Cross Browser Relative Link - cross-browser

I have a relative link, such as <a href='file.ext'>text</a>
It works fine for me, but recently we've been logging 404s on it. It seems a certain version of FF3.5 uses it as a link relative to the base domain, not the current directory (which was intended).
Can someone confirm this is a browser compatibility problem? Testing with other browsers, as well as other versions of FF seemed to work fine.

3.5 and not 3.6? I wouldn't worry about it. Might not even be a real browser. 3.5 should have auto updated to 3.6. (And 3.6 now nags users continually to upgrade to 12.)
Still, it's important to know that older versions of FF reference files a bit differently. They reference files in relation to the page. Are you sure the 404's are always in hrefs? Could they be loaded via CSS or other methods? That might explain it.
Some info here, and you'll see that the issue has changed with newer versions of FF: Reference app relative virtual paths in .css file
You might also try using double quotes. You can download older versions (eg 3.6) of FF and test it yourself. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

Related

IE8 Different presentation of the same html from local drive, network drive and apache

my html/css works fine with chrome, FF and IE11. Also with IE8 when loaded locally from my harddrive.
When the same files are located in an networkdrive the css seems not to work properly. Colors and fonts are fine, but some div-containers are displayed at the wrong positions.
When i transport the files in the htdocs of an apache fonts and colors are fine, but other problems occur with the positioning. Strangly not the same as when started from the networkdrive. Some divs are now correct, others ar now misplaced.
I´m not able to find any pattern with this.
I can check the behaviour within ff and chrome with the build-in dev-tools. But i don´t know of any similar tool within IE8.
Any idea for my 1001 attemp to fix the problem?
Thanks a lot!
Microsoft introduced different rendering modes for local and Internet servers so that web developers would break down in tears.
If there’s no X-UA-Compatible value and site is in Local Intranet
security zone, it will be rendered in EmulateIE7 mode by default.
Add X-UA-Compatible header or META to force full IE8 standards mode.

Consistent website rendering across different browsers

I'm making an old website with HTML. I used the reset.css and I can see this perfectly on the web (http://www.ceachile.cl/revista/) with Chrome, Firefox and IE10, but my client can't see some elements properly. I don't know what else can I do to fix this table that is in a wrong place. Here's a folder with a lot of screenshots of the site in many browsers and OS.
Some snapshots of what the website looks like under various browsers can be found here
You have to check with elements of HTML and CSS each of the browsers support. Trident has historically been behind in implementing a lot of newer features. If you aim to support older browser, you have to look at their documentation and write code based on what they can handle.
Take a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250496(v=vs.85).aspx for ie7.
If you know your client's OS and browser version, you can use a service like www.browserstack.com to test your website in this environment and debug it with the usual developer tools.

Video.js breaks IE9 and IE10 under certain, unknown, parameters

I've been banging my head against my desk for months now trying to find a solution to this problem. The biggest issue is that it only pops up in certain circumstances. Since modern.ie launched and IE10 was released I've renewed my search for answers.
I'm running Win7 64-bit and currently have the latest IE10 (10.0.9200.16521). When I load a site with video.js installed it fails in standards mode. But works with Flash in quirks mode. Removing video.js in various ways loads the video(s) fine with IE10's HTML5 capabilities. This even actually happens on the videojs.com home page. So far I've tried the following suggestions from other locations...
Use a full path instead of relative URLs.
Change to preload="none"
Running IE after disabling add-ons
Running IE in safe mode
Running IE as a separate user
Numerous other similar things months ago I don't recall.
I have successfully run the site on fresh installs inside virtual machines. And my Win7 64-bit computer at home. But my machine at work, previously with IE9 and now with IE10 does not work. I've seen similar posts so I know I'm not alone. Does anyone have any new suggestions?
A super simple example that exhibits this issue can be found in this other question: video.js videos get stuck in IE9 and IE10, double length on Mac Safari
Update: Found a reference to forcing IE to use Flash. Thought it might be a workaround while trying to get IE to use HTML5. It successfully made other browsers use Flash (in a test to make sure my IE conditional comment wasn't messed up). IE still did not work.
Update 2: I have found other web sites that are totally unrelated that also fail to load. Considering this issue does not happen on a fresh install I may need to resort to an attempt to remove IE and install from a fresh download. Sadly this will not actually locate what is causing this issue so I may hold off and sift through the video.js source. That'll take a LOT of time so if anyone comes up with a solution in the meantime please let everyone know.
It took a few more random shots in the dark (uninstalling plugins, dropping to IE8 and then installing a fresh copy of IE10) before I resorted to sifting through "Related" links on here. But I finally found the solution.
Drop Helvetica from the videojs style sheets.
(And the rest of your styles).
Once I removed all instances of Helvetica from my style sheets everything worked beautifully.
I've known Windows doesn't get along with old Type 1 fonts—like Helvetica (I need it installed since my company's logo is set in it and it's bitten me before). What I didn't realize was that IE9 and IE10 effectively can't render them at all and that's what was killing videojs.
Sadly we can't force users to go out and buy new versions of Helvetica or Helvetica Nueue. So my suggestion is dropping it in favor of "sans-serif".
h1 {
font-family: sans-serif;
}

