DHTML scripts and Macs

[macdan]

Hi Sitepoint

I picked up a great news ticker script from dynamic drive:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex2/crosstick.htm

But found that it in a mac it has problems when you hit the back button, to return to the page that it was on, it overwrites itself/gets jumbled up. Problem is solved by refreshing the page.

My question is - are dhtml scripts more likely to be a bit buggy in macs? Does anyone have any experience with this particular script and have they found a way around this?

Thanks again!

[Anarchos]

Yes, dhtml scripts are likely to be buggier in Macs. This is because macs are a very small portion of web users, and because it's targeted to non-technical users because of its great usability, there are few people who can actually test their scripts on a Mac.

The other problem is that the IE 5 implementation on the Mac doesn't support everything that IE 5 on Windows does. So a webmaster might test it on IE 5 for windows and think that since it worked correctly, it'll work correctly on the mac version of IE 5, although this isn't necessarily the case. Netscape is much more consistent between operating systems, but of course is lacks the functionality of IE.

Furthermore, like all dhtml incompatibilities, there is no pattern to the quirks: various random properties or attributes may not work exactly the same, and this changes with every upgrade.

There's probably a way around it but it'll be horrible to figure out.

[macdan]

Thanks for that Anarchos. I suspected that was the case!

Now all I have to do is work out a good bit of PR for the client if they're not happy with it!