Great Resource for Web Development
September 3rd, 2004The other day I noticed that a major redesign has been completed for the Mozilla website. It is very nice but today I noticed there is a great resource web developers covering the modern technology standards supported by Mozilla.
It includes an API reference for Javascript which is something I will find extremely useful as I am starting to respect it once again now that Mozilla and MSIE are capable of reliably supporting the same features with little or no workarounds. Already I have implemented some enhancements with Javascript for one client and plan to do more.
Since I am brushing up on my skills with Javascript and CSS I am glad to see that Mozilla has put together this resource. I have read books by Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer and Jakob Nielsen and have learned many useful techniques from them, but current documentation right from the horse's mouth will be helpful.
As for working with MSIE, I have found that I can work nearly exclusively in Mozilla/Firefox with standard oriented techniques and then test them in MSIE. If there is a bug or some unwanted difference a little troubleshooting will resolve it. And fortunately most workarounds are possible with standard syntax which is the goal and reason for starting with Mozilla. The revised library of documentation at the site will become invaluable.
The most recent problem I resolved was with an XHTML 1.0 Transitional document in MSIE. I found that while you are supposed to be able to close any element within itself, not the extra close element it does not work with the script element. I started with <script src="code.js" /> but MSIE failed to render the whole page after that tag. So I simply changed it to <script src="code.js" ></script> and now it works. It was a simple workaround, but something which works properly in Mozilla.
I am working on a little tutorial/overview of modern UI techniques which are possible with the current support of Javascript and CSS in Mozilla and MSIE but it is not quite ready. I call it Rich UI, try it out. I would like to get any feedback before I post anything more about it.
September 3rd, 2004 at 4:17 pm
In all fairness, IE6 was a pretty good browser when it first came out. All we need now is an update to match Mozilla's CSS2 and CSS3 support. We might get this sooner than Longhorn, and we might also get Longhorn sooner than expected
Standards-based designs are so easy, flexible and elegant I can't imagine switching back to tables, unless it's work related ;(
September 3rd, 2004 at 5:06 pm
Unless it is work related... that is funny. And I totally understand. That Rich UI example is the most recent attempt I have made doing all layout with just CSS and DIV tags. I have typically had trouble with the margin and padding values in relation to the width, but I keep learning things by looking at the CSS used in various designs at CSSZenGarden.com.
I read that MS is getting the gang back together to rehash IE6 and implement bug fixes and hopeful round out some of the problem areas. I do not put much stock in it since it will take a few years for everyone to make up a significant portion of the user space to make it reasonable to adapt to a more standard friendly browser. For now I will implement the good stuff in backend Admin interfaces where I can simply require IE6 or Mozilla as the browser.