Re: [css3] [css21] browser specific CSS

On 1/04/2011 5:38 PM, Glenn Linderman wrote:
> On 3/31/2011 10:53 PM, Alan Gresley wrote:
>>> 1) Not all browsers can be easily differentiated with the various known
>>> hacks. Searching for and/or inventing such hacks may bring a feeling of
>>> accomplishment, but are largely a waste of programming resources. Some
>>> of the hack sites I've visited point out that certain browsers cannot be
>>> easily differentiated, but do have variant CSS implementations.
>>
>>
>> I strongly disagree with the use of any browser hacks. From all my
>> experience with coding CSS and HTML, any browser bugs relating to CSS
>> implementation that do occur can not be fixed with hacks. The only fix
>> is the rearrange the HTML or try simpler CSS styling.
>
>
> Hi Alan,
>
> Thanks for your response. I too dislike browser hacks

:-)

Let me re-clarify, I strongly disagree with the use of any browser hacks 
that are targeting or filtering the latest versions of rendering engines 
(Gecko, Presto, Trident and WebKit). Please don't take to mean that I 
don't support CSS hacks but any CSS hacks should be those well known 
hacks aimed at browser likes IE7-.


> , but with the
> state of the browser art today, and the limitation of being unable to
> detect a browser in CSS [snip]


Lets take Gecko 1.9 for instance. All versions between Firefox 3.0.1 to 
Firefox 3.6.16 has undergone major modification in how it implement the 
specs and the specs that were gradually implemented.


> Your suggested fix works for simple things, but today's web sites want
> to be complex things, and what can be done with CSS is way easier than
> coding everything in Javascript (which is often disabled anyway), so the
> limits of the extant CSS implementations are being pushed... if they
> weren't, all you fine folks wouldn't be working on newer versions of CSS!


CSS2.1 is still being worked on. I didn't suggest any fix. I will 
suggest that seeking these complex things will lead you no where fast if 
you don't understand how CSS works.


> Hence, providing a quick and easy method of discriminating between
> browser brands and versions in CSS would be a real service to web site
> developers that want to push the state of the art, yet have no control
> over their users' choices of browser brands and versions.


See above concerning Gecko 1.9.


> For my personal web sites, I've chosen to mostly be bland, but that
> doesn't appeal to customers. And even with blandness, I've discovered
> enough differences in browsers, that I finally decided to code for
> Firefox, use Javascript to detect which browser, and have a few tweaks
> for (mostly) IE (and not just IE 6... some of the differences I've found
> are still in IE9), but also Opera and Chrome. So if users of non-Firefox
> browsers turn off Javascript, certain parts of my sites look terrible.
> Firefox doesn't need Javascript at all to use my sites, but others do...
> only so I can detect the browser and use different CSS rules.


Do you have test cases? What you describe above does not reflect my 
views and my experience. What may be considered a CSS bug may be a 
browser attempting to follow two or more rules in the specs where part 
of the specs makes other parts of the specs break. Most of this was 
concerning interaction between floats and elements (inline-level and 
block-level) in normal flow.


> I'll be very surprised if this issue hasn't come up before within the
> working group, but after recently discovering the technique I started
> with thread by referencing, I realized how beneficial such would be (and
> is, as I've applied it now to several sites), so wanted to be sure to
> add my support for the concept, or, on the off chance that it hadn't
> come up before, to bring it up.


It has come up plenty of times. The last things implementers need is to 
check what bugs happened in what version or ship builds so it can all 
fit nicely to some version bug tracking table.




-- 
Alan http://css-class.com/

Armies Cannot Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come. - Victor Hugo

Received on Friday, 1 April 2011 08:29:46 UTC