Why doesnt CSS work in netscape?

**Marc** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:13

Hmm.. I made this page:
here and it works fine (for me at least) in IE.

The CSS for the links changing color and making them not underlined works. The forms work.

However, when I load it up in Netscape 4.77 it looks like a different site! Aside from the problems with the tables (which I can probably fix, but I'll try that tomorrow), nothing that I did with CSS works! At all!

I'll understand if the forms don't work, I know Netscape doesn't handle CSS and forms very well, but can I even get the links to change color on hover, or have no underline normally?

Am I stupid or maybe Netscape just doesn't support CSS at all and I didn't know it?

Wow, I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but wouldn't life be sooo much easier if Netscape didnt exist!

**Anarchos** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:16

Not using quotes will help you, although Netscape 4 supports less CSS than IE. Netscape6/mozilla supports more CSS than NS 4.

**Marc** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:21

Argh, I thought I was being all good when i made sure i put ALL my values in quotes and made sure all tags were lowercase and everything had a closing tag, because that was supposed to be XHTML compatible, the way of the future.

But now I have to go and take out all the quotes for Netscape. Well, it's impossible to please everyone

**Anarchos** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:23

I meant to take out the quotes you had in the CSS file.

**Marc** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:35

yea, i kinda figured that, but I bet according to xhtml you're supposed to but css values in quotes too..

although i dont know that, im only presuming..

**Anarchos** · Jul 16, 2001, 17:56

Nope, xhtml only covers HTML, and according to the CSS specification, you're not supposed to quote most values.

**creole** · Jul 16, 2001, 19:27

The only CSS values you need to quote are those that are more than one word. For example:

.test {font-family: verdana, arial, "Arial Black"; }

See? Only words that need to stay together should be quoted. Nothing else should be quoted.

Also, regarding your rollovers, Netscape does not understand the pseudo-class (the effect used to get the text rollovers) properly. It will accept the "link" value, but it does not understand any of the other values such as a:hover, a:visited.hover, etc...

One more thing, it appears that the reason why your FORM is not showing up in Netscape is because you do not have an opening <FORM> tag. Hehehe...I did a search through the code and found only one opening FORM tag and that was for the Clock at the bottom of the page.

**lynlimz** · Jul 16, 2001, 19:38

All and All....it was your code. =)

**Steelsun** · Jul 16, 2001, 21:41

Netscape is picky about Codes.
Microsoft could care less if the code is buggy. (hence so many fixes for any MS product)

I used to be a Netscape prostelyzer, and still use 'scape for most of my browsing, but alas I am having to use IE for more and more things (like this forum, which is not NS4 friendly).

I have always avoided using CSS in my webpages so they will be easier to see in all browsers, but I am actually starting to learn CSS now, since I realize NS is gasping unto death. (Alas poor browser, we knew thee well...)

**Marc** · Jul 17, 2001, 04:13

Wow that was dense! Well at least now the form fields show. thanks :P

See the search box for spf in the top corner of this forum? if u load this page up in NS, its still a little funky lookin.. the box is smaller than normal and the text is in the same font, just the background color stays white.. how they do that?

btw thanks a lot guys i really appreciate it

hmmm i apparently noticed that using #id in css must be a psuedo-class deal cause it doesnt work in ns

i think that by being so hard-assed when it comes to code netscaped brouht about its own death.

**lynlimz** · Jul 17, 2001, 04:48

Originally posted by Marc
its still a little funky lookin.. the box is smaller than normal and the text is in the same font, just the background color stays white.. how they do that?

without looking at the source code of both the template and the style sheet, they should have made use of backgorund-color, border, ofnt size, width, color and font family..and several otehrs to name some.

**Singha** · Jul 24, 2001, 05:14

Have you received any answer on your question?

I also don't know why CSS doesn't work in NS?

**htmlite** · Jul 24, 2001, 08:33

Originally posted by Singha
Have you received any answer on your question?

I also don't know why CSS doesn't work in NS?

It depends on which CSS properties you are trying to use. N4 supports about half or so that IE5 does. I think N6 is much closer to supporting as much as IE5.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the HOVER property of CSS will not work in N4. Other things N4 does not cover is scroll bar colors, favicon, etc....

I am just glad that over 90% of my visitors are using IE5+. For the others, I try to accomodate, but sometimes it's just impossible.

Cheers!
htmlite.com

**Aes** · Jul 24, 2001, 09:06

Actually, NS6 and Mozilla (same thing) support more CSS than IE5 does....

**prowsej** · Jul 27, 2001, 15:50

Originally posted by Aes
Actually, NS6 and Mozilla (same thing) support more CSS than IE5 does....

I'd say that they support the same number because IE has a lot of proprietary CSS extensions with the likes of filters and scrollbar colors and such. If you just count up the number that are supported, it's probably about equal. If you count up the number supported that are specified by the W3C, Gecko is certainly ahead =)