CSS and early browsers

WhatsGoingOn

I am finally moving away from table layout and onto CSS, however I am worried that my site will not be viewable in earlier browsers such as IE5.x and NS4.x etc. Is there anyway of checking whether my site will be ok? Is there any 'browser emulators' available on the web?

mneylon

http://www.sitevista.com/

Rollo Tamasi

you could use browser hawk.
It checks what browser the user is using and depending on its version directs them to the browser friendly version of your site!

fizzy

whatever the results, don't let wonky old browsers put you off using the wonders of css!

by linking to your stylesheet using an @import statement rather than the <link> tag, you can specify one basic stylesheet for older browsers and a swanky one for the modern ones, as only modern ones recognise the @import statement...

<link href="basic.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<style type="text/css"><!-- @import url("swanky.css"); --></style>

if splitting up your styles and maintaining 2 sheets sounds like too much hassle, i tend to just use the @import statement to link to my stylesheet - then my sites are stripped of all styles in netscape 4 etc for a rather retro but still very usable experience

css rocks!

kstanl

My advice - don't bother your arse with older browsers. Just be sure to future-proof.