IE non compliance with international standards is this true?

[MacBoobsPro]

I am creating a list of tips and info for iWeb users and as I understand it iWeb is fully compliant with international standards regarding the languages it uses. However Internet Explorer is not and for the majority of websites workarounds are needed to accommodate Explorer. Would the following statement be true?


Although iWeb complies to International standards regarding HTML, XHTML, CSS etc, Microsoft Internet Explorer does not and Explorer will often display anomalies when viewing any website built to International Standards (like ones built using iWeb). Web designers invariably have to create workarounds to accommodate Microsoft Internet Explorer. iWeb pages may not always display correctly in Microsoft Internet Explorer. I unfortunately cannot offer any tips here as I am not a web designer myself.

[clevin]

its called W3C standard.

iWeb is an app to produce webpages, there is no "standard compliance" to talk about, only browsers have this issue.

All browsers are standard compliance to certain degree, IE, is indeed doing very badly in many areas.

But again, Im not sure there is a solid evidence to say iWeb will produce 100% standard compliant webpages and IE will not display, both statements might not be that solid.

[design-is]

I agree... iWeb may well produce code which is correct, but standards compliance can mean all sorts of things... e.g. iWeb is awful for creating sites that comply with recognised accessibility standards. It will produces code that should work.. if that's what you mean.

Generally speaking, IE (especially 6 - grrrr) will usually manage to render something wrong when most other browsers will show it correctly.

[MacBoobsPro]

Originally Posted by design-is

I agree... iWeb may well produce code which is correct, but standards compliance can mean all sorts of things... e.g. iWeb is awful for creating sites that comply with recognised accessibility standards. It will produces code that should work.. if that's what you mean.

Generally speaking, IE (especially 6 - grrrr) will usually manage to render something wrong when most other browsers will show it correctly.

How can I translate this into laymans terms that some iWeb pages may not display correctly in IE and explain why?

My site for example has a weird grey box over it in all versions of IE but every other browser on the planet displays it without problems. Even the obscure browsers work ok.

[angelwatt]

HTML, XHTML, CSS are generally not referred to as "International Standards," but rather as specifications. iWeb does try to write to these specifications, but is not 100% correct in all aspects, such as accessibility as design-is stated. Just look at the recent thread about iWeb not having support for alt-text on images as an example.

Also, the various web specifications generally leave some room for interpretation, which has led to slightly different renderings in all browsers, not just IE. I'm not defending IE, just stating it's not the only elephant in the room, though IE6 is the worse of the current browsers and IE7 only made minor improvements. You also make big leaps with phrases of "making a web site to internal standards." I hope you elaborate on what you mean by that. Does that mean the site has implemented internationalization for the site, in which you can view it in different languages? Just saying you need to be clear on your terminology and make sure you define your terms.

In your paragraph you use the name "Explorer" to reference Internet Explorer. Never do that for a formal write-up. Explorer is a separate Microsoft application so always use Internet Explorer or IE when referencing it in a formal manner.

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by MacboobsPro

How can I translate this into laymans terms that some iWeb pages may not display correctly in IE and explain why?

My site for example has a weird grey box over it in all versions of IE but every other browser on the planet displays it without problems. Even the obscure browsers work ok.

Depending on how much room you have for your write-up I would do a show 'n' tell where you give screen shots of the various problems with side-by-side comparisons of IE's rendering with Firefox or Safari. Then you'd explain why tripped up or give ways to resolve the issue. And yes, this would take some work to put together.

[MacBoobsPro]

Originally Posted by angelwatt

Depending on how much room you have for your write-up I would do a show 'n' tell where you give screen shots of the various problems with side-by-side comparisons of IE's rendering with Firefox or Safari. Then you'd explain why tripped up or give ways to resolve the issue. And yes, this would take some work to put together.

