So I Usually Design Sites For Ie Browsers.but Im New To The Whole Firefox,which I Really Like.

Any One Have Any Tips And Small Changes To Look Out For When Designing And Coding For Firefox.

From what I've experienced lately FireFox was working the same way IE would.
At least the stuff I worked on.

firefox -> design with w3c's standards
ie -> design with mshtml standards

ok cool, cause what i have noticed is some scroll bars ive decked out look completely different in firefox.

Thanks alot.

Yea, you can't get custom scrollbars in Firefox like you can in IE.
You can however use DHTML or Flash to achieve that effect.

I use FireFox myself for web development. I would NEVER go back to IE (Only for testing purposes). I have the same problem with "customizing" scroll bars. Won’t work. The ONLY way to beat that is to use DHTML or Flash. You can check out my site at www.owentrier.com. I use I-frame with rollover scripting.

If I catch you stealing my code…I would hunt you down and beat you to the pulp! Lol. Just Kidding. Go ahead…steal it and learn it.

Copycat :p

d'oh! Didn't see that, lol.

Holding my right hand up and said, "I swear that I would never let that happen again"

Mr. Hell, I hope this isn't stuff that you already know, but if so... oh well, maybe it will help someone else! Mozilla Firefox is a great browser. It could eventually be the best ever, if Mozilla develops it properly. The Gecko rendering engine is king, so Netscape (6+), Mozilla, and Firefox are all wonderful, W3C-Standards compliant (very close anyway) browsers. Microsoft IE 6.0.x is also a great browser, a little less W3C compliant maybe, but I've built my career on developing for it. The important thing currently, in my opinion, is to develop your Websites to be as W3C compliant as possible (that includes 508 accessibility) for both the Gecko (Netscape 6+, Mozilla, Firefox) and the Microsoft (IE 5.5 +) browsers. Opera? maybe... not sure yet. All of this can be achieved with the proper use of XHTML and CSS (think <div> instead of <table>). Netscape 4.5 and 4.7? As far as I'm concerned, they no longer exist, but if you design your site properly, even those users can at least read your content. There are a zillion helpful sites out there, but two that I live by are: Zeldman.com (http://www.zeldman.com/), and A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com). Happy scripting! :)

(p.s. - This whole paragraph only deals with the Windows desktop OS. As far as considerations for Mac users (i.e. - Safari), and designing pages for handhelds, phones, etc., we'll leave those discussions for their own threads!) :)

basically, if you make a site in IE, it will be fine in FF. As much as everyone swoons over FF, I still use IE as well do ALOT of people. So, I still design with IE in mind.

I'm with ya' Kriegs! :)

wow,im gone for a few days and look at all the wonderfull helpfull hints im getting.You peeps are great.Thanks alot guys.

basically, if you make a site in IE, it will be fine in FF.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

Design in IE, and you'll learn to work within/around IE's quirks. View that design in FireFox and you might wind up being very surprised.

How surprised you are depends on how much CSS you're using, too. Simple font styling will probably yield no differences across browsers. However, when you get into creating multi-column layouts using DIVs, you're bound to come across some descrepancies. (IE box model, anyone?)

To put my money where my mouth is, take exhibit A:

(sorry, address no longer available)

Viewed in IE6, which is what I designed for (Mozilla nor Opera were in my vocabulary at this time), it looks as I intended it to. Look at it in FireFox and it looks like crap. (Or at least, not as I intended it to.) Most of the website's structure is intact in both browsers because I used tables. (Please do not think you must use tables to achieve cross-browser visual stability - you don't.)

I built the Mantapart website more than two years ago, before I got serious about understanding CSS and why things looked and acted the way they did.

Fast forward and take a gander at this (unfinished) website, created without the use of tables:

http://www.mwccworld.com/

Looks fine in both IE and FireFox.

FireFox gets it right (most of the time). Design for FireFox, then go back and tweak for IE. It'll save you headache, I promise. :)

- Rabbit

PS:

Hi all! I'm happy to see the SDC forums are back up after having been down so long... :grin2:

In defense of what kriegs was saying, I think he was just speaking in very general terms, and probably for table-only layouts. But I know what you mean about inconsistencies between IE and Gecko. I spend 8-10 hours a day pulling my freeking hair out over them! Good points though. Yeah, designing first for Firefox, then tweaking for IE. An approach I unfortunately haven't taken yet, but probably a very logical one. Nice Websites by the way, both "rabbitcreative" and "mwccworld". Welcome (or welcome back) to the SDC! :)

An article from usatoday.com, 11/10/04:

Firefox ignites demand for alternative browser (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-09-firefox-cover_x.htm)

I design for firefox and then tweak for IE. :)

It's amazing that Microsoft only will launch a new browser with longhorn. It's also amazing that they are not planing on providing the browser for windows versions < XP. The good thing is that the variety of browsers on the web will increase. The only way for that to be successful will be the adoption of standards by developers and browsers. The big problem is, Microsoft will not put out a browser that supports more standards for another three years. I think you have to add another 2 on top of that while people migrate to the new OS and browser. Does this mean that we will have to wait 5 years for a truly compliant web? Something's gotta give. Let's say half of IE users switch to another browser before that, we are still going to have half the web using old technology. It will be like the Netscape 4.7 plague, but worse! Well, at least IE supports css better.

Anyways, I like IE, and I like it's extra functionality that allows you to develop robust web based applications. The CMS I've been developing over the last year only works in IE because of this. There is just no way to do it in other browsers. I wish I could make it work in Firefox. I guess it's this same functionality that makes it possible to hijack my wifes browser to the point where it's unusable.

Well that was a bit of an incoherent rant.

This post was made in Firefox.

You all know Firefox 1.0 came out, right?

I was on it like a fat kid on a smarty. I guess that would be me.

I was on it like a fat kid on a smarty. I guess that would be me.
That would be me too. :)

Yeah, Microsoft doesn't seem to be reacting to the recent Firefox momentum the way they should. I guess when you have 70 billion dollars in cash in the bank, you react any way you want. I know what you mean about developing especially for IE though. I have clients that want features in their Web apps that only seem to work properly in IE. I guess what it comes down to is that there are two basic types of Web development for most professionals: Develop the way you need to so you can get the job done and make your client happy, or develop in a perfectly standards-compliant fashion and make people like Jeffrey Zeldman happy. If you can combine the two, then I guess that truly is Web Development Nirvana! :)

If you can combine the two, then I guess that truly is Web Development Nirvana! :)

Exactly. But it will never happen, it is the same functionaliy in IE that gives us these extra options that gives us these security holes.

It is also the ability for Microsoft to develop unique scripting options based on the fact that IE is no longer cross platform.

Hmm, I guess this leaves Java applets for cross browser/OS client side compatibily.

I hate Java applets.

hey, this is what I'm complaining about, but it works in most browsers.

http://www.fckeditor.net/Demo/

Yeah, I never liked Java applets either. Hey I checked out that link. Looks like it was developed in ASP/VB Dot Net. Very cool. I like the application. Nice editor (hilarious name!) :)