Don't forget to check your web application on other browsers!

  • Artykuł

One of my pet peeves about web designers and web application developers is the ones who don't check to make sure everything works and looks good in the major browsers, not just IE*. I am a 100% IE user at work, and at home, I use IE when I'm on my PC, but on my Mac** I use Safari.***

Recently, I've come across a couple of sites that don't properly support Safari. First, I was trying to use Zillow.com to get some prices of condos in my neighbourhood, and well, as soon as you hit it from Safari, you're denied. It says that Safari is not supported and suggests either IE or Firefox. I know many Mac users who don't have FireFox on their machine, and they don't want it on their machine. They just want to have a simple, easy to use environment.

The other site I hit, was asking for my date of birth to make sure that I was old enough**** to get the coupon. Well, sure enough, I pop in my date of birth, and it says I'm not old enough and that I must be at least 18. Ummm, last I checked, I was over 18. I'm glad it complimented me and said I don't look like I'm over 18, but still.

Yes, there is still incompatibility between browsers, and it's getting better, but it only takes a few extra hours to run a few extra tests to make sure everything works properly. If it doesn't, then do something about it. And you also learn what not to do in your next development project!

* I admit, I'm guilt of that too on my fine art web site. I know its broken, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

** Long story, but it's really only used for music, web browsing and photo editing

*** I'd use IE, but we've since cut support for it on the Mac, so I have to use Safari. I've tried Firefox and don't like it all that much.

**** It was the KFC site where you can get your free sandwich, you have to be at least 18 for some reason

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    100% in agreement -- http://www.thirdsquare.com/safari-compatibility-test-86 is useful for testing what your site looks like in Safari for non-Mac folk (I'm sorry for them)
  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    Don't use apple
  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    All great points. As soon as VirtualPC supports the Mac OS 10 I will be able to test Safari on all my sites.  Until then Mac doesn't appear to offer the safari browser for alternate platforms and it  becomes impossible to test without a Mac physically sitting at my desk.
  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2006
    Actually we are having tough times in getting our appliction working similar / equivalent in FireFox and Safari on Mac machines.

    One of the many issues that dont work well with FireFox are

    i. Simple Javascript.
    ii. Client script call back.

    One question is, whether Client Script Callback in ASP.NET 2.0 supported in FireFox and Safari?

    Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2006
    applehater,

    not using apple is not an option right now.  I don't have a PC at home, and I'm not really in the mood to buy a new PC these days.  I really want to wait until I can buy a computer to run Vista comfortably.  

    Admittedly, I do think Apple hardware is much sexier than PC hardware, though Windows is a better operating system for my needs.
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2006
    In developing Content Management Systems and E-Commerce sites for anyone, as web developers we cannot limit visitors because we do not feel like spending the added time to code for all browsers.  Up through last year (2005) we have clients whose visitors are in school or public libraries on donated PCs and programming for Netscape 4 was a requirement.  Even today, we still put in the extra time to make sure our sites work on Safari and IE for Mac as well as IE 5.0 and ID 5.5 for PC.
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2009
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