what browser do the judges use.

[amirjpl]

hey
do you guys know what browser the judges use to view the sites.
our website works on every browser except internet explorer. some the best features dont work on ie. i hate microsoft. for once cant they make some thing good. just for once. do you guys know a way that i can make my site cross browser. i use css. so i don't know what more i can do to make my site cross browser. an idea for everyone, stop using ie and move on to something better. like firefox, mozilla, opera, whatever, anything but ie.
please help.
thank you

[Beth Sweet]

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't one set browser. In the past, they've said to just make it work in all browsers.

[amirjpl]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't one set browser. In the past, they've said to just make it work in all browsers.

but do they like check with every singel browser. they might just have one browser they use. and i want to know what that browser is. would you think first would be smart enough and use firefox.

[neo]

I would think that they would use all the available browsers since many people use browsers other than just firefox and IE (which seem to be most popular).

Just make sure your css and html is valid and it should work out. Besides, all you need is 80 points and you've got a website excellence award.

[Chriszuma]

Originally Posted by neo

I would think that they would use all the available browsers since many people use browsers other than just firefox and IE (which seem to be most popular).

Just make sure your css and html is valid and it should work out. Besides, all you need is 80 points and you've got a website excellence award.

Actually, valid css doesn't automatically mean IE compatibility. M$ has a tendency to ignore industry standards. As far as the original question, I would work to make it look right in IE, because there's a good chance the judges won't have firefox. Complain all you want, but if it comes down to it and they only have IE on the judging computers, you'd be out of luck.

[Andrew Blair]

^Thank you. Bottom line is, if everybody's using IE, its gotta be compatible with IE. And almost everybody uses IE.

[BandChick]

There isn't a set browser for the judging process. I judged websites for the NYC Regional last year, and that was one thing I checked, compliance on multiple browsers. But generally, if it's compliant with Firefox it should be compliant with IE, unless you have some odd-placed CSS code overriding something that SHOULD display. Someone else was talking to me about this the other day...

I do think it's important to make it compliant to IE, since I think the majority of the judges will probably use IE.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by BandChick

But generally, if it's compliant with Firefox it should be compliant with IE, unless you have some odd-placed CSS code overriding something that SHOULD display.

In my experience, widths and heights are treated very differently in CSS in IE6.0 and FF1.5. In addition, JavaScript is treated very differently .

IE7.0 should be better hopefully. (Though now your hacks will mess up IE7.0, but you will still need them for IE6.0- )

What basic feature are you using that doesn't work in IE6.0? Is it your navigation or anything like that? If so you should probably try to add an alternative.

[KTorak]

You could always code a browser check and have them redirected to a dumbed down IE compiant version if the need is there. We did this but with cell phones so we could access our site on our cell phones and post real time updates.

[jonathan lall]

This isn't directed at anyone in particular but before we go on... Please. No silly excuses. No whining. Make your site work in the big browsers (or else).

Simple, well-constructed, standards-compliant code will almost always work in all browsers updated in the last three or four years, including IE5.5 and up. And for the record, IE7's beta is out and it's very nice. It's not a bad idea to give that a try, because it's completely revamped and will work like a charm (bear in mind the EULA basically asks you to agree not to browse around with the beta because Microsoft won't lend support for it). If you think the website judges are given strict guidelines other than the scoring rubric, you're sorely mistaken. Not only does each person have different values and judge based on their own subjective ideas as to what is a good site, but each person is liable to use a different browser. Some might use more than one. If you had to bet though, that browser would be IE6.0. Website Award or not, it's just bad design practice to code something that IE can't read.

[dk5sm5luigi]

Originally Posted by amirjpl

hey
our website works on every browser except internet explorer. some the best features dont work on ie.
thank you

If you are using some special features you need to make sure that if someone has JavaScript turned off or Style Sheets turned off the site is still usable. If you try using Lynx to surf a site and the site is still usuable then you have succeeded at this.

To me a website should give you the same experience no matter what browser you are using in order to win the website award. Isn't the point to have a good website? To me a good website is not only rich in content but also well designed and cross browser friendly. It isn't always easy to do but it is worth it.

[Adam Richards]

Just a side note: Safari browser for OS X can display some elements of forms (text boxes, buttons) improperly if you begin to set attributes for sizing.

[dk5sm5luigi]

Originally Posted by KTorak

You could always code a browser check and have them redirected to a dumbed down IE compiant version if the need is there. We did this but with cell phones so we could access our site on our cell phones and post real time updates.

An easier way is to have a different stylesheet for mobile devices so you only have to maintain one set of php/asp/jsp/html etc. and only have to change the stylesheet file. You can do this by setting the media property in the link tag. Go here for more info: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/media.html

[RobotsVsKittens]

I was a website judge for the SBPLI regional this weekend and I primarily use Firefox. I did break down and used IE for a few sites when it was clear they were not being displayed correctly.

[robot180]

Someone said that almost everyone uses IE. That is certainly not true. Here are some statistics from my team's site. It is true that a majority of people use IE, but a large percentage of people use other browsers.

MS Internet Explorer
No 10980 55.2%

Firefox
No 5860 29.4%

Unknown
?2667 13.4%

Netscape
No 169 0.8%

Opera
No 96 0.4%

and more