Is the website rendering OS dependent?

I'm developing a very simple web site, with only one web page, but i need the one single page to look as it should in all the browsers. Now, for testing purposes, i have installed a bunch of web browsers on my windows 7 machine (FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Netscape etc.) and after doing some markup changes, i've got the same looking webpage on all the browsers.
Now the question is, does "the way" a browser renders a web-page depend on the operating system the browser is running on? Should I install linux (or other os) and test again or it will just be fine?
You should definitely be testing sites cross-platform, others may disagree, but the rendering is definitely different.
In addition to base-rendering, you may also be missing fonts, have alternate fonts with the same name, have anti-aliasing enabled/disabled on different platforms/configurations and much more.
To see exactly what I mean, on a base install of Windows 7 with Firefox 5, OSX with Firefox 5 and Linux with Firefox 5, when using the font 'Arial' or 'Verdana', you will clearly see the differences, even if those fonts do exist on all platforms.
On top of the differences you'd see above, even your positioning could be out if you're using non-absolute values (hell, even if you are using absolute values such as px it could be out!), so it's always best practice to check your sites cross-platform, it's as important as checking cross-browser, in my opinion.
Even if the same fonts exist on different OS they might look different.
So yes if you want to be sure that the page look satisfactional on the OS you should test..
As rudi_visser said, you should be doing cross-platform testing. It's a bit of a bother, but absolutely worth it.
You can start by using a service like browsershots.org to quickly check if your site looks ok. To check older versions of IE, Microsoft provides some virtual machine images you can run in Virtual PC to really test the sites. Alternatively, there's this site which is like browsershots.org, only faster and IE-only. Please note, that screenshot services are no substitute for actually testing the site on a certain platform/browser, but it's a quick way to see if something's working at all.
I would definitely recommend checking your site in the older versions of IE, since IE has a rich history of, well, not working quite right. IE9 (which I assume you're using) is a big improvement, but a lot of people are still on versions 6-8. Since IE6 was around for ~9 years without major changes, IE 7, 8 & 9 have each had a lot of catching-up to do, so they're all very different.
As for other browsers, their rendering is more consistent across versions, but they may not be consistent across platforms. Again as rudi_visser said, elements might shift around, and especially text can look different. For instance, Mac OS X uses a different font-smoothing technique from Windows, so a line of text may appear longer/shorter, bolder/lighter from one to the other. A cross-platform browser like Firefox will use the OS' font-rendering, so even though the browser's the same on the different platforms, it can still look different. (The exception is Safari on Windows, which, I think, insists on using Mac-like font-smoothing instead of Windows' own).

Is anyone targeting Google Chrome yet? (Web apps, plugins)

