
if( Microsoft Internet Explorer )
Redirect to /ie

if( Mozilla Firegox )
Redirect to /ff

else
Redirect to /error.html
------
Not in coding at all but its late so im not thinking.
Click to expand...

why is it not good to constantly add content to the site?
 
omeg12121293 said:
why is it not good to constantly add content to the site?
Click to expand...

If you re-read the quote,
Its NOT a good method if your constantly adding content.
Click to expand...
It said IF you're constantly putting new content on your site. Every time you add content you have to use time updating TWO files for the ONE site.

Adding content to a site can be benificial. I believe if you want people to return to your site, they need something new and to know regularly there will be something new regularly. If you want a small site to get out there and earn some money while you turn it into a big site that will eventually sit and earn $$ with the same content, then there will be adding of content till that point.
 
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