Discuss website design for ecommerce sites, useability, navigation and other development considerations. To get feedback on your t-shirt design(s) or website, please post a request in our Site Reviews and Design Reviews section here.
Just a quick question for those of you who have experience with programming websites and not just using templates...
How much do you compensate for old browsers? I've been working on my site for a while now and it's finally getting close to where I want it (more or less)...
But I just looked at it in a +2 year old version of Firefox (v2.0 or maaaybe v1.9) and an oldish version of Internet Explorer (v6.0, I think)... and it looks profoundly bad. I don't even think IE is capable of handling .png files properly.
So... it is worth going back through all of the coding to make changes to compensate for older browser versions? It seems like a massive headache, but it also seems like it would be a good idea if it doesn't mess with how the page looks on newer browsers...
Any thoughts/ideas/experience with what I'm talking about? I'd love your suggestions, comments, or thoughts... or offers to go through my code for me and fix everything to compensate for those old browsers...
I'd say don't compensate for older browsers as long as your stuff is XHTML valid and css valid. Also, to make it easier on yourself, use JQuery or another javascript library.
I'd only worry about IE7.0, FF3, Safari3, and <em>maybe</em> IE6.0.
I just checked your site with the validator, and I'd fix the suggestions from it before worry about rendering.
Unfortunately many people still have IE6. PNGs need an HTC fix but can be made to work: IE PNG Fix - TwinHelix
It's all about your customers and who you expect are your potential customers.
I design on the Mac just cause it's the best for such things and check my work on PC Firefox 2.0, PC IE 6.0, Mac Safari and Mac Firefox (whatever the latest version is).
Hopefully EI 8 being said to finally be "compliant" might force more people to abandon IE 6. I hope so but I'll leave it to my clients to make that decision and will respond accordingly.
Unfortunately many people still have IE6. PNGs need an HTC fix but can be made to work: IE PNG Fix - TwinHelix
It's all about your customers and who you expect are your potential customers.
I design on the Mac just cause it's the best for such things and check my work on PC Firefox 2.0, PC IE 6.0, Mac Safari and Mac Firefox (whatever the latest version is).
Hopefully EI 8 being said to finally be "compliant" might force more people to abandon IE 6. I hope so but I'll leave it to my clients to make that decision and will respond accordingly.
Thanks for that link! I installed it, and it works, though there are some bugs/image size problems due to my CSS... but I'll start working on it tomorrow and create an IE specific CSS for the site... ugh. Oh well. I'm learning a lot, I suppose.
Hi
the best thing to do for this is
Lunch your website install google analytics super simple to setup. Look at the reports under browsers and check what % of your users are IE 6 Take a look at this link. It is for one day of traffic for my website. IE 6 is the 2nd most popular.
What shopping cart are you using. Also do you have a link to the website I can take a look at.
Thanx
Max
I have to agree. IE6 is still very popular, and as a web designer, you will drive yourself mad if you want it PERFECT in all browsers, however, you need to accommodate for the most popular IE 6 and above, FireFox/Mozzila. Some people started getting all crazy about google "chrome" but no one is using it, so its not so bad.. Opera and Safari are other ones that can be a pain but are kinda important.
P.S.
I just clicked on the link in your signature and viewed your page in IE 7 and your company name is REALLY big and stretched out. And the "store" part is all very funky. The table with the products in it moves over allyour links and even your header when you scroll down.
It appears that your header with the links is a fixed background while your box containing your products moves when you scroll, making it look wrong.
You also would benefit from putting your shirts on a black background and cutting them out from there instead of white. Since your site is all black, you see these little jagged edges around where you cut it out. You would definitely be better off on black, even if you did think you cut it ALL out..
Hi moohandcow
Also I just saw your web site
looks like you are using a homebrew shopping cart. I would stay away fro that. I now you up in come work on it. But This will save you alot of time in the long run. Move to a open source cart like OSC or zen
Thanks everyone... My site looks good in firefox and safari... and it looks like absolute crap in Internet Explorer... all versions of it, apparently.
I'm going to write an IE specific CSS that will be used only if someone is using Internet Explorer... so I know that it looks ridiculously bad in Explorer right now... I'll let you know when I have the CSS for IE done and then hopefully things will look better.
Also... for who ever commented on the product shots... That is exactly why I haven't taken the site public yet Those images on the site are just place holders right now. I have a photo shoot coming up in the next week or so (hopefully) to get actual pictures of the shirts and not lame photoshop renditions of everything.
The shopping cart is actually BigCartel, just fit into my site... and I've definitely go my work cut out for me to make everything look OK in explorer... because it looks much better in other browsers.
Thanks again everyone, I'll let you know when the IE specific CSS is finished... may be a few days, but I think it'll be worth it.
Quick Question About Programming... 
