W3C On How To Fix Browsers

kellan1 writes: "The W3C has published a note Common User Agent Problems, aka why do web browsers suck, and what can you do about it?"

Comments

Re:Don't hide 404 messages!

[Chris Pimlott]

"This user violated our Acceptable Use Policy and has had their account terminated. The page you are looking for is gone for good."

In that case, the proper status code would probably be 410 Gone

netscape!

[deft]

im a web designer currently living up in san jose. on my way to work at our clients site, i pass netscape's headquearters every day.

we take great joy in yelling a different fix for their broswer every day out our window;
"how about rendering tables correctly?!"
"how about filed widths being consistent?!"

id be happy to yell any fixes anyone would like to see implemented.
oh the headaches of netscape. keeps me with a job though.

Re:netscape!

[CaseyB]

How about not refusing to draw anything because an element isn't closed?

This is part of the reason that web browsers suck: because people demand that they render broken content "nicely". I would much rather they render correct content properly, than do a half-assed job of rendering everything. "Best guessing" is precisely what leads to the non-deterministic behaviour the original poster complained of.

If malformed content doesn't show up correctly, it's the author's fault, not the browser's.

Re:How about following the DTDs?

[Sanity]

The problem is that HTML was originally intended to be a relatively abstracted specification of the content, but this wasn't what people wanted. TABLE tags weren't forced on people by browser makers, but were embraced enthusiastically by web site creators. Basically the mistake was thinking that content creators wouldn't want to control how that content was presented to the user. Of course standardization is a good thing, but people need to admit that the intention of HTML has changed from a way to specify text abstractly (like DOCBOOK), to a way to specify a layout for a page in a flexible and robust manner.

--

w3c's guidlines

[Glowing Fish]

The W3C does have a tool you can use to see if web pages are compliant with their html specifications. Which, of course, almost no one's are.

As far as I am concerned, if this guy's web page is not html compliant, I am not going to worry if mine isn't.

Re:w3c's guidlines

[swordgeek]

Why? What's so wonderful about Linus that his homepage should be the de facto standard for HTML? Sure he's done lots of great things in computing, but he's hardly an authority on HTML and web authoring standards.

A little less hero worship, I think, would serve well.

hmmm

[Alien54]

This is not a Microsoft document.

the behaviors described are not protocols officially accepted by MS. (just look at the behavior of the browsers)

Given the dominance of MS in the market, is this document even relevant? [even though it is brilliant, insightful, and written by people who care about what is going on]

I am just glad we haven't progressed to the point where Microsoft "red" is a shade between black and blue.

Re:hmmm

[Alan]

Which is nice and good, but the problem is now the web is not driven by content any more. If the web were driven by content, (as a poster above notes) it wouldn't matter that netscape didn't follow w3c standards perfect, or if IE actually was the best browser in the entire universe, because I'd still be able to view every page I wanted to, and get the content therein.

Too bad now that 99% of the surfers out there don't care about content, but instead want their flashy, bullshit "user experience" to make it easier for them to read the bullet points of the information they're looking for. When was the last time you actually *read* a page full of content, that wasn't marked up to hell and back. I'm not saying everything out there should be block text for pages and pages, of course :) Just that that sort of page is slowly dissapearing.

Sometimes I *do* want the web to go back to the netscape 1.0 days (tables! wow!) where everything was grey (well, 1.0 had bgcolor I guess, so pre-1.0 days) when you surfed the web for information, not "experience". If I wanted experience back then I'd go outside and take a walk, watch a movie, or whatever.

How about following the DTDs?

[Enry]

Browsers started going to hell in a handbasket when they forgot why HTML was around in the first place - to make a platform-independent system for sharing information. Thus, a web page in Netscape *should* look different than a web page in IE, *however* the content should be the same.

The DTD merely says that this text is in a paragraph. Unfortunately, most browsers have embraced and extended this to assume that all browsers have the exact same layout. Thus, changing font sizes or types in your browser makes the page look just plain wrong.

Back when the DTD was being followed, *everyone* built web browsers, and all was good with the world. The content was similar, and no matter what the platform, you could still browse. Then came . And . And and all hell broke loose.

Now we're in an IE world. One browser for everyone. Netscape is flailing, Mozilla is close, but MS has free run of the DTD.

If you really want browser wars to heat up, you have to make usre that the browser followed the DTD properly so the display is not driven by the content, but is driven by the end user, as it should be.

Bring back verbose loading!

[ibpooks]

Here's one I'm surprised to see didn't show up: verbose page loading. What I mean by that is have the browser actually tell you what it's doing as it goes through the process of loading a page.

I remember old browsers used to display information like:

• Resolving name..
• Contacting server
• Negotiating connection
• Downloading xxxx.html
• Closing connection
• Done.

The trend I've seen in modern browsers simply say "Loading" or "Opening" without telling me what's happening. Having the extra information would help when troubleshooting what section of the content isn't loading.

for you browser writers out there

[po_boy]

If it matters, I personally consider this one to be the most important:

1.8 Provide a mechanism to allow authentication information to expire.

Many browsers allow configuration to save HTTP authentication [RFC2616, RFC2617] information ("remember my password"). They should also allow users to "flush" that authentication information on request. For instance, the user may wish to leave the user agent running but tell it to forget the password to access the user's bank account.

Wrong: Most user agents consider that authentication information (e.g., password) provided by a user for a server/realm pair during a session is immutable for the duration of the session.

I don't think I'm the only one that finds it quite annoying to have to exit and restart my browser in order to make it forget my HTTP authemtication information. I believe Netscape and IE both have this problem.

All your dangifiknow are belong to us.

Re:Head up its ass.

[joemaller]

This attitude about Web design is one of the reasons the Internet went broke. (another one is lame, hopelessly flawed business plans)

Web designers need to remember that Web design is not print. Documents will be changed by users and users should have that freedom. Worry more about information architecture, it's the content that ultimately matters. Design shouldn't just be decoration that viewers have to conform to, design should help viewers to better comprehend the information they're seeing.

What about handicapped users? Or those who need larger type to see? What about celphone browsers? PalmOS? WebTV? Crappy WindowsCE appliances in the airport business lounge?

Web design extends traditional design towards architecture and engineering. Good Web design is flexible. It doesn't matter what the building looks like if it falls on your head.

Strict adherence to standards is the best thing we've got. Letting go of the bells and whistles is better for your clients, your audience, your bottom line and your sanity.

Don't hide 404 messages!

[ChaosDiscord]

It's dangerous to second guess the web designer. The 404 page may contain useful information for the user. Sure, most pages unhelpfully state "404 File Not Found" and little more, but it's possible for a page to be much more helpful. A site could have their 404 page automatically do a search to find the requested resource. Here is a good example at Wizards of the Coast. A site could present a list of resources the site does, since one of them is likely to be helpful. Perhaps the page is gone because the client's account was terminated. I'd like to receive a message like "This user violated our Acceptable Use Policy and has had their account terminated. The page you are looking for is gone for good."