Web Site Design and Development - Browser Compatibility

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BROWSER

Short for Web browser, a browser software application is used to locate and display Web pages. It can display graphics as well as text. Most modern browsers can present multimedia information, including sound and video, though they require plug-ins for some formats.

DIFFERENT BROWSERS

For you to understand the following information it is helpful if you understand a little on HTML. HTML is the code that creates what you are viewing and your browser is the device used to translate it. A browser takes a web page document written in HTML and translates it into a formatted web page.

The World Wide Web consortium establishes the basic rules for translating HTML documents. The World Wide Web consortium published the official HTML Standards. Northern Web Technologies validates each and every page of your website through the World Wide Web consortium validation service. The HTML language is continually being upgraded which is why the HTML standards usually run ahead of what the browsers support.

BROWSER VERSIONS

Because the HTML language is continually being upgraded browser versions are continually being upgraded to support the newer portions of the HTML language. A newer browser displays website pages better than an older one. However, most users do not upgrade their browser version unless they need new features or upgrade to a new computer and are happy to keep surfing the internet and viewing websites using their old browser.

This is where it is important for the web designer to create a balance with the use of the HTML code. It is no good building a website with the HTML features of the newer browsers if the older browsers can’t translate it. This also works the other way. Newer browsers can translate the latest Dynamic HTML which can make your website pages look very flashy, but the older browsers will not be able to translate it properly. Your pages may end up unreadable.
Most web designers design their pages to work for the last two versions of the major browsers. It is impossible to design a website that will cater for all the known browsers, but the balance is to design your website for browser compatibility for the majority of the popular browsers.

COMPUTER TYPES

12% of computer users still use The Macintosh. Just to make the situation worse, the PC and the Mac usually display web pages differently using the same browser.
The reasons for this are
· Internet explorer. Microsoft outsources the development of Internet Explorer for the Mac, which results in it being a different browser from the PC version. The Mac version of Internet Explorer is prone to quirks and bugs that you won’t see in the PC version.
· Font Size. The Mac and PC render typeface differently. Using Cascading Style Sheets to set font sizes in pixels solves the problem.
· Font availability. Not all computers have the same fonts as your computer. This is even more so in the case of the PC and the Mac computers.

SCREEN SIZES

Everyone uses monitors with different screen resolutions. A lot of people change the screen resolution to suit their needs. Northern Web Technologies test your web pages using different screen resolutions. This means that your customers won’t have to scroll across the page to read your web pages, which most people find very annoying.

The most commonly used screen resolution is 800 x 600 pixels. However, many newer PC's and Mac's come with monitors that display 1024 x 768 pixels or more, and many people with older PC's have monitors set at 640 x 480. Browsers will actually move the Images around and the lines of text will stretch or shrink, all depending on the monitor's resolution. This can change a beautifully designed website into a mess!

Web TV squeezes web pages into a screen only 544 pixels wide, and then enlarges all the text.

 

 

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