Browser Battle
Posted on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 06:06
Your blog is pimped. You have labored long and hard to make sure that bling EXUDES everywhere. You have rocked your blog out ten ways from Sunday. You can't WAIT to show it off. You call your best friend, give him or her the address so THEY can share in your pride...
And?
You must admit, you are a little shocked to hear them say they can't hear the music. They can't see the movie files. The pictures are distorted. The fonts are ugly, and the right half of the blog is cut off and they can't see it.
What the hell went wrong?
It then dawns on you... Your friend is more savvy than you and is running Firefox as a web browser and not the version of Internet Explorer that you are. Welcome, my friend... YOU have entered the browser incompatibility zone.
Hey everyone... El Jefe here. Coming to you live from... well... my living room.
I've been looking at my blog template a lot today as I have made some tweaks and changes recently and wanted to see how they played out. And I gotta hand it to Raf and John and the other members of the clearblogs team... Their templates are among the best I have ever seen. And they WORK in IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Netscape, and all the rest.
And that's important. But then again, it's not so much the templates I am talking about. You don't have to worry about that so much. These folks at clearblogs have done enough of a good job in writing the templates, that YOU don't have to deal with cross platform compatibility... It's the customization that YOU do that can make your blog suffer...
Let me put it this way. If you have a 24" LCD monitor that does 1920X1200 resolution and you are running Firefox? And you write / customize / alter your blog in THAT environment? LOL You are gonna be SURPRISED when you see your blog at 800X600 in Internet Explorer.
Let's break this down a bit more.
RESOLUTION: The world at large, based on surveys of "what resolution do YOU use" is 1024X768 as the most widely used right now, 1280X1024 is second, 800X600 is next, and so on and so on. Also you have to consider the widescreen LCD monitor frenzy right now with brings 1080X760, 1440X900, and 1680X1050 into the mix... Confusing huh ? The best thing you can do for maximum compatibility is design for 1024X768. So when you are modifying your template or adding pics or content, don't go larger than 1024 pixels left to right or people are scrolling sideways. Everything higher than that will just bring it in tighter and look better. If you design for something wider.... the MAJORITY of people will have to scroll left to right to see it all. Not good. Design your layout. Preview it. And then change your windows resolution to 1024X768 and see how it looks. EASY to do, and it will give you an idea of what others will see when they look at it.
FONT: All systems are not created or installed equal. Some systems do not have Office installed. Some people use Corel, Word Perfect, or MAC OS, or Linux... Some people use Open Office... The point is, that not EVERYONE has your taste in fonts, and even if they do, not everyone has the same fonts as you installed. You might be using a Batang - Greco 10 point that looks friggin' SWEET on your blog. But your best friend will just see Times New Roman if he doesnt have that font installed. BEST bet ? Stick with the fonts that everyone knows. Times New Roman BLOWS in my opinion. Went out with the Model T, the poodle skirt, and Windows 3.1. If you use something like Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, or good ol' Microsoft Sans Serif ? Your blog will look the same font-wise to EVERYONE. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure your fonts are the SAME SIZE FROM POST TO POST...
post 1 : HELLO
post 2: hello
Get my point ?
BROWSERS: Well, here's where it gets tough. Browsers handle flash... embedded audio... graphics... font sizing... plugins... in MUCH different ways. When you add embedded audio or flash graphics, or java applets, you need to test, and retest to make sure it works in your browser, right ? But what about other browser choices?
You can certainly install Firefox if you have IE, or you can run IE from the command line (Start button > Run > type IEXPLORE and hit enter) ... BUT REMEMBER NOT TO MAKE IT YOUR DEFAULT OR THIS WILL GO DOWNHILL FOR YOU FAST. If you embed a song and it works in one, not the other ? Find a different embedded player. Install the plugins you need to, and test and re-test until you get it right.
BEST thing to do? Do your customizations, test it yourself and start hounding your friends or MSN contacts or Yahoo IM people.. Find yourself a Firefox user, maybe a MAC user, and some people that have some different resolutions that can test your blog for you.
You: How does my blog look?
Friend: Ummm pretty good. LOL
You: Can you hear the music?
Friend: Yeah. ROFLMAO What made you pick the theme for "The Little Mermaid" for your skateboarding blog?
You: It's personal. Say, can you see my video at the top?
Friend: Ummm no.... It says I don't have Macromedia Flash. I'm downloading it now. OK. There it works now.
You: Cool. Can you see everything else ok? :)
Friend: Yeah. Can I ask you a personal question?
You: Ummm Yeah???
Friend: Can you ask your sister if she likes me? :D
Anyways, you get the idea.
If you follow the directions laid out here, you'll be guaranteed a blog that can be viewed "uniform-ly" (is that even a word???) amongst all the popular browsers and platforms out there.
