Browsers are still stupid.

November 14, 2002 | 0 Comments

I added a search “feature” to Asterisk* today. It works pretty well.

It looks pretty funny. In just about all browsers. I got it looking ok in IE 6 for PC first. Not perfect, but ok. It had too much margin up top and on bottom, but I can live with that. Let’s see what it looks like on the Mac.

I open up Chimera - YIKES - what the hell is that? The margin is fixed but now the graphic doesn’t line up. Hmm. Let’s play with it. Well all right, that looks ok. Let’s see what it looks like in IE 6 on the Mac. Ouch. Ok, that’s not right. Let’s try something else. Hmmm. Better on IE but messed up with Chimera. You get the picture.

Here’s the deal : I’m more a designer than a developer. I understand that usability is of high import, but I feel like a simple search field and button (image) is pretty simple right? Pretty much whatever I do should be usable. I want it to look good. Darn it - it’s 2002 - Web standards are a big deal, right? Damn, this should be easy. I don’t have the time or the know-how to figure this out. So I’m stuck with some redheaded step-child of a search field because I tried to make something that actually fit the design of the site. Yeah I could have wen’t vanilla - but vanilla is, well vanilla, and it still would have looked funny.

I understand that the Web is liquid and users ultimately control the display of my site, but heck, it sucks that I have make a choice between browsers! I want everyone to see it as intended, if they can, and still use the site if they can’t. Now I’m stuck with this middle ground where it works for everyone, but looks a bit, well, a bit off for everyone as well. I use Chimera (Mac), but most of my readers are on IE 6 (PC) - argh. Anyway, I guess the browsers are still fairly stupid - and we’re still at a stage of cross-browser frustration and trial-and-error Web development.

Unless you down with things looking a bit different than you intend. Oh well.

And I still have to do the results page.

Filed under: Web Design