HTML documents are text files, which can be read by virtually every computer. It doesn't matter if the computers are Macintosh or Windows machines, or even Unix, they can still read text files making web pages available to all. Availability and how one views these files is another story.
In the mid-1990's, Netscape was the most popular computer program in the world. That was because Netscape had created their own non-standard additions to HTML, which designers loved, and the only way to view web pages using them was to use Netscape's browser. Then Microsoft woke up and created their Internet Explorer browser. It used Microsoft's own additions to HTML... and thus the war began.
|
During that period, web designers were spending a great amount of time trying to create pages that looked fine using both popular browsers. They often had to create two completely separate versions of their pages. One never knew what browser a visitor might be using to view their site, and it made a big difference. Imagine a newspaper company having to create two editions of the evening paper every day - one for the people living on one side of the street and another edition for those living on the other side, both editions containing the exact same text and images.
|
|
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), directed by the inventor of the Web, has since attempted to make it more universal. Netscape and Microsoft are members of this organization. The members have agreed on certain standards. This allows web pages to be viewed by most Internet users, no matter what browser they choose - similar, but still not identical views.
Then the W3C started to make their own changes. They were not content with HTML 3.2, instead preferring a new style of formatting pages - HTML 4, involving Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). In short, CSS allows a web designer to apply styles not only to a part of a web page, but to the entire web site. The W3C has earmarked some HTML tags that they now consider to be unnecessary, to eventually be deleted, referring to them as depreciated.
Proprietary extensions still exist and the code behind many web pages sloppy. In an attempt to add more structure, the W3C developed XML (extensible markup language). It allowed users to actually create their own languages. However, it was considered too demanding - not allowing for even slight errors. Also, there were already billions of web pages using HTML. The solution? The W3C rewrote HTML in XML to create XHTML. Sound great? No. Browsers do not fully support it, and some may never.
Not only do browsers not fully support all the possibile ways to write web pages, not everyone uses the most recent versions of browsers. XHTML is a great improvement over plain HTML if you don't mind obsessing over exact punctuation. Is XHTML necessary to write web pages - no, not unless you find HTML is not powerful enough for you. The more complicated your web pages are written, the greater the possibility you may lose part of your viewers.
Personal and small business web sites can easily get by with simple HTML. Most people now have a computer with a browser version which fully supports HTML. The larger the site, the more you may want to consider using XHTML and CSS. However, know your audience. If they are likely to be using older computers and /or older versions of browsers, keep it simple.
Which browser should you use?
Over 60% use Microsoft's Internet Explorer and over 30% are using Netscape's Navigator, leaving some using Opera. Many AOL members are still limiting themselves by using AOL to search for and view web pages - even though they could use the more powerful Explorer or Navigator (which AOL now owns).
Every web designer should at least use Explorer and Navigator to test pages before uploading them to the Web for all to see. Do not rely on tests with the latest versions of these browsers because not everyone is good about upgrading when a new one is released. Not only that, the same browser version may render pages differently on Mac's, PC's, and UNIX computers.
To make matters more challenging, users can alter the default setting on browsers as well. Monitor screen size, resolution, video cards, and connection speeds also vary. Fonts display larger on PC's and images appear lighter on Mac's. The best way to feel sure the majority of your web site visitors are viewing your pages as you intend them to be seen is to stay "behind the times" - by not using new design options as soon as they are available.
Write your web pages for viewers who are not using the most recent browser versions and who do not have the latest technology. Unless you really need to use more, or don't mind losing viewers with older browsers (millions), stick with basic HTML or XHTML for simple pages. With so many billions of existing web pages, it is not very likely depreciated tags are going to disappear any time soon, if at all.
Always test with both Explorer and Navigator, especially Explorer since AOL killed off Netscape Communications. You may also want to test with older versions such as Explorer 5.5 and Navigator 6.0 - both with a final release date back in 2000.
You might be surprised by how many browsers are available. To see a list and to download older versions to test with, go to: http://browsers.evolt.org (this link will open in a new window).
If you download an older version of a browser already on your system, be careful not to overwrite it. Elect to do a custom install instead of accepting the default settings so you can specify a different directory for each new version of the browser software.
For more detailed information you may want to check out these articles:
