| |
Product
GoLive, PageMill Platform
All Last Updated
02/23/99 Filename
18362.htm | | Overview of Limitations and Features in Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, AOL, and WebTV Browsers
What's Covered
Navigator
Internet Explorer
AOL's Browser
WebTV
This document compares features and limitations of the most commonly used browsers, Netscape Navigator 3.x and 4.x, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x and 4.x, AOL, and WebTV, describing the differences between browsers and browser versions. Some Web browsers support some proprietary HTML extensions (i.e., non-standard HTML tags) different from the extensions used by other browsers. For example, Internet Explorer supports the <MARQUEE> tag, while Netscape Navigator does not. You can use this information to help you set up Web documents in Adobe PageMill, and GoLive CyberStudio,and Adobe GoLive to ensure that your documents look as expected in each browser.
Please note that some elements will appear or print differently in different browsers, regardless of how you set up your documents. For example:
- Form elements (such as text fields and pop-ups) will not appear or print the same, because different browsers use different layouts and fonts for forms. Since form elements will differ in size, Adobe recommends that you use a table to keep elements aligned. In addition, form elements will appear on top of GoLive floating boxes -- for example, a page with graphics in floating boxes layered on top of form elements will appear in a browser with the form elements on top of the graphics.
- Anchors will behave differently. Browsers will always make anchors visible, but they won't always position an anchor at the top of the screen. Also, anchors in tables won't always work as expected.
- Tables will appear differently, since different browsers support different table formatting commands. For example, Internet Explorer 3.0 and later support the bordercolor, bordercolorlight, and bordercolordark attributes of the Table tag, while Navigator 4.x and earlier do not. All browsers may not display overconstrained tables as expected. (Overconstrained tables are those that contain both relative and fixed constraints that add up to more than 100% of the table's total width.)
- Click images in a button image (JavaScript rollover) will not appear in all browsers. A click image appears when the button is clicked, usually to link to a new page. Some browsers (especially Navigator for Windows) display the new page before you can see the click image.
- Class styles used in Cascading Style Sheets may not appear correctly if the style name includes a space, underscore, or special character, or begins with a hyphen or number.
- The default border color for unlinked images varies between browsers -- either black or the same as the page's text color.
- If the fps (frames per second) rate of an animation is too fast for the video hardware of the computer on which it is played, Navigator ignores the fps rate and plays the animation too slowly. Internet Explorer, however, honors the fps rate and displays the animation incompletely (dropping frames) or not at all.
Navigator
Navigator:
- is unable to display foreground objects (e.g., graphics, text, or plug-ins) in the upper left corner of a page. Instead, foreground images are offset from 1 to 8 pixels. (Other browsers may also exhibit this behavior.)
- doesn't support ActiveX controls.
- doesn't support the <MARQUEE> tag. (Java applets are available that provide marquee features.)
- unlike other browsers, animates GIF files in the background layer of a page (Navigator 4.x only).
- only prints the background layer of a page if you customize your Page Setup settings to include the background.
- stops playing animated GIF files in framesets when the content of any frame in the set is changed.
- does not submit forms when you press the Return key (Mac OS only).
- supports click sounds and background sounds, although Adobe recommends you use a Java applet or a plug-in (e.g., QuickTime, Flash) to enable click sounds and background sounds.
- does not display framesets that contain only one frame.
You can download the current version of Netscape Navigator from Netscape's Web site at www.netscape.com/download/index.html.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer:
- doesn't support ActiveX controls in Mac OS.
- supports background sounds, but requires a Java applet or a plug-in (e.g., QuickTime, Flash) to play click sounds or background sounds.
- sometimes displays a 1-pixel gap above the bottom image(s) on a page. (You can fix this by adding a small empty text box below the last image.)
- can't read negative numbers in image maps (Windows only). You may have a negative number in a CyberStudio hotspot when a hotspot region's border is partly above the top of the image. You can fix it in CyberStudio's Source view by changing the negative coordinates to 0 (zero).
- may show a horizontal scrollbar even if there is no content off-screen (Mac OS).
- submits forms when you press the Return key or Enter key if the cursor is in a Text or Password field, but not in a text area field (i.e., a multi-line text box).
- doesn't support the <BLINK> tag.
- Internet Explorer for Mac OS may not work correctly with the Acrobat plug-in (PDFViewer), and Acrobat 4.0 and Reader 4.0 do not install the PDFViewer plug-in in Internet Explorer for Mac OS. Adobe Systems does not recommend using the PDFViewer plug-in with Internet Explorer for Mac OS. For best results, use Acrobat as a helper application so that Internet Explorer starts your Acrobat viewer in a separate window and displays the PDF file in that window.
- Internet Explorer 3.x does not support external JavaScript libraries. For more information, see document 324643, "Internet Explorer 3.x Doesn't Support External JavaScript Libraries."
You can download the current version of Internet Explorer from Microsoft's Web site at:
- www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/windows.htm (Windows)
- www.microsoft.com/products/prodref/651_ov.htm (Mac OS)
AOL's Browser
America Online (AOL) provides a proprietary Web browser to its customers. AOL's browser has the following features and limitations:
- AOL's server revalidates, or recaches, information at least once every 24 hours. If you've uploaded changes to your pages and don't see them right away, it may be because they haven't been refreshed yet by the server.
- AOL's graphics compression system can cause color bands or black blocks in JPEG images. You can disable graphics compression in the AOL browser. For more information, see AOL's Web help documents at http://webmaster.info.aol.com/. Refer to the Graphics Compression section to view AOL's suggestions for saving JPEG images to improve their appearance in the AOL browser.
For more information about AOL's Web browser, see AOL's Webmaster site at webmaster.info.aol.com/.
WebTV
WebTV lets you use the Internet through your television. Because a television handles resolution and color differently than a computer monitor, Web pages may appear different in the WebTV browser than in a browser you use on a desktop computer. For more information about designing Web pages for WebTV, see WebTV's Developer Web site at http://developer.webtv.net/.
You can download a WebTV emulator from http://developer.webtv.net/design/tools/viewer/Default.htm.
Note: Adobe Systems does not provide technical support for third-party products; please contact the vendor for the latest information about the emulator mentioned above.
Related Records
| | All, GoLive; All, PageMill; graphic, image, picture, Internet, ns, communicator, ie, ie4, browser, web page, net, site, Go Live | |