I've got the screen shots via browsershots.org. Basically I am listing tips and information regarding using iWeb and some of its quirks. Unfortunately IE doesnt render my site and many other iWeb sites correctly because IE treats the 'code' differently or something. Really I just want to say that some iweb ages wont display in IE and give a short but accurate reason why not.

Would this be an accurate statement:

Some iWeb pages may not display correctly in Internet Explorer because of Microsofts interpretation of the WC3 standard. A standard that iWeb and many other websites use.

[SrWebDeveloper]

Here's my take on this...

The folks at Apple claim iWeb conforms to W3C HTML "standards" but did you know the entire consortium really is a set of recommendations intended to be adopted by developers and browser manufacturers merely as "best practices"? Technically, it's true.

Now, within that framework you have languages as you noted which are defined in some way by no less than 4 major organizations:

• Request for Comments (RFC) documents published by the Internet Engineering Task Force
• Standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
• Standards published by Ecma International (formerly ECMA)
• The Unicode Standard and various Unicode Technical Reports (UTRs) published by the Unicode Consortium

If you create a browser, you should make your product compliant as much as possible with those entity standards. Good luck, too, many of the codes, descriptions, syntax and language used is also "best practice" and of course as a result loosely interpreted.

So when we talk about web standards and languages, there is never full support across all platforms because Congress won't put you in jail for not following a "best practice" to the letter of the "law" (actually a guideline). This is why quirks exist across browsers, even though syntax standards for language support, i.e. XHTML, JavaScript and CSS are very well documented and thus well supported. And validation tools use strict RFC and ISO standards to interpret the code and test for validity but can't pick up everything because the rules keep changing as consortiums adapt to market needs and revise as necessary. Ajax is a great example of this problem.

So it really isn't justified to single out MSIE for not following the standards to the letter of the law. There is no law, that's the whole purpose of my previous paragraphs. MSIE and its loose interpretation of standards became popular after Netscape did precisely the same thing when PC's reduced in cost and Windows became the most widely sold platform in the entire world. Now, thank goodness, we have open source initiatives with excellent browser products intended to compete, i.e. Firefix, Mozilla, Opera, Safar, and so on. And such browsers often conform more precisely to web standards as a means to help fight the never ending battle to fully standardize the web development community. Choice is better [than MSIE].

Then comes you, the end user, stating:

However Internet Explorer is not [compliant with international standards] and for the majority of websites workarounds are needed to accommodate Explorer.

Based on what I just explained, have you a different outlook on things?

Bill Gates can't be blamed as the sole culprit here, although I certainly do blame Microsoft for alot of mistakes in context to the issues raised here such as certain critical RFC's being ignored, stupidly interpreted, ISO codes being left out, so on and so forth.

-jim

[design-is]

Originally Posted by MacboobsPro

Some iWeb pages may not display correctly in certain browsers (such as Internet Explorer) because of differing interpretations of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standards - A set of standards that iWeb and many other webpage producing applications try to adhere to.

Bold bits are the bits I changed or added.

[MacBoobsPro]

A lot of that went way over my head. I'm not MS bashing here.

I am just trying to accurately explain, without much knowledge of my own (thats why I'm asking here) why IE won't display iWeb pages correctly and make my readers aware of it. Having a program that generates web pages that dont work on the majority of the worlds computers is something you would want to know about. I have 26 screenshots (and various first hand accounts) that show many iweb pages dont display correctly in IE but perfectly in every other browser. Thats why I'm looking at Microsoft here.

[MacBoobsPro]

Note out of all these screen shots only IE has problems. Even browsers such as Kmeleon, Flock, Navigator and SeaMonkey have no problems and I havent even heard of them.

[SrWebDeveloper]

You don't need to know what each RFC and ISO code is, but you need to know they exist. If I were to simply wrap up in a convenient bow tie my direct answer to your question without explaining the technical context first, you'd probably not believe me.

But here's a summary for you...

