Netscape 6 ........... hmmmmmm

ButcherOfNog

looks lovely .. at first ... all those lovely tabs n stuff, i think i'll customize those a bit, get my own stuff in them ... hmmm ... link takes me to netscape site ... and ads, in fact ... half the buttons take me to netscapes site ... then ns6 crashes ... then i browse through most of my daily links, noting that prolly 20% of the sites don't work properly in ns6 ... then it crashes again ... and again ...

it does look lovely tho

ButcherOfNog

it doesn't even work right on boards.ie, the fonts on the posts change size/type, like first line in a post is one font, next line is a different one.

the wee dropdown forum menu up top no longer works.

why should developers spend time testing their sites with netscape, when netscape ship something like this, it should at least display sites that worked in the previous version correctly? how long did they spend developing this again?

it still looks lovely, but its beginning to **** me off, and its only day 2 of using it.

Enygma

Yeah it's pretty, but goddammit it sucks ass!
Click a link, reboot, open the navbar, reboot, fart, reboot.
Just try listening to a few tunes on Winamp with it running.
I'm no expert on Mozilla but judging by this slashdot article http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/14/1533230&mode=thread
there's still good reason to have some faith in Netscape.

Although, I'm just too ****ed off with the whole thing to even bother using it. IE is fine just fine, fine

SantaHoe

I've never liked Netscape... (and still don't!)
An utterly horrible interface coupled with dod*** html processing.
And why can't I submit a form by pressing enter?! - that's just silly.
I also miss my backspace key for 'Back'.

IE is super-dooper...
Anyone recommend a good (non-nutscrape) browser for Linux (KDE/Gnome)?

dogs

> Anyone recommend a good (non-nutscrape) browser for Linux (KDE/Gnome)?

lynx or links (its like lynx, but for girlies)

available from freshmeat.net of course

Bard

In it's defence, Netscape 6 works perfectly for me and hasn't crashed once. As a developer, their patchy/dodgy CSS2/CSS-P support and the slight HTML rendering problems that remain are a bloody nuinsance but having seen the serious leaps they made from earlier Mozilla builds to today's versions, it's plain to see it won't/can't take them very long to sort out the problems that are left.

I, for one, say fair play to yiz Netscape... keep it up!

It's not too late for them..

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PhilipMarlowe

the seemingly random interchange between Times New Roman and Veranda in mid sentence sure is off-putting... although i had that problem too with NS4.something...
It looks like a pretty browser ok but huh?

Is there a point in trying to make sites look good in both anymore.... (what are the latest user figures?)
Are those figures likely to change with NS6?

Bard

Its about 75% to IE, about 20% to Netscape and the remainder to the remainder as far as I know.

And yes- I'd say the figures are likely to change, once the slight problems that are lieft in N6 are sorted.

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ButcherOfNog

ns6's slight problems being that it doesn't work on an awfull lot of sites that ns4 did, hardly slight.

Bard

It not working properly with a number of web sites isn't the problem with the browser. The main problem with the browser is patchy CSS2 and CSS-P support, slight problems with table rendering, other minor HTML problems, and some DHTML problems. These then are the cause why it works badly on a number of sites, but these are not issues that it should take the Mozilla organisation or Netscape themselves terribly long to sort out.

Apparently the latest Mozilla build is leaps and bounds ahead of the release version of Netscape 6.

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[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 22-11-2000).]

ButcherOfNog

Originally posted by Bard:
It not working properly with a number of web sites isn't the problem with the browser.

the sites work with ns4, and ie4/5. they do not work with ns6. this _IS_ the problem with the browser.

these are not issues that it should take the Mozilla organisation or Netscape themselves terribly long to sort out.

how long did they take developing this again? i wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the fixes.

Apparently the latest Mozilla build is leaps and bounds ahead of the release version of Netscape 6.

well when i start getting grief from clients and senior management about our products incompatiblities with ns6, i'll quote them that, although i doubt very much that will suffice. more likely we'll issue a statement on our website that ns6 should be avoided, until a proper working release is available. ns6 is at most, beta quality, def not a final release product.

ButcherOfNog

lol @ mozilla.org news nov 10th

New Check-in Rules
To improve code quality, mozilla.org now requires all changes to be approved by a designated Mozilla code reviewer. This extra level of review applies to everyone, including Netscape engineers.

thats a bright idea

btw, that was posted on nov 10th, in the year 2000 (just thought i'd clarify the year)

Bard

What I was trying to explain is that the problem with Netscape 6 is not that sites dont work in it, it's that it has certain bugs, the offshoot of those bugs being that certain sites dont work properly in it. That may seem like much of a muchness and pure symantics but they can fix the browser for these bugs, they can't necessarily fix the browser for specific sites - and neither should they. They should make a standards compliant browser, which is compatible with as many features as possible. Essentially, they should bring the rendering up to IE5.1's standards. Any sites that still don't work properly in it then are probably using some old browser detection code to avoid anything but IE, so f**k 'em.

The general concensus seems to be that Netscape 6 at the moment, is just what yon Noggie Butcher has stated, - at most, beta quality, definately not up to scratch as a final release product, and not seriously worth considering as a platform to design for... yet. - and I agree to some degree with that.

Yet there's also the train of thought that a web site should look good in all the major browsers, going back up to 2 versions - i.e.: it should look good and be fully functional in IE4, Netscape 4 and (hopefully) Opera 4, while still being of acceptable quality in v.3 browsers and Lynx. - and I also agree to some degree with that!

That decision is down to the person or company writing the site, but it has to be said that Netscape 6's failings aside, it should be a perfectly viable venture when designing a site, to ensure that it is of acceptable quality in Netscape 6. That's what a lot of us have to do at the moment with Navigator 4.75. Anyone who designs for one browser alone is being far too myopic for their own good.

In the words of Tim Berners-Lee (and if you don't know who he is you're on the wrong board!)...:

"Anyone who slaps a `this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."

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[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 23-11-2000).]

Bard

Just noticed that a site I'm in the midst of writing looks great in IE5, fantastic in Netscape 6 (seriously!) but bloody awful in Netscape 4!

Netscape 4 is f**king up the table widths and causing the page to be about 3 screens wide. Seems it doesn't like when you put a mixture of percentage widths and pixel widths in cells of the same table. (My left cell with my menu had a fixed pixel width while the right cell was set to 100% to take the remainder of the browser screen - it's an outer "controlling" table that's set to 100% of the browser width)... I know how to sort it out to get it working properly netscape 4... it's just bloody annoying.

So- in some ways, table support in v.6 of Netscape is far superior than v.4 ... oh - and it renders them a helluva lot faster.

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