Browser Compatibilities

[r_honey]

Hell everyone, I write javascript only occasionally. However, when I
do and am stuck with a problem, on googling out, I almost always get 2
solutions: one for NN4, and other for IE. However, the code which is
written for iedom always works on FF perfectly. I often find code
like:

var iedom = document.all || document.getElementById
if (iedom) {
cross_scroller = document.getElementById ? document.getElementById
("iescroller") : document.all.iescroller
else if (document.layers) {
ns_scroller = document.nsScroller0.document.nsScroller1

Now, in my knowing, NN was obsolete many years ago.

Now, my target audience is IE & FF users. Should that mean that I
should consider only iedom code??

Can someone point me to a resource listing which browsers are
compatible with each other??

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Hell everyone, I write javascript only occasionally. However, when I
do and am stuck with a problem, on googling out, I almost always get 2
solutions: one for NN4, and other for IE.

Better development resources can readily be found.

However, the code which is written for iedom always works on FF perfectly.

*In Gecko's Quirks Mode*, MSHTML-based referencing *partially* works.

I often find code like:

var iedom = document.all || document.getElementById
if (iedom) {
cross_scroller = document.getElementById ? document.getElementById
("iescroller") : document.all.iescroller
else if (document.layers) {
ns_scroller = document.nsScroller0.document.nsScroller1

You should abandon such code as it is not based on sufficient feature testing.

Now, in my knowing, NN was obsolete many years ago.

You are mistaken. Strictly speaking, it is not obsolete even now, although
AOL has discontinued Netscape development and support on 2008-03-01 CE.
While one can reasonably assume that after such an announcement more users
will switch to other user agents than before, there is no guarantee that
there are too few that don't switch to consider. They may not want to
switch (old habits) or maybe they just cannot switch (e.g. old hardware or
OS, and not enough incentives or money to buy new one, or there are company
rules [as ridiculous as that may sound]).

For an oft-quoted example, it was not before 2007 CE that we had a customer
who needed their Web site to be displayed properly in IE 5.0 for Mac OS,
too, even though Microsoft had discontinued support for that version and
that browser on that OS years ago (on 2005-12-31 CE, to be precise). So we
gone and done it.

Now, my target audience is IE & FF users.

Your target audience should be as many users as reasonably possible.
Note my sig.

Should that mean that I should consider only iedom code??

Not at all.

Can someone point me to a resource listing which browsers are
compatible with each other??

It is not so much a matter of compatibility between browsers, but of which
DOM implements which feature, maybe originating in another DOM, to what
extent. There are several (in part outdated) cross-references available,
if you care to search properly. For example:
<https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM_Client_Object_Cross-Reference>


PointedEars