Hello all-

My name is seth, I am CEO of a high school web design business called the MHS Tech Cadre.

I was wondering, because a lot of my team has been asking me lately.... Is there any real way to correct the HTML display differences between looking at a page in Firefox vs. IE?

Everybody on my team, as they like to follow the trend, insists on using Firefox, and I insist on them using IE because there is not as many display problems... Does anyone have a solution to a HTML site so that it will display identically in both FF and IE?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

-Smorgan

Hi Seth and welcome to webmaster-talk.com!

I am glad you are looking further into finding ways to make your sites display properly for users using different browsers.

The reason IE doesn't seem to display as many problems is because it handles code...well...more loosely than Firefox. I believe as you continue to work with coding websites, you will grow to love Firefox and loathe IE.

There are several ways to make sure your sites look the same (well, at least very closely similar) in a variety of browsers. Here are a few:
1. Always use a Doctype.
2. Make sure you are coding properly and validate all of your code.
3. Learn about all of the IE "bugs" or "quirks" so that you can anticipate them and code for them.
4. Learn about conditional statments for your stylesheets so that if IE really gives you trouble that you cannot solve otherwise, you can dish out specific styles for IE only.
5. Read, read, read and ask lots of questions. Feel free to post here with specific problems you have between different browsers. We are here to help each other. Just try to be specific. You wont get as good of a response if you are too broad with your questions.

Good luck!

Hello Seth,
angele803 is completely right!
But my point of view is totally opposite of yours. I love FF and I do really HATE IE. Had a loads of hard times with that bloody wanna-be-a-browser! Plus there're problems for which I could never really find a solution. That's a real pain. And to prove my point : open the page in Opera, FF and IE, even Safari if you wish(a bit better than IE) and you'll see which one goes off the road.

Good luck fighting with IE

***EDIT***
Found this recently on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdefeo/1402272041/

Is there any real way to correct the HTML display differences between looking at a page in Firefox vs. IE?

Absolutely, but understand, that you're never going to get 100% identical results on ALL of the browsers, but IE is definitely the bane of web designers since it really is the least standards-compliant browser we have to deal with. IE7 is somewhat better than IE6 and (from what we're told) IE8 should be standards compliant and on par with Firefox. Using IE as your 'measure' of what's 'right' is just the wrong approach, your FF loving team members are on the right track, although they should not ignore the other browsers.

I suggest you peruse the IE bug information here: http://www.positioniseverything.net

9 times out of 10, if you get it displaying correctly in FF, other more standards-compliant browsers like Opera and Safari will be just fine.
I totally agree with everything Angele said.

Just do everything angele803 said and make sure you test the most widely used browsers; FF, IE, Safari, Opera,etc.

Yup angele hit it perfectly. This is a constant struggle for all designers. Neither IE or FF has more "display-flaws"; they just format things differently. It's all about the programmer. Most display issues can be solved by using certain code that is compatible with both browsers. But sometimes you must identify the browser being used to display the correct code when you're unable to find one code that works correctly for both. There's no site that will format your code to all browsers specifications. You must simply tweak your code. Good luck on the business. No offense but it sounds like you all have a lot to learn before you become a real, successful company. Hit those books. It's worth it in the end (if you make it :P).

FF works better with fl players (less bugs)

I would also like to add that you should be really caerful with CSS hacks and such. Some of them can do more bad than good.
A lot of people used various hacks to fix IE6 issues, then IE8 came along fixing some of the flaws that the hacks were based on. So the Sites would be broken in IE8 because of the IE6 hacks.

Once you've done HTML/css for a while and studied it's behavior in all the main browsers (IE, Firefox, Webkit etc), it wont take that much longer to make your site cross-browser compatible. You will also have gained a lot of valuable knowledge and understanding about the different browsers rendering process.

I would really like microsoft to follow the w3c standards. IE7 was a huge improvement and IE8 was even better. But there's still a long way to go. And people will still be using IE6 for a couple of years too *sigh*.

Originally Posted by angele803

Hi Seth and welcome to webmaster-talk.com!

I am glad you are looking further into finding ways to make your sites display properly for users using different browsers.

The reason IE doesn't seem to display as many problems is because it handles code...well...more loosely than Firefox. I believe as you continue to work with coding websites, you will grow to love Firefox and loathe IE.

There are several ways to make sure your sites look the same (well, at least very closely similar) in a variety of browsers. Here are a few:
1. Always use a Doctype.
2. Make sure you are coding properly and validate all of your code.
3. Learn about all of the IE "bugs" or "quirks" so that you can anticipate them and code for them.
4. Learn about conditional statments for your stylesheets so that if IE really gives you trouble that you cannot solve otherwise, you can dish out specific styles for IE only.
5. Read, read, read and ask lots of questions. Feel free to post here with specific problems you have between different browsers. We are here to help each other. Just try to be specific. You wont get as good of a response if you are too broad with your questions.

Good luck!

I couldn't have siad this better myself. Seth, follow this advice, and tell them to use both firefox and IE to make sure all stays afloat...you may want to view things in safari as well. Good luck!