Is anyone writing applications specifically to take advantage of google chrome?
Are there any enterprise users who are considering using it as the standard browser?
Yes, I have started to pay very good attention to Google Chrome for my applications. Recent analytics show that between 6%-15% of my users are accessing my applications (varies between 6 to 15 in different applications) on Chrome. And, this number looks on an upward trend.
Thus, I can't really ignore it for testing right now.
As far as taking it as a standard goes, thats a long way off. I still have to test for IE6! :( Though, we have been planning to start using features like Gears (inbuilt in Chrome - downloadable elsewhere) once Chrome crosses the 25% mark. Thats when I believe that we will be looking at Chrome to be our preferred browser. I hope that we have Chrome 1.0+ by then! ;)
I switched to Chrome and haven't looked back except for the occasional site which doesn't work properly, forcing me to load it in Firefox. All my existing web applications work fine on it, and I'm using it for primary testing on my current development project.
I'm not actually targeting chrome, but I have added chrome to my browsers to test sites on. I've found some odd quirks in this product where some plugins cause the browser to hang, or run really slow in some environments, but they are still in beta in active development. But I definately now make sure sites I work on render well in chrome, as well as firefox, latest versions of IE, safari, Konquerer and opera. I usually check out how it looks on lynx as well, that helps me catch "un-alternated text" in images. Yeah, I know that isn't a word, but some people will understand what I'm saying.
Because chrome uses the webkit to render HTML, you can be assured if it works in safari, it'll work under chrome, however it's rendering engine isn't up to scratch quite yet. I think writing applications that take advantage of it is similar to writing iPhone applications, remember chrome is expected to be adopted by android to make it similar to iPhone. That way it pretty much takes advantage of all those iPhone apps.
Would I install it as the browser of choice? not yet - but i'll certainly work on valid web pages that will render across all browsers.
One of our major customers has outlawed Chrome because it installs on the C drive without asking. They deploy a standard image with a small C drive and large D drive so they can easily re-clone the system part of the image on C without destroying the client's personal files on D. Most software allows you to choose the install directory. Anything that violates this is disallowed, and they're a big enough company to have some weight with most vendors.
We have enough headaches trying to support
Firefox
Two versions of IE which have their own iffy bugs
Safari
I'm not sure why we continue to support Safari. Most of our users (corporate) use IE6 or IE7. We try to make sure that things work in both of those.
Maybe not for programming purposes but Chrome w/ Google Reader makes for the most powerful RSS reader. Can handle up to 1500 feeds w/ performance still ok, managing subscriptions still functioning.
I'm using it on my work machine, but that's about it. It's been stable for me, and I like the barebones UI. I'll still switch to Firefox for the web developer extensions however.
I'm liking some of GoogleChrome- the Start page with your 9 most recent is the winner for me. The interface takes a little getting used to, but the speed is impressive, especially with Gmail.
However, it glitches with Java, which rules it out for serious work at the moment. I use FireFox mostly and have Chrome for the "other" websites at work.
I'm considering using GWT on an intranet project and considering suggesting to the users that use Chrome to take advantage of the enhanced Javascript performance. Any AJAX-heavy app would be a great candidate to target Chrome.
At my company, we're not targeting it, but we're definitely paying attention to it. My boss is using it as his primary browser, and I have implemented browser detection for it in our scripts in case we ever to need to target it for some reason.
Chrome has the .png opacity bug where the transparent parts of the .png are a solid color if you try to transition the opacity from 0 to 1. In IE7 the opaque parts are black, and in Chrome, they are white. Today, I decided to go ahead and account for this bug in my JavaScript. I don't really test sites on Chrome that often, but I am actually using it for almost all of my browsing.
I will target Chrome as soon as a stable Linux and OSX client is available.
Targeting Chrome/Chromium right now, I think is like targeting Konqueror web browser. It will get popular, but you should wait to a more stable beta, and/or some Linux and OS X client.
My website statistics shows 3.xx % visitors using Chrome which arrived just few weeks back. And Opera is only 4.xx % which has been around for several years.
Easily you can see that rate at which Chrome is picking up.
You can see how easily Google takes over all areas of your computing world and personal world too.
Since Chrome uses Webkit, it has the same rendering engine and DOM support as Safari (not necessarily the same revision of Webkit though). By testing in Safari, you can generally get by without worrying about Chrome. Any differences you find are probably just bugs that you should file on instead of work around.
However, because Chrome uses a different JS engine, there may be a few incompatibilities with Safari. So, if you're doing anything with JS, you might as well fire up Chrome and see if there's anything obviously wrong.
Generally though, you don't target browsers, you target rendering engines (with their associated DOM support and JS engines).
I am using Google Chrome, so far all the web apps I have work fine in it with no modifications.
No.
Why help Google further build an evil empire? In this particular case it is so obvious that they do not care about users but only obsessed with gathering usage info.
It's not any major player yet