One of my development teams have written a couple CSS files that work flawlessly with IE. However, the UI is all messed up when rendered on other browsers.
Is there a tool that can take these CSS files and convert them into cross browser version? Unfortunately, these CSS files are too large and the expertise desirable to cook cross browser CSS and test it is lacking in the team at present.
The most recent versions of all prominent browsers need to be supported.
No, because that would require a tool to understand your design intent and then fix it. If it was so easy to create cross browser compatible css by just using a magic tool we would all be using it.
Usually I see this done the other way around. Get it to work in all browsers and then hack in fixes to IE. My guess is that a few simple simple things are grossly affecting the layout. I would fix it for a more standards compliant browser like Firefox and then hack in fixes to old versions of IE as necessary.
You might want to try Prefixr. It did help me with some CrossBrowser issues, but I programmed for Chrome. Don't know how great the compatibility is the other way around.
Related
This might be a stupid question, but I have a scenario where I fixed someone's webpage, and it is looking good on all major web browsers on my Windows machine. However, when I uploaded the website to Adobe BrowserLab, and when I looked at Safari and Firefox on a OS X, the footer is a bit off from Safari and FireFox on a Windows operating system.
My questions are:
Is there a way to target only Safari and Firefox on OS X and not touching those on a Windows? I mean, is there a way to create a stylesheet only for OS X?
Or are there any conditional comments (for example, ) that targets Mac OS X? If not, are there any other ways?
Or, am I F out of luck?
Thank you people!
Best practice: Try to fix it without doing user agent detection. Analyze the problem, you could try to ask specific advice on your problem here. Especially Gecko and WebKit rendering engines behave almost exactly the same on each platform, bugs should be easy to squash.
If you really can't fix it, you can do JS browser detection, and include a CSS dynamically.
detect: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/detect.html
insert css: http://www.hunlock.com/blogs/Howto_Dynamically_Insert_Javascript_And_CSS
This is a bad practice however: whenever you make changes, you need to change each css for each browser.
You can target browsers specifically normally firefox chrome etc work roughly the same and ie may work slightly differently.
A way to target browsers is described here
http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/browser-specific_css_hacks/
http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/conditionalcomments
Yes, but this is rarely the right approach. I'd imagine that it's a font issue - perhaps you are using a font that is only on Windows, or one where the OSX version is slightly different.
If you did want to do this, you could either use a server side language (for instance, PHP) to check the user agent, then include an extra style sheet, or use JS to add the styles using the same technique.
When researching this, any info on CSS hacks should be avoided at all costs.
This is a good way to do this: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/detect.html as it avoids hacks, and produces an easy to use object containing the relevant information.
I would only use this technique in dire situations - in all the sites I've ever made, I've never had to do this, other than for old IE and iOS.
You can use JavaScript to target specific browsers but also operating systems for the browser.
http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/navigator.shtml
Can anyone tell me the best way to ensure asp.net sites look the same when view in IE, Chrome or Firefox?
I've just finished one which in testing seems fine in IE but not the other 2.
I have not used CSS on this site as its not that big, I just formatted the masterpage as I wanted it.
Could that be the problem?
I usually code for Firefox first. That makes things match almost 100% in Chrome, Safari and IE9 usually. Then I go through and test in IE 8 and 7. Minor adjustments are typically made within the same CSS file. For example, IE7 usually needs to have dimensions of a container explicitly set, where most modern day browsers don't require it and render things properly.
In those rare cases that you do need to style something specifically for one or more versions of IE, use conditional comments. Here are some good links on conditional comments and how to target specific browsers and versions:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html
Unfortunately you will need to use CSS to get this to look similar in all browsers. I say similar as it is unlikely you will ever get it looking exactly the same.
Basically you will need to use the conditional CSS tags http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/csshacks.shtml
I would recommend spliting out the style to the a CSS and getting that working in Chrome and Firefox. Then use the tutorial linked and add in IE hacks to make it look better.
There isn't an easy way of making a site look the same in all the browsers. As caveman_dick said, maybe it's even impossible. You have to use CSS and sometimes javascript...
But to help you, you can use some programs that simulate different browsers engines, so that you could see how your site behaves. Just google browser simulator. :)
I dont understand why the HTML5 website I am working on is different in all browsers. I know it must be CSS, but I dont know what.
on Chrome: http://slackmoehrle.com/chrome.png
on Safari: http://slackmoehrle.com/safari.png
on IE 7: http://slackmoehrle.com/ie7.png
on FireFox Mac: http://slackmoehrle.com/firefox.png
the style sheet can be found here: http://slackmoehrle.com/css.css
Can anyone shed any insight?
