Topic awaiting preservation: what now for browsers, css and developement?

Well, the future presses along. Netscape navigator has been executed and pronounced dead, Mozilla is climbing somewhat, And ie has been at version 6 for who knows how long (except with a few softpaqs). Now with the lawsuit with Eolis, its said that ie will even have a strange update.

CSS is finally being more considered and taken more seriously, by both coders and finally graphic artists (horaay!!)

So what now? Do your still continue to design for NN4? Or netscape at all? I had a client tell me the other day that the fonts on his website were a little too small. Well they are pixel fonts, but the main problem was that his screen resolution was now set to 1280X1024!! I usually design for at least 800X600 resolution, but what now?

So I guess my question is what browsers do you still design for? what resolution do you design for? I am ready to really take the "CSS leap" but am also hesitant, as most of the W3C compliant websites that I visit seem to have that same boxy, plain feel to it. As if they have been creatively hindered just to meet standards. " Will CSS somewhat limit my design control?" I think to myself. But I do see the importance and the future in it.

Sorry to ramble,but somehow I find this mindless banter therapeutic...







[This message has been edited by jive (edited 12-13-2003).]

Since I've been using CSS on my last projects I've stopped coding for NN4. The only thing I think about is that the page should degrade nicely in browsers that doesn't support CSS, but that is easily done if you use semantic code. The newest netscape uses the same render engine as moz1.0, so as long as the page works in mozilla it will work in recent versions of netscape.

On the resolution part I mostly design with 1024x768 in mind, but I take care so that the page is at leat viewable down to 800x600. But depending on the audience it the 800x600 resolution might be more important. If you use fluid design making it look good/decent in most resolution shouldn't be that much of a problem either.

If you've read the last couple of CSS articles over at alistapart you should know that CSS won't limit your design control. And even if you have to do some 'ugly' CSS hacks to make your design work, it will look better code wise than the table-mess that is your other option. Biggest problem is the none standard compilant browsers (mainly IE) that doesn't support as much of the CSS standards as Opera and Mozilla. But there are usually easy hacks available that will let you fix the IE problems. So CSS is the way to go

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

I'm on the verge of buying zeldmens designing with webstandards book. Any good reviews here on it?

My resolution is 1280x1024, but I like to make the page able to fit on 800x600.

Here's a cool page that uses the same code(it's not boring boxes anymore :P ), it just switches style sheets for a lot different look http://www.csszengarden.com/

jive: CSS do not limit the capabilities nor the creativity of web designers. The CssZenGarden is here to prove it and you're not yet convinced you could check the latest article on A List Apart ( Night of the Image Map ) which shows how to have a scattered layout and keep a clean markup.

My resolution is also 1280x1024 ( because my 19" TFT can't handle 1600x1200 nor 1280x960 ), but I always design for 800x600. For the font size, you could read the Font Size Redux article by Dave Shea ( the happy creator of the CssZenGarden, and the new Mozilla.org website ). In short, try to avoid pixel size, or use them at the top element and use % for the child selectors. I've also seen some sites will absolutely everything set with the em units, that way when the user tweak the browser font size, everything is altered and the proportions are kept.

Cheers,

Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

The future of CSS? Well, let's see. It's going to take a long time, but eventually CSS will get to a point where we can create our HTML without a single thought as to what the page will look like (not worrying about having extra DIV or SPAN tags, or placing them in the right places), since CSS will be powerful enough to take *any* HTML page and lay it out in *any* manner. In addition, it will be easy and intuitive to do so. This is in the far future, though, since (a) CSS3 (or maybe even CSS4) needs to come out, and then browsers need to support it fully.

Regarding screen resolution: As resolutions get larger and larger, I think one day we can hope to see a point where designing in "pixels" makes absolutely no sense, since a pixel for one person's monitor is a completely different size from a pixel on another person's monitor. Rather, we would design in inches or centimeters, and the user's computer's DPI would be correctly set based on their monitor's resolution and physical size, and things would appear the same to any user - and there would be enough pixels to display it without any sort of aliasing. That's what I'm hoping for, at least. =)

As always, professionaly speaking you're forced to accomodate the lowest common denominator if it's useage percentages are high enough to warrant it (I'd say toss NN4/IE4 support for most target audiences but 800x600 is still extremely prevalent).

In reference to your boxy/plain comment: I'm afraid the days of "insanely cool, diverse and eyecandyful" HTML-based layouts have been waning for a while now due to specifications and browsers maturing parallel with the needs of the businesses and users that visit sites (not to mention the costs associated with this approach).

