THE 18-MONTH PREGNANCY

In early 2000, Microsoft released IE5 Macintosh edition, a browser that delivers top-notch support for HTML 4, CSS, and JavaScript, three immensely important web standards. Soon afterward, Opera Software released its 4.0 browser, whose principal purpose is to deliver superior support for web standards. And a month before Christmas 2000, Netscape delivered Navigator 6, the most standards-compliant browser yet.

To read the preceding three sentences not only induces coma, it also suggests that designers are now free to use nothing but W3C standards in the sites they and their colleagues create.

Alas, this is not the case. IE5 for Windows currently offers excellent but incomplete support for standards. IE4, currently the most-used browser on the Web, has good but still less complete support for standards, and Netscape 4, still used by millions, offers even less. Sure, users can upgrade, and eventually they will—but at their own pace.

We call this upgrade period the 18-month pregnancy, based on the time it usually takes before web users feel compelled to switch to an updated browser. Web designers and enthusiasts download new browsers immedi- ately—not so your Uncle Nigel. While you beta-test next year’s browser, your client sticks with AOL 3. Clients and other normal human beings tend to use the browser that came preinstalled on their computers. They upgrade when they buy a new PC. Computer manufacturers tend to install 3.0 browsers (considered stable) when 4.0 models are newly available; they offer 4.0 browsers when 5.0 models first come out; and so on. IT departments are equally conservative, tending to view new browsers the way cats regard changes to their litter. Those who use the Web primarily to shop, send email, or view pornography may not be aware for months that a new browser is available, and when they do find out they often don’t care.

The browser upgrade path is slow, thus the transition to a Web built purely with standards could take 18 months or longer. Some say we will not see a fully standards-compliant Web before 2003. For the near future, you will likely find it necessary to employ nonstandard workarounds to address specific deficiencies in these older browsers. We’ll explain these workarounds in the relevant chapters on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.