Re: Proposal: version at-rule

Quoting Chris Moschini <cmoschini@myrealbox.com>:

.

> So - how about being able to place a set of rules in an @useragent block, a
> la:
> 
> @useragent( "MSIE", 6 ) {

I'd say the normal case is having rules that should be applied to all browsers,
except some black sheep that can't handle it properly. But it would be possible
to invent syntax to work around that, so the syntax would not encourage
developing for a few specific UAs.

.
> 
> This sort of checking is discouraged but is sometimes essential in the
> Javascript world - why not learn from success?

Success? What a weird idea of succes. Both UA-detection and capability detection
used for UA-detection are a bane for minority browsers like Opera. Almost daily
I can find menu-systems on sites that don't work properly in Opera 7, because
the authors have never bothered to update their scripts for its new
capabilities.

Usually they are not even capable of doing so, because they copied a script from
a third party a few years ago... Simply *removing* a single line of browser
detection meant to 'protect' Opera 6 is usually enough to make these scripts
work in Opera 7. But who can get through, for example, to the designers of
http://mail.yahoo.com , where the dropdown menus don't work? Or the designers of
http://msdn.microsoft.com subpages, which, depending on the browser ID you
choose, have an empty navigation frame, *only* a navigation frame, or a ugly
distorted display (you get the NN4 workarounds) with a working navigation
frame?

Sorry about the rant, but the more I think about it, the more comfortable I am
with the current situation in CSS.

-- 
Rijk, Opera tester.

Received on Thursday, 25 March 2004 19:11:47 UTC