Cross platform web design problems:
Good question.
There is no real way to make MS FrontPage designed web sites work within Netscape. There are too many things that are different between the two and they both keep changing versions faster than you can edit a page.
Wait until someone asks you to also make the page viewable on WebTV then you will have some fun. There are also many issues from within the AOL browsers where things do not work the way the should (and some very simple things too).
The only thing you can do is avoid all the great things (like hover buttons, etc.) that FP lets you do, because most of them can only be seen from within IE. This is why so many people put "Best viewed with IE 5.X or better" signs on their web sites.
Try designing your page, publishing it to a live web site and then looking at it from within as many different browsers as you can get your hands on. You will see they all display it differently. Not only from browser to browser but even version to version from within the same browser.
Amazingly enough, even the fonts are limited to the fonts that are on the computer that is actually viewing the web site. In other words, you can design a fine looking page but if the person browsing your page doesn't have the fonts you used installed then they don't see what you do. They will get generic fonts that may look pretty strange. That is why it is always best to avoid any unusual fonts in your work or do what most people do, design all the headings and titles ( using unusual theme fonts) into graphic elements which will show up like a photo. It is the only way around it and as you will see, it is a lot more work than just typing in titles and picking a font.
You can do a search online and find many web sites that have information on web design. You can look through their online information and I am sure you will find hundreds of articles about this exact problem. It is one that has been around and it looks like it is not going away very soon.
Take a look at our web site design we did for these people. We set this up so it could be seen not only in Netscape and WebTV but also on a handhelp Internet device. It is really great that it can do all this but the only way we could do it (as you will see) is to use only the absolute basic of design elements and this makes for a pretty boring web site.
Hope this helps,
|
Netscape Navigator
Posted - August 26 2003 : 12:21:02 AM
