[plug] OT: Sites bow to Microsoft's browser king

[Colin Muller]

On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 08:48:05AM +0800, Alex Polglaze wrote:
> I have had a site developed http://d9450.club.rotary.org.au that has a
> map on the welcome page. If you move the mouse over the towns with
> little markers, it is hot linked to another site except for Broome.
> 
> If you use IE it works fine, but I am getting reports that it doesn't
> work with Netscape and Mozilla. I have Netscape 4.76 and it doesn't
> display the map, although if you move the mouse around, you can find the
> links. I also run Netscape 6.2.2 and the map displays except for the
> Broome link. Others have reported that it doesn't work with Netscape 6.2
> 
> My question is, therefore, how do I fix it?

For starters, change:
http://www.d9450.club.rotary.org.au/rotary/images%5Cwestaustralia.gif
(which might be this in the source HTML:
http://www.d9450.club.rotary.org.au/rotary/images\westaustralia.gif)

into:
http://www.d9450.club.rotary.org.au/rotary/images/westaustralia.gif

Second, insist on a cross-browser compatibility clause in any future
contracts with your Web designer. Make a list: on Mac, Windows and
Linux: Opera 5.x and 6.x, NS 4.x, 6.x and 7.x prerelease, Mozilla 1.0;
plus on Linux: Konqueror; plus on Windows and Mac: IE 4.x, 5.x, 6.x.
And then add in that all links must be accessible (if in a different
way from the map) in lynx. It is possible (although sometimes
difficult) to achieve functional cross-compatibility for these
browsers without doing any browser sniffing, and someone advertising
themselves as a "Web" something, as opposed to "IE" something, should
be able to do so.

Colin