Workaround differences Netscape and IE

Anon

I was getting very tired of the differences between Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer (like the problem of adding margins and the cutting of pixels in frames by Netscape), so I used this workaround:

I made a function which detects which browser is used and echoes $ns in case of Netscape and $ie in case of MIE:

function browser($ns,$ie)
{
global $HTTP_USER_AGENT;
if ((stristr($HTTP_USER_AGENT, "Mozilla") && (!(stristr($HTTP_USER_AGENT, "compatible"))))==1) echo $ns;
else echo $ie;
}

Wherever I need different values for the two different browsers, I just call
<?php browser(value ns, value ie); ?>

Certainly, it's not nice. But it works. Now my website looks almost the same in Netscape and MIE (finally!).

Anon

Check out PHPlib templates or fasttemplate, you sound like you might benefit from it. To give you an Idea of what I mean here's what I do.

build 4 general templates IE NS4 NS6 and OTHER (the differences can be small but the main benefit is the distinction between NS4 and IE.(other is a vanilla version)

Build seperate universal templates for common items like copyright and nav tables etc that work in all of the above templates

Write a little browser sniffer and set the $template and there you go, a bit more work at the outset but great results! And you can take advantage of all those little peculiarities in each browser.

Nick