My Website Looks Different In Different Browsers...why?

[ivanmax]

My website looks different in different browsers...why?

 

www.pedaldoc.com

 

If I see it in IE it looks fine but in Firefox the text overlaps and some of the buttons don´t work right.

 

Why is that?

 

I would really welcome your help.

 

Thanks a lot,

 

Iván.

[TCH-Thomas]

It´s because some browsers don´t follow standards and things like that.

Here is a thread that covers it a little (The link goes to where it´s explained).

[TCH-JimE]

Hello,

 

I would also suggest that you put all your CSS into a css file, rather then have each tag having its own style

 

Jimuni

[TCH-Tim]

In general you might want to go with proper CSS layouts to build your site. Absolutely positioning each paragraph is a bad way to go. What'd you use to build it?

[travisc]

You're dealing with a few factors here -- browser differneces, user monitor resolutions, operating system quirks, installed font sets, and possible end-user css overrides. You can't control all of these things, so you have to control what you can. A couple of tips that many experienced web-commerce coders follow --

 

if you're going to absolute-position everything, design for 800x600. Unless your target market is hardcore geeks, 70% of web shoppers still use 800x600.

 

use external css. Not only does it push you to think in a big-picture sort of way, it makes later site updates/changes easier to implement.

 

test it! Opera, Firefox, and IE are all free. We test, in-house, every site we code in the two most recent versions of each of those three browsers, plus safari and konqueror. We run tests from Windows XP, 2000, Mac os X and 9., and two linux systems. We test at resolutions from 800x600 up to 1600x1200 (except for handhend apps of course.) Know what your customers will encounter before they do.

 

Use a HTML and CSS validator. I like the W3 validators myself.

 

Learn. There are many good css sites out there. After you have a foundation down, find sites you like, and view their source code and css files, you can pick up some good tricks.

[ivanmax]

Ok, thanks for your answers. Do you consider it is worth to make sure my web works fine in Firefox and all the other browsers? According to the info available in the net only about 8% of internet users use something that is not IE.

 

Waiting for your comments.

 

Thanks a lot for all the help you are giving me.

 

Iván.

[stevevan]

I would recommend you make sure it works (in order): IE, FireFox, Opera. If it looks very similar in these three, then there should be any problems with anything else.

 

Note that I said similar. As has been said in other threads, there will be some differences in browsers until all conform to the same type of standard.

[Deverill]

Definitely. The reason is stated in this question: "Can you afford to permanently lose X% of your potential customers?" The percentage varies depending on whom you ask, but it is growing.