I started creating websites. Always used to work under IE. Firefox becomes more popular so I decided to install it and see if something is going to look different in Firefox. And it does! Is there any information out there to learn these differences and how to fix it? For example, "bgrepeat: no-repeat;" in IE works, Firefox ignores it. I have Java script based calendar (http://www.fishbigusa.com/prices.html), which perfectly works in IE and returnes ERROR in Firefox, etc.
Appreciate any help!
Elena

Designing for IE only is a bit myopic because it does so much WRONG.
The best source for the solutions to IE's many bugs is www.positioniseverything.net

bgrepeat is NOT valid CSS , the proper CSS would be background-repeat: no-repeat, better yet use background: url(path/filename) no-repeat;

The JS you're using for IE is most likely outdated and not using the current DOM, so it breaks in any other browser.

Hi,

Firstly congrats on installing Firefox, good step!

The problem between IE and FF is simple. If you build your site using any valid XHTML standard it will work fine in Firefox, IE7, Opera, Netscape, Safari any many others.

There are exceptions like IE6 which does not render Xhtml well and you need to apply "css hacks" to make it run. This is quite simple. You can add html condition:

<!--[if IE]>
<link href="IE.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

and make individual corrections in CSS for this stylesheet on this browser

you can even separate this

<!--[if IE6]>
<link href="IE6.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE7]>
<link href="IE7.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

Now, bgrepeat: no-repeat; is not valid Xhtml tag. If you want to do it in Xhtml you need to use:

style="background-repeat:no-repeat" or just write it in your CSS directly.

Declaring doctype and working the valid code is first you should do.

Oh my God! I am so outdated! Looks like I urgently need to take some classes. Otherwise I should not be charging my customers, even that little money I charge

... and actually it was "background-repeat: repeat; background-position:top;", I guess I just shortened it...

Oh, one more question: how can I find out if JS is outdated or not... I'm not really brilliant, I needed calendar for filling one of the form fields (customer wanted), I found free one in Internet

There are exceptions like IE6 which does not render Xhtml well and you need to apply "css hacks" to make it run.

IE6 has no trouble rendering XHTML and CSS hacks only apply to CSS, they have NO effect whatsoever on (X)HTML. The problems with IE6 and CSS is it's non-standard way of doing things, like it's seriously busted box model and many other things MS decided it was going to do its own way and thumb its nose at web standards.

XHTML isn't even necessary, at least HTML 4.01 STRICT is recommended.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

XHTML isn't even necessary, at least HTML 4.01 STRICT is recommended.

It sounds like New Age !

Anyway, Firefox is miles away from IE 7 (IE 6 must be burned). Firefox with Webdeveloper add-on is standard for me. Of course that I have IE7, Opera and Safari on my machine, but only for preview

today, a bunch people are still using Internet Explorer 6... it's so frustrating

Originally Posted by NAT3

today, a bunch people are still using Internet Explorer 6... it's so frustrating

I agree. It would make my month (or year) if I woke up one morning and the IE6 market share had fallen to 10% or something! Sadly, it's not going to be anywhere near those figures for several years

All we can do is learn the IE6 hacks and use them wisely and continue to design for web standards, regardless of IE6's non-standard behaviour. It would help a lot if Microsoft started pressuring people on XP to upgrade to IE7, or at the very least, made them aware that there was a huge upgrade available. Too many people probably don't even know another version of IE is available, or even that there are alternatives to IE or Windows for that matter.

It would help a lot if Microsoft started pressuring people on XP to upgrade to IE7, or at the very least, made them aware that there was a huge upgrade available.

They are ! They keep pushing the IE7 upgrade out in their monthly 'updates' .. and I keep telling it to go away. Why ? Because Once I put IE7 on my machine, I lose IE6 and the ability to test my sites easily. For now, I have IE7 on my laptop to test that browser, but I'm not upgrading to IE 7 on my desktop... not now.

ahhh i hate ie, with a passion, its so horrible. its abll about firefox or flock!!!!! =]

ladynred and anyone else who's interested - you can install a standalone version of IE7 alongside your normal IE6 for testing purposes
http://tredosoft.com/IE7_standalone

That is the one hard thing when coding a site....... getting the website to look the same on every browser. From my experiences, if you can get the webpage to look good on internet explorer, it will look good in all the other browsers. Funny things is, when I worked on my site, I didn't have to put any IE 6 hacks to get it to work properly. I guess I was one of the lucky ones.

Originally Posted by NAT3

today, a bunch people are still using Internet Explorer 6... it's so frustrating

It is one of the most annoying browsers.

Design for firefox & IE7 is a minium

Yep I'd say just design for Web Standards (currently Firefox is closest to them) and then fix for non-standards browsers like IE6 and sometimes IE7.

Apologies LadynRed, I use Mac OS X 10.4 and my desktop is using IE7 so I didn't know they were pushing it out. It remains though that there are still a lot of people who haven't heard that there is a new version of IE available. These sorts of people probably won't start using IE7 until they've upgraded to Vista.

But many many people are use Internet Explorer 6 and that is a fact.

Originally Posted by helpar

But many many people are use Internet Explorer 6 and that is a fact.

Who cares what the majority of people are using, the fact still remains that some people do use Firefox and that you should make your websites look the same in both. Firefox is also gaining momentum as a web browser.

Originally Posted by BlackWater

Who cares what the majority of people are using,

I do, because I build sites for people not for myself
I use FireFox, but always check to see what my sites look in FireFox, IR6, IE7.