Learn HTML Onlinetutorials for beginners

If you have been following the previous tutorials, you should have a basic foundation of how HTML elements work.  Before we get into advanced HTML features, now is a good time to explain browser compatibility or cross-browser issues.

For most people who use the Internet, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may be the only known browser.  However another web browser, Mozilla’s Firefox is gaining popularity amongst users.  Besides Internet Explorer and Firefox, there are a number of other web browsers that are gaining popularity amongst Internet users.

The point being that when you create your website, you want to reach the widest audience possible.  You do not want to alienate any users due to browser compatibility issues.  A few examples could be text not displaying correctly or your layout displaying incorrectly.

Unfortunately all browsers were not created equally.  You will especially find that out if you test your site on older browsers such as netscape navigator 4 or Internet Explorer 4.  You may want to discontinue support for browsers this old.  Hopefully not many people in the world still use them.

On a brighter note, the W3C has combatted this issue by creating sets of standards for web design.   These standards are like a set of rules that we follow to ensure browser compatibility across the board (that’s our goal). We will learn more about the W3C and its standards in the next tutorial.

One thing to remember is even though we may follow the recommended W3C standards, our site may not display as we want it to in different browsers.  To ensure that our site is displaying as intended, we need to view it in other browsers.

Browsers that you might want to check your site with are:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Opera
• Google Chrome
• Safari

If you really want to view your site in numerous web browsers, there is a really nice online service called BrowserShots. How it works; you submit your web page address and BrowserShots creates screenshots of your page in multiple browsers.

Ultimately you may not be able to support every browser that was ever created. You will have to decide how far back on browser versions you are willing to support. Me personally I only go as far back as supporting IE 6. Within in time that will change. I recommend supporting all modern browsers if possible.