Many are saying that browser detection is not a good method, but I dont see what to do to make this all work in the various browsers
UPDATE:
without using a CSS reset: http://slackmoehrle.com/test/without-reset/
with using a CSS reset: http://slackmoehrle.com/test/with-reset/
Have a look at using a CSS reset stylesheet
My personal favorite is Meyer's: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
The only real problem with browser detection is the fact that if newer version of browser will support some new features (rounded borders for example), but you still will be doing some workarounds.
Better approach is to use feature detection, so you will be able to use some specific browser capabilities if it has support of them and some graceful degradation pattern when something isn't supported.
For CSS most pragmatic approach is to have reset CSS included for all browsers, then have some common CSS rules which look the same in all browser and additional CSS files for different browsers which contain rules that should be different for different engines.
From my latest experience it's almost always possible to maintain only two versions of these DIFF files - one for Firefox, Safari, Chrome and another for IE family. And use feature detection for JS.
First of all, no version of IE can handle the new elements of HTML5 without javascript help. Only modern browsers can and IE is not a modern browser.
As far as the other browsers go, I'll have to look more but I've not had any issue with any sites I've done but, then, I don't use CSS resets and set all the CSS on the elements myself.
I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to ensure cross-browser compatibility. I have done a bit of research and learned a few interesting things such as the fact that Mozilla/Firefox can't handle a class that has a name starting with a number. Is there a way to make a CSS work for any browser or is it better to just develop multiple CSS and add code to choose which to use based on the browser being used?
You might consider using a CSS Framework such as Blueprint. It includes a CSS reset that should help.
Also, you might want to look at Yahoo's CSS reset
An aside to clarify a point:
... I have done a bit of research and learned a few interesting things such as the fact that Mozilla/Firefox can't handle a class that has a name starting with a number....
Sorry, but that's not a Mozilla limitation, it's in the CSS spec: class names must not start with a number. Any browser that allows them to isn't enforcing the rules properly.
Answered here on StackOverFlow. The relevant part of the spec is at http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#characters (see the 2nd paragraph).
To answer your question: There is no way to make a page using just one universal css and have it displayed equally in all browsers, unless you only use an extremely small sub-set of all available css (selectors, values, etc.).
The way I work is:
Use a css reset
Develop for a browser that adheres to the standards pretty well (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera)
Patch things up for IE using conditional comments (because you'll probably need things that don't validate)
A good starting point would be to use CSS reset such as: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/reset/
Your goal should be CSS that works on all browsers. If you start out with a CSS file per browser, where do you stop? Mobile Safari? Flock? Konqueror? Every version of every supported browser?
Eventually, you might need to compromise, but you can cross that road when you get there.
Regardless of your infrastructure/framework/etc you should test your code on all major browsers. If possible avoid using style sheets for browser specific problems. Browsers will change and adapt which means you might get stuck having to update a bunch of websites when new browsers come out.
CSS is a fickle beast and I haven't found any solution that covers all the quirks except for a lot of due-diligence and testing.
You might use a framework that does this for you, such as GWT, but keep in mind that you will still have some issues.
Is it better to have a different CSS file for each user-agent or is it better to use CSS Hacks that only certain browsers can see?
Neither.
The best is to write code that works in all browsers without the need of browser specific code or css hacks. It's of course not quite as easy to accomplish, which is why many people use the other methods.
The key is to avoid things that some browsers (very often Internet Explorer) has problems with. One such thing is to use padding rather than margin, because IE doesn't handle margin collapsing correctly.
Some methods that is in the border line of being hacks is using code that doesn't affect browsers that work correctly, but fixes problems for a specific browser. That could be things like specifying a height for an element that normally shouldn't need one, or specifying display:inline on a floating element.
The page Position is everything has examples of some bugs and suggested fixes. (Often the fix is some kind of hack, so you should of course also consider if you can avoid the problem altogether.)
It's better to do neither.
A good css-reset and css that works the same cross-browser is a much better solution.
If your design absolutely precludes that, then (and only then) would I try hacks or IE conditional comments.
I haven't yet seen the need for mutliple css files (beyond a few IE6 corrections addressed via a conditional comment).
Neither if possible. Now that the old Netscape, IE <= 6 etc. are not longer really that much in use, I try to use features which work in all those browsers (e.g. FF >= 2, IE >= 7, Chrome, Opera).
Conditional comments for issues with Internet Explorer appear to be the norm. Combined with a little bit of JavaScript, like Dean Edward's ie7.js you can mitigate most cross browser issues without resorting to hacks within your CSS files.
its better to use a different css files for Internet Explorer 6-7 (include them via conditional comments), and a hacks for other browsers.
A sort of follow up is how to develop the single file that works.
The best approach that I've seen work is to start from nothing, slowly building it up and checking change by change that it's still compatible across your core browsers (especially the problematic ones).
When you get it fully working with one browser and then say "time to convert it" is when the pain really starts and where you have to start hacking.
My approach using a PHP class to detect os, browser and browser version. You can target any version of almost any browser on any operating system.