Cross Browser Testing... Getting Easier?

Hi one and all!

This is just a few thoughts on how the movements and growth in the internet might have an effect on the work we all do trying to get our pages to render as best we can on all platforms.

We are now seeing the evolving world of browsers gathering pace, with Internet Explorer 8 (from now on referred to as IE8) gathering pace and looking like a significant improvement over IE7 (OK, we all know that's not the greatest challenge, but it is still progress), Firefox 3 curing some long standing anomalies of Firefox 2 along with great speed improvements. Although some issues with Flash 10 and Firefox 3 appear to be surfacing at the moment, I can't believe they will be long lived. Safari use is on the increase, particularly in the mobile sector with the success of the iPhone, and Opera is common place on mobile phones and even in consoles like the Nintendo Wii as well as a solid browser on both Mac and PC. Linux is now available easily as a pre-installed system on budget PCs with Konquerer providing the browsing power. The percentage of users still brandishing IE6 is dropping month on month so we are regularly informed. Could this be significant for those of us developing websites and tools for this job? Could our life be about to get easier?

The thing that strikes us, is do we know how much the actual numbers are changing? If the numbers of IE6 users remain fairly static, or at least not in fast decline, wouldn't we see this change in percentage due to sheer numbers of other internet users being on the increase anyway? Even those of us who have been on the internet for a number of years, if we compare the number of devices connecting to the internet in our homes now with 4 or 5 years ago, hasn't this changed dramatically? From one computer on the internet in my house, we have 3 computers regularly on it, one occasionally, 2 mobile phones that can (but rarely do to be fair) and even a games console with the ability. All these units fed by a wireless router. This in a household with 2 adults and a six year old. I don't know how typical this is in a worldwide sense, but it is typical of our wider family and friends. What other support do I have for this idea of fast growing numbers? How about the increased number of Apple Macs being sold, and the crazy uptake of the iPhone not managing to push the Safari user numbers to where those sales would suggest? That would suggest the numbers as a whole are growing strongly to compensate.

Despite the growing number of theme and application developers wishing to drop support for IE6, I have a strong sense we will be dealing with it for several years yet. Certainly more that we wish to believe anyway. Would that really be the end of our troubles of it did happen?? Not a chance! IE7 is here to stay for a long time yet, and with Microsoft never following standards too closely (after all, wouldn't do to admit they should have done it 10 years ago would it?) coupled to more and more competing scripts to fit into your webpages there will always be many a challenge to overcome.

We must try and keep a clear view of the reality of the situation, not try to make things fit how we wish them to be. Here, we think that reality will include IE6 for the foreseeable future, unless you wish to alienate a significant percentage of visitors.

WebKarnage.

Google Indexing Flash...

Hi Everyone!

Google has now stated it is crawling Flash content in their Blog HERE. There is still the same caveat, that it only reads text and not images. SWF files are read, but not FLV (like YouTube) files as they contain no text.

How will this change things for SEO? Not massively for most of us, but it will help to push the use of Flash forward. This will lead to some more interesting sites, but some more garish ones too! It will be intriguing for me to see if this changes how programs like BannerZest construct their code or not for our advantage. It will surely please Adobe, who have improved Flash considerably in the last few years.

Our other hope at WK, is that smaller useful applications creating Flash (like BannerZest) will be inspired to push their boundaries as their use base may well increase. This with the inevitable upward speeds of the internet itself, will keep us all on our toes to provide the websites our clients want.

WebKarnage

More Forums...

Hi all,

Times are mad and busy! We have been trying to help out a great RapidWeaver Theme developer Robbie White on his new Forum HERE. His themes have some of the most unique ideas going around, but as life appears to have dealt Robbie a few curved balls recently, a bit of help was well deserved, and several of us from the RapidWeaver Forum have been popping in to check if there are any questions to answer! Not may yet, but it's all good. You can see Plasma Pro in action on WebKarnage.co.uk, as I try out some of the killer features!

We have a few ideas to work with, and there will be a new tutorial inside the next 10 days or so, and more inside the next month. The first tutorial will focus on simple HTML and CSS for use in RapidWeaver's Styled Text page type. Gradually learning a few bits of this can hugely change what you can do, and help you realize what options are open to you.

Short but sweet this one, and I'll post back when a new Tutorial appears!

Love to all you weavers out there!
WebKarnage.

New RapidWeaver forums and site..

Wow, what a shock to the system! There I was, down in Cornwall visiting my mother with my family, and everything RapidWeaver went mad! The new site was up, 3 different Beta versions had come and gone, everyone was busy posting on the new forum, Apple had release 10.5.3 and all in 48hrs or so. Crazy stuff alright!

Unfortunately, my mum isn't an internet person despite the facts she has been using Macs for 6+ years, and is very good at designing leaflets etc. for my sisters business. So, I am left on dial-up, with all this to consider. My main Beta testing had been happening on my iMac, and I had my MacBook with me, and I wasn't prepared to risk anything when it comes to my clients websites, until my own are on the new system and running well.

For those of you not familiar with RapidWeaver, take a look at the new site HERE. I am very pleased with the new site and forum, although to keep the huge number of spam posts down, some functionality has had to be limited. Well worth it in the balance for me, as my 6 year old son like to see what I am up to often.

I have been developing a different look for my site at WebKarnage.co.uk since early May using RapidWeaver 4 Beta, and it will go to my more used .net address soon. I couldn't let you guys know about it much earlier, with Beta Club rules and everything. I love the new UI, and it saves time every use for me, making it worth money on it's own. Lots of subtle and very useful things have been included in the main program structure (new xml site file format, cruftless links, publishing to web.mac.com addresses, themes view, improved Add Link functions, and many more), but some seem to be very disappointed with the lack of changes in the included plugins (page types). This will all come with time, and I am glad that they give us this improved program now, rather than do all the page type updates as well and release this much later.

A big thanks from us to all at Realmac for their hard work, and let's sort out the Brighton RUG meeting soon!

WebKarnage.

Kicking off the Madness...

Alright, I give in, I'll try to write a blog a few times a week. Everyone else seems to be doing it, I just need to make sure it isn't full of rubbish!

My passions after the love for my family (hand round the bags..) are music and web weaving. I work on something to do with either one at least every day! Those of you familiar with the Realmac Forum will know of my mad postings on the subjects around RapidWeaver, my chosen weaving software. The rest of my work is music related, usually in the audio studio world, occasionally theatre and live work. Session playing, engineering, and even producing complete backing tracks! Great enjoyable work.

Some of you will know I can sometimes be seen at the shows of Derek Acorah in theatres around the UK, behind the sound desk. I have also engineered festivals, and other outdoor and indoor events.

But this blog will mainly be centered on my more recently added passion, weaving. I have been doing this for a few years, but have got far more serious recently. The technology we have available to us is astounding, I just feel it makes it easier than ever to loose touch with what makes an enjoyable, useable site. If we can't see what's going on inside 3 or 4 seconds, and we have done a search, we will return to the search to try somewhere else! People getting creative is fine, but too creative with the navigation in terms of where to find it and how to use it, and no-one will hang around long enough to learn it.

I recently got sent to site where clicking on 'About Us' took me to a page without a single word on it. I thought the site didn't like my favourite browser (Safari) so I tried FireFox. Nope. Just the same. Then I realised the subtle 'blobs' down the outside were links to different things about the company!!!! None of them gave me a clue as to where the webmaster had left their common sense though. Unbelievable. 

I will go more into my feelings on this in the next few posts, and I would love some comments from all you guys on how you feel this does or doesn't work for you!

All the best,

WebKarnage.