Preserved Topic: Stability test (Page 1 of 1)

I've just updated my vanity site. It now uses PHP for browser type determination, and sends (hopefully) appropriate pages to the viewer.

While the content is virtually nonexistant (just a few 3-year-old images), I'd like some checks on the actual functionality.

What you should see:
-- no frames: you'll keep hitting the same page, with different parameters. One cell of the table on that page will be different for each virtual 'page'.
-- IE4+ NS4+: A frame oriented site, with a DHTML navbar in the left frame. The link buttons should be animated on mouseover. Currently the content frame (on the right) doesn't use DHTML, but I will probably add it in the future.
-- Older browsers: A frame oriented site, with a nav frame on the left and a content frame on the right. Both frames are table oriented.

Soon, I'm going to add style sheets to the content pages. Currently, the text is browser default.

Feedback I'd like:
-- doesn't work with your browser - what browser, and what's it doing wrong
-- errors due to my limited knowledge of web page design - what did I do wrong, and how would I fix it
-- general design issues - I'm open to suggestions

Note that the banner graphic is a placeholder. I just whipped something up in a few minutes with Photoshop.

The site

i tested with opera 5.0. your enter button was shoved all the way to the middle left side of the screen. by default, opera identifies as ie 5.x, which is what your php script picked up on.

so i restarted opera with it identifying as opera. your script told me that i was "other".

the ie 5.x script worked just fine for opera, none of the mouseovers worked with the "other" script.

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this rose has a thorn...

NN4.7.. laid out just like you said it would be mouseovers work... .. banner sucks.. thats all ~Vp~

Same here

The only caveat I had was that the enter splash page was redundant. Doesn't really serve much purpose and when browsing your site it's only viewed for a second or so.

Also, the mouseovers are nice, but it might look better if the animation was speeded up a little. Or maybe that's just me.

Other than that, everything looks fine to me on IE 5.0 @ 800x600.

i'm using mozilla 0.9 and your script showed me "Netscape v5.x".
i looked up that site with IE 6.0 and this gave me a "Internet Explorer (pre-3.x)".
anyway. i couldn't see any navigation in mozilla!
i'm using win2k with mozilla 0.9.

mouseovers? i couldn't see any of them

silence - The splash page is required to filter non-javascript browsers. Without it, I wasn't able to find a way to detect higher level browsers that had javascript turned off. I'm also going to put the redirect to the Flash version on the splash when I implement it.

la'dsasha - did the site work in Opera masquerading as IE5, other than the uncentered splash? The splash being uncentered confuses me; it's a very simple table I tried to set up to be totally cross-browser capable. Do you have any suggestions for centering the button that will work better? Maybe if I change all the "*"s to "100%"s? I ask because I know you're knowledgable in this cross-browser stuff

vogonpoet - "banner sucks" -- As I said, "the banner graphic is a placeholder". I'm going to replace it with one of my glass effects.

u-neek - thanks. I'll work on the detection for IE6. Is mozilla 0.9 a released browser, or a beta? Sorry for my not being up-to-date.

I guess I'll have to download a whole mess-o-browsers. I was hoping I could detect post-v4 IE and NN, and design a dirt simple setup for all others.

[This message has been edited by Das (edited 05-09-2001).]

IE6 should be working now (depending on how backward compatible it is). Had a typo that didn't recognize 6.x as being 'v4 or higher'.

yeah, opera 5 worked just fine with the ie5 masquerade. id just make your table centered on the page instead of fooling with the width. would probably save you a bit of a headache there.

i just now tested with ns6. your detection is netscape 5.x. when it comes to images, ns6 is notoriously flakey if you have multiple progs running, particularly if theyre browsers. i just have this ie window open and ns6. i refreshed a few times, but only saw your banner. not even a hint that something else is supposed to be there. i can see the images clearly in source (but i notice that theres no image image dimensions are set -- not sure if this is the problem in this case). in theory they should be there since theyre just tables

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this rose has a thorn...

Had no problems with viewing the site on NN.

Only suggestion I have is switching to a serif font, or just something different, for your banner and menu items. I know the banner was just temp, but the same font is in the menu, so I figure you will be using it in the future. In the banner, your name looks like Davelngram ... the capital I looks too much like a lower case l.

Other than that, not much to comment on yet.

BeeKay

BeeKay
Murphy's 50 Laws of Combat Operations
14. Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you.
31. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.

Updated - the entry page now uses the (outdated) <center> tag, and valigns the button. I'm hoping it will be centered in Opera now (it tests as centered in IE5.5, NN3, NN4). Also added the height/width tags for the navbuttons, to attempt to address the buttons going missing in NN sometimes.