In the infancy of the internet there was extreme infatuation with the visual and toy factor. Those types of sites drew a lot of attention and visitors were inspired to become developers in the same vein. The atmosphere is changing however on computing environment (server and client side), personal and professional levels which is all working at prying that mindset out of the day to day business of the web.

Computing enviroment, client side, things are movin to different mediums. Even within the "standard" desktop environment you've got a huge diversity of equipment now. As an educated feely type mass generalization, I'd be willing to say, for the sake of the illustration, that over half the internet's surfing clients is made up of 500-800Mhz range machines with 800x600-1024x768 resolutions. The other half, no tellin! Upper end machines from a Ghz processor up to 3Ghz+ and Hyperthreading, lower end (power and resolution wise) at 90mhz and 320x240 resolutions for handhelds and all points between. Resolution is very crazy these days. Dell is shipping laptops with 14-15" screens with a native resolution of 1600x1200, I am_not_kidding. So that's the range of setups that would not be considered irregular any longer, but common/easily possible. Throw in the gear of the physically disabled and the mentally disabled (those that use *nix as a first choice OS on smaller spec'd machines juuuust kidding) and you have another small percentage of weird factor to add to that already diverse mix. Just to touch on another aspect that's really valid but ugly, lots of internet surfing machines are disabled by OS rot, spyware, virii, uncompatible softwares that have been downloaded and applied at every opportunity (see banner: WARNING: your internet connection is too slow, click here to install internet boost now!). These people shop and look for information too.

Computing enviroment, server side, you're seeing the proliferation of wicked good server side tools and people that have learned to use them. These things increase chances for profitability by automating a lot of hand work, making things more efficient and cost effective. The best way to spit things out of the server for the client, again mass generalization for illustration, is as simple as possible so the front end guy can plug it in to the presentation. Keeping things simple always provides less opportunity for costly integration problems, and reduces maintenance costs.

Personally people have grown past the initial infatuation they had with the web and are now more often using the web for something other just surfing for the purpose of new discovery. If they are looking for what you are presenting, well, they'd better be able to see/access it or they go elsewhere in a hurry.

Professionally, in the beginning of the internet companies were extremely happy to pay for "insanely cool, diverse and eyecandyful" HTML-based layouts as they capitalized on the newness factor and that's what people wanted at the time, it was defintiely the right thing to do at the time. Still is in some instances, though I think Flash is gonna kill off the old techniques of delivering this entirely (and I have hopes for it delivering the goods on integrating whizbangery back into the presentation of product/content, but that's another thread). Business now realizes that the technology and personal involvement in the internet is changing and they're adapting to these changes, and they always will, if they wanna increase profits.

Capitalism/profit/moolah drives innovation and proliferation. Artists don't like this, capitalists do. Coders and graphic artists are artists, or foster this artists mentality to varying degrees, and will always resist the cheapening of their work by reducing it to this low common denominator. That's my guess as to why standards that make good business sense get adopted more slowly than some think they should. Damn artists draggin down the man again =D

I don't think CSS has to be boxy and plain, well boxy is good for a while, if not always, but that's more a function of the presentation of information in an organized way, so that it's easily accessible. Visual design solves visual problems, it doesn't run from them, and the css Zen garden is a great exaple of that, there's some really appealing designs in that lot, check em out and be inspired, in a new way.

As for the plain, boxy, valid CSS/XHTML buttoned sites that are so prevalent, that's a matter of preference or ignorance. Moveable Type adds a ton of those layouts to the 'net and some people may not have the skills to template it. Other people like it cuz it's easy to maintain and they're sick and tired of doing big redesings to their sites. Most all these are personal sites too, blogs at that, so, who cares?

You be inspired by what inspires you, and you do your thing, dun worry about every one else's preferences! Give the world you and remember, the web ain't everything, your webs are a reflection of you sure, but if it's not a personal site it's a reflection of many other foos as well so give me what they want after advising them what you think to be best and move on. Many times art and web don't mix, sad but true.

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Sorry to ramble,but somehow I find this mindless banter therapeutic...

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This was anything but mindless, this is stuff that's gotta be worked through by everyone that does web work so you can find your place, your customer's place in the world(wide web). Did me a lotta good to put those thoughts down, as general and high level as they are, in concrete fashion as well, thanks.

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Sorry to ramble

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ummm, ditto =D at least yours was short enough to be coherent.

[edit] : hopefully getting rid of some weird line break problems

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 12-13-2003).]