MSIE did a poor job adapting faster and more reliably to new technologies that involve and also extend HTML because the open source community has successfully competed with Microsoft to develop browsers that more closely meet web standards now that PC prices are down, different operating systems are easier to buy, less expensive, etc. as the Internet revolution rolls onward.

-jim

[MacBoobsPro]

Ok thanks.

*walks off mumbling*

"I still don't know why Microsoft don't spend another £3 and sort IE out."

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by MacboobsPro

Would this be an accurate statement:

Some iWeb pages may not display correctly in Internet Explorer because of Microsofts interpretation of the WC3 standard. A standard that iWeb and many other websites use.

Here is my suggested statement:

Some iWeb created web sites do not display correctly in certain browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer (IE)) because the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) specifications leave some room for interpretation, and in the case of IE, attempted to set its own personal specifications for the web, which only it adhered to. Also, most browsers do not yet have a 100% implementation of each of the specifications due to technical hurdles, which leads to rendering differences. iWeb and other web page producing applications aim to adhere to W3C specifications in an effort to have web pages render as alike as possible no matter what browser a user chooses to view them with.

[SrWebDeveloper]

"I still don't know why Microsoft don't spend another £3 and sort IE out."

Microsoft has a reputation for mostly poor quality products that are marketed in a genius like manner, hooking consumers into the system. Bill Gates was also the best salesman on the planet, being able to recognize business trends before others - he was visionary in that sense. Unfortunately most of the original technology was not of his own making, his products required many years of revision and tweaking to become staple products, and of course he got in trouble with the Feds for attempting to monopolize his sector.

Why would Microsoft spend all it's money on improving the abuser's drug of choice (MSIE under Windows whatever flavor, conforming to standards) when it's more profitable to simply sell more drugs (loosely adapt standards to their liking since they're King)? Like has been said a few times now, the open source community and also Apple's iWeb more closely conforms to the standards than MSIE now.

Get it now?

-jim

[MacBoobsPro]

Originally Posted by SrWebDeveloper

Microsoft has a reputation for mostly poor quality products that are marketed in a genius like manner, hooking consumers into the system. Bill Gates was also the best salesman on the planet, being able to recognize business trends before others - he was visionary in that sense. Unfortunately most of the original technology was not of his own making, his products required many years of revision and tweaking to become staple products, and of course he got in trouble with the Feds for attempting to monopolize his sector.

Why would Microsoft spend all it's money on improving the abuser's drug of choice (MSIE under Windows whatever flavor, conforming to standards) when it's more profitable to simply sell more drugs (loosely adapt standards to their liking since they're King)? Like has been said a few times now, the open source community and also Apple's iWeb more closely conforms to the standards than MSIE now.

Get it now?

-jim

I got it. My response was a joke.

Imagine a scolded teenager walking off in a huff down the hallway. Thats what I was aiming for. I thought it was funny but ah well.

Just to clarify though Microsoft sell drugs, the Feds are onto them but Microsoft are continuing to sell these drugs even though they are of poor quality but because people are hooked there is still a market right?

If everyone else did this then the internet would be a mess of illegible pages right? Hmm... makes you wonder!

Thanks for your info though.

[SrWebDeveloper]

Okaaaaaay.

This is actually interesting stuff we've gotten into, about M$ domination and loosely adopted standards which really aren't even standards. Pardon me for not picking up the joke, tho! Cya.

-jim

[dejo]

Originally Posted by clevin

iWeb is an app to produce webpages, there is no "standard compliance" to talk about, only browsers have this issue.

Not exactly true. Webpages can be written, either by hand or via a tool such as iWeb, to validate against certain standards. This is why W3C has an HTML Validator. They have a CSS Validator as well as others. These tools measure the validity of the actual webpages themselves, regardless of browser. You can then test whether your webpages conform to a certain standard.

Then there are the browsers who support all these standards in varying ways. As well, some parts of the standards are open to interpretation and browsers implement them differently. So, a webpage may conform to a certain standard but that doesn't mean they will work the same in all browsers. Hope that helps.