Section 16.8. Browser Support

16.8. Browser Support

For years, web designers and developers grappled with inconsistencies in the ways browsers supported HTML, but eventually, reliable support for nearly the entire HTML 4.01 Recommendation arrived. Now, the browser developers are working on getting up to speed with CSS, so support of some features (particularly in the newer CSS 2.1 Recommendation) are buggy and inconsistent across browsers.

Chapter 25 specifically addresses the most notorious browser bugs and how to deal with them, but you'll also find browser alert notes when appropriate for each property in Chapters 18 through 23.

No browser support chart is provided with this book, because it would no doubt be obsolete before this book is retired. However, there are several excellent online resources that publish CSS browser support information.

West Civ Browser Support Page (www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_support/index.html)

West Civ provides free support charts online for properties tested on IE, Netscape, and Opera. A complete, more detailed report is available for a nominal fee.

Index DOT Css, by Brian Wilson (www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/index.html)

This is a remarkably thorough site (albeit somewhat out of date) that documents browser support for every CSS selector, property, and value for Internet Explorer, Netscape/Mozilla, and Opera browsers. It also provides notes on particular bugs and behaviors.

Internet Explorer Blog (blogs.msdn.com/ie/)

Here you can keep up with what the developers are up to at Microsoft.