Ok, bloggers... That's it for me tonight... Once again, I'm around if you want some advice.. if you want some help.. or if you're lonely and want to talk to someone with a... let's say "unique" point of view... My creds are below... Hope to talk to you soon.
Blog on...
And?
You must admit, you are a little shocked to hear them say they can't hear the music. They can't see the movie files. The pictures are distorted. The fonts are ugly, and the right half of the blog is cut off and they can't see it.
What the hell went wrong?
It then dawns on you... Your friend is more savvy than you and is running Firefox as a web browser and not the version of Internet Explorer that you are. Welcome, my friend... YOU have entered the browser incompatibility zone.
Hey everyone... El Jefe here. Coming to you live from... well... my living room.
I've been looking at my blog template a lot today as I have made some tweaks and changes recently and wanted to see how they played out. And I gotta hand it to Raf and John and the other members of the clearblogs team... Their templates are among the best I have ever seen. And they WORK in IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Netscape, and all the rest.
And that's important. But then again, it's not so much the templates I am talking about. You don't have to worry about that so much. These folks at clearblogs have done enough of a good job in writing the templates, that YOU don't have to deal with cross platform compatibility... It's the customization that YOU do that can make your blog suffer...
Let me put it this way. If you have a 24" LCD monitor that does 1920X1200 resolution and you are running Firefox? And you write / customize / alter your blog in THAT environment? LOL You are gonna be SURPRISED when you see your blog at 800X600 in Internet Explorer.
Let's break this down a bit more.
RESOLUTION: The world at large, based on surveys of "what resolution do YOU use" is 1024X768 as the most widely used right now, 1280X1024 is second, 800X600 is next, and so on and so on. Also you have to consider the widescreen LCD monitor frenzy right now with brings 1080X760, 1440X900, and 1680X1050 into the mix... Confusing huh ? The best thing you can do for maximum compatibility is design for 1024X768. So when you are modifying your template or adding pics or content, don't go larger than 1024 pixels left to right or people are scrolling sideways. Everything higher than that will just bring it in tighter and look better. If you design for something wider.... the MAJORITY of people will have to scroll left to right to see it all. Not good. Design your layout. Preview it. And then change your windows resolution to 1024X768 and see how it looks. EASY to do, and it will give you an idea of what others will see when they look at it.
FONT: All systems are not created or installed equal. Some systems do not have Office installed. Some people use Corel, Word Perfect, or MAC OS, or Linux... Some people use Open Office... The point is, that not EVERYONE has your taste in fonts, and even if they do, not everyone has the same fonts as you installed. You might be using a Batang - Greco 10 point that looks friggin' SWEET on your blog. But your best friend will just see Times New Roman if he doesnt have that font installed. BEST bet ? Stick with the fonts that everyone knows. Times New Roman BLOWS in my opinion. Went out with the Model T, the poodle skirt, and Windows 3.1. If you use something like Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, or good ol' Microsoft Sans Serif ? Your blog will look the same font-wise to EVERYONE. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure your fonts are the SAME SIZE FROM POST TO POST...
post 1 : HELLO
post 2: hello
Get my point ?
BROWSERS: Well, here's where it gets tough. Browsers handle flash... embedded audio... graphics... font sizing... plugins... in MUCH different ways. When you add embedded audio or flash graphics, or java applets, you need to test, and retest to make sure it works in your browser, right ? But what about other browser choices?
You can certainly install Firefox if you have IE, or you can run IE from the command line (Start button > Run > type IEXPLORE and hit enter) ... BUT REMEMBER NOT TO MAKE IT YOUR DEFAULT OR THIS WILL GO DOWNHILL FOR YOU FAST. If you embed a song and it works in one, not the other ? Find a different embedded player. Install the plugins you need to, and test and re-test until you get it right.
BEST thing to do? Do your customizations, test it yourself and start hounding your friends or MSN contacts or Yahoo IM people.. Find yourself a Firefox user, maybe a MAC user, and some people that have some different resolutions that can test your blog for you.
You: How does my blog look?
Friend: Ummm pretty good. LOL
You: Can you hear the music?
Friend: Yeah. ROFLMAO What made you pick the theme for "The Little Mermaid" for your skateboarding blog?
You: It's personal. Say, can you see my video at the top?
Friend: Ummm no.... It says I don't have Macromedia Flash. I'm downloading it now. OK. There it works now.
You: Cool. Can you see everything else ok? :)
Friend: Yeah. Can I ask you a personal question?
You: Ummm Yeah???
Friend: Can you ask your sister if she likes me? :D
Anyways, you get the idea.
If you follow the directions laid out here, you'll be guaranteed a blog that can be viewed "uniform-ly" (is that even a word???) amongst all the popular browsers and platforms out there.
Ok, bloggers... That's it for me tonight... Once again, I'm around if you want some advice.. if you want some help.. or if you're lonely and want to talk to someone with a... let's say "unique" point of view... My creds are below... Hope to talk to you soon.
Blog on...
