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The Holmes Page Test With Multiple Browsers

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 Many Web sites proudly declare "This site designed for so-and-so browser", as if that were a advantage rather than a limitation. 
Unfortunately, because the leading browsers have different capabilities, there is often no choice but to tune your pages for one of them. But the least you should do is test your Web pages with more than one browser. 
I use both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer when I am creating Web pages. A number of interesting differences have come up. 
For instance, in Navigator 3.01 everything between the <UL> and </UL> tags (which format an unordered list) is indented, whereas in IE only text marked with the <LI> tag is indented. 
Here is some example HTML code:
<UL>
<B>Bold Heading</B><BR>
<LI>list information
<LI>list information
</UL>
It looks like this in Navigator:
Bold Heading
•list information
•list information
While it looks like this in IE:
Bold Heading
•list information
•list information
The most obvious difference is the alignment of the heading. I prefer the way it looks in IE. 
Another difference is the size of the bullet (•). In Navigator it is larger, in fact even larger than my simulation shows. (By the way, Navigator will not display the bullet unless it is followed by some text.) 
Note the <BR> after the bold heading. Without it, IE does not automatically display the first <LI> on the next line. This is what IE would display without the <BR>:
Bold Heading • list information
•   list information
Although I can put up with the position of the heading, and the size of the bullet does not matter, it is certainly not good to display the first list item right next to the heading. I never would have guessed this behaviour unless I had used IE to view the page. 
You may be wondering why the bold heading is within the <UL> tags in the first place. I did this because I do not like the blank lines that appear before and after the list. I wanted the heading to be closer to the list items. 
There are many more subtle differences between Navigator and IE. No doubt other browsers have their own quirks. Testing your Web pages on as many browsers as possible will allow you to compensate.


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