We build a browser-independent site
The last point requires further explanation. Why is displaying information in a text browser so important? I will answer in monosyllables – if your website is an educational institution or a public organization – this is simply necessary for the simple reason that a blind user can be at the computer. In addition, some servers running UNIX do not require a graphical environment, and sometimes you even have to search for information on the Internet from the server console. On the other hand, displaying information in a text browser indicates consistency of information and design.
Development Tools The choice of development tools is important because it allows you to increase the efficiency of the entire process. Also a serious factor is the requirement for quality of work. If you need to make a website very quickly, it makes sense to use ready-made content management schemes. As one of the options you can use Mambo Studio. Website development in a text editor is a much more complicated process than the use of a turnkey solution that can immediately give the desired effect to the browser independence.
Standards and browsers First you need to decide what exactly is meant by the term “many used browsers”. The point is that the browser must obey the so-called W3C * standard for HTML *. But in practice, browsers only partially fulfill the requirements of numerous standards, and virtually every type of browser has its own characteristics. As a result, different browsers display the same information in different ways. The reason for this is hidden in the great complexity of their development. After all, besides actually displaying HTML, the browser also performs many other functions, not to mention working as a developer tool or using it as an email client.
At the moment, browser independence is a complex concept. It consists of the optimal combination of the following components:
duplication of site navigation schemes;
separation of design from content.
Duplication of navigation patterns ensures information availability
Navigation at the bottom of the main page of “Yandex”
Navigation at the bottom of the main page of “Yandex”
The site can use various categories of visitors. For example, some of them are forced to be content with rather modest parameters of workstations, others simply do not have the opportunity to perceive the information in the form in which you submit it. This also applies to large corporate clients whose analytical and accounting systems are written in client-server performance and do not require powerful workstations. If you want to position your resource as public at least in terms of the ability to view pages, you should also duplicate the site management schemes written in Macromedia Flash *, JavaScript * and the like. The easiest way to duplicate navigation is to use an additional panel that has links to all sections of the current level and to all top levels. The optimal execution is the lower navigation block, made exclusively by hypertext links. You will find an example of such a decision on Yandex.
Separation of design from the content and stepwise development process The process of separating content from the presentation method is multi-stage. That is, in the process of developing a site, some of its parts — for example, building a “skeleton” from HTML tables — can be used optionally without applying coloring with CSS (taking into account browser features). In other words, when developing a site “from a clean page,” you can choose the parts that are needed, and leave the optional parts for later development. At a minimum, should provide:
the creation of a “skeleton” of the site, working in different browsers;
applying “specific” CSS attributes separately for each type of browser.
Building a cross-browser table skeleton
Table classes in the design of the site
Table classes in the design of the site
As you know, at the moment the most common type of site construction is the design using HTML-tables. Table cells contain the necessary graphic elements or are themselves used as part of the design. In practice, the use of tabular design requires great effort in the case of writing each of the pages of the site “manually”. In other words, in order to get an acceptable design, it is necessary to combine tables with other ways to ensure cross-browser compatibility. There is one way to simplify the development of such sites – using special tabular “classes” for displaying all the site tables — for example, in PHP. The main disadvantage of this approach is the difficulty of developing a key “class” that involves outputting an HTML table. Instead, you get the opportunity to separate the process of creating the skeleton of the site and ensuring its browser independence.
