Re: how to square netscape 4 compatibility with css

>My problem is, my client, who is large and archaic, has about 7,000 
>PCs running netscape 4 only. So it is important to write a site that 
>looks good for them. Thing is, while it works, it looks s*** in that 
>lovely browser.

In my experience, your only options are:

* Browser-sniff to send different versions to NN4 and non-braindead browsers.

* Send essentially plain-text-only version to NN4 through CSS-hiding tricks.

* Start with one of the few NN4-safe CSS layouts and tweak ever so 
very carefully until it looks good in other browsers too. Warning: I 
did this and ended up bollocksing my layout in NN4 despite having 
valid CSS and HTML.

Craig Saila is the canonical source for NN4-safe CSS 
<http://www.saila.com/usage/layouts/nn4-layouts.shtml>, but there's 
another one I just saw the other day that I'd have to plow through my 
bookmarks for.

>What do I do? I am sorely tempted to write to the head of IT at the 
>client organisation and say that if they want W3c compliant, 
>accessible sites (which they demand, quite rightly) that look good 
>at their end (which is important to them) then they have to install 
>standards compliant browsers on their machines.

Please do do that.


-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
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Received on Thursday, 20 March 2003 13:59:47 UTC