uogateway updated/tweaked

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:39 am

I've done some changes today to uogateway:

* Changed graph colors a bit
* Tweaked graph plotting calculations for better compensation for lag spikes
* The poller now tries 3 times before declaring a shard as being offline
* Added advertising to bring in some extra money to help pay server costs
* If a shard is down for over 7 days, the owner is notified, and the shard is set as inactive and wont show in the list

Also, Internet explorer sucks at understanding css, and I give up on that crappy browser. If you use IE the site will look super ugly.

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dprantl · Post by **dprantl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:41 am

That's a bad idea. As much as you may hate IE, millions of people use it and if they go to uogateway and it looks like crap, they will leave. There must be a way to make it look good in both firefox and IE.

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d. · Post by d. » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:15 am

dprantl wrote:That's a bad idea. As much as you may hate IE, millions of people use it and if they go to uogateway and it looks like crap, they will leave. There must be a way to make it look good in both firefox and IE.

Agreed.

Research shows that websites have 2-3 seconds to captures someone's attention before they decide to leave the site. By having Gateway look like crap to everyone using IE, you are loosing out on a lot of traffic right off the bat.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:56 pm

The way to make it work is to essentially make two websites, a CSS one, and a non CSS one, then have some kind of user agent check. Most gamers probably aren't stuck in the 1990's and will probably not be using IE anyway. I like using CSS as it makes it easy to format the site as well as change the layout, and IE just sucks at CSS. I have not checked in 7 though, maybe it looks better, but don't think too many people are using 7. If they bother to update their browser, then they're probably using firefox. Most people who use IE are using 5.0 or 6.0. I tested it with 6.0.

IE is old and outdated when it comes to web standards, I rather use newer technology when coding.

We'll be remaking the template at one point anyway, so we might try to find a way so it works in both new browsers and old ones.

Also most of the traffic will be from people voting for other shards, so at that point they'll already have voted and seen the ads.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:18 pm

Actualy red, most of the IE users use IE 7 and 8. The only people who usualy have IE 6 or lower installed are corprate. They only keep IE 5/6 because they have programs/intranet sites that only support IE5/6.

Try support IE7 and IE8 support should be easy as it is almost as standards compliant as FF2.

When you finalise your design and start coding it let me know if you need some help with IE fixes as I know most of em

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:14 pm

The biggest one is cell padding and cell spacing. IE does not support the CSS equivalent of those, which is really annoying.

What gets me is, firefox is open source, all MS has to do is look at the source, or even just take it. In fact they should just give up and ship windows with a custom version of firefox that they can just call IE. MS sucks at following standards.

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dprantl · Post by **dprantl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:20 pm

Squirrel, you are still missing the point. The purpose of uogateway is not to have you code what you like, it is to get as many people interested in UO and UOV as possible. There are many many people using IE7; the argument that if people update they will use firefox is simply flawed.

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d. · Post by d. » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:26 pm

dprantl wrote:Squirrel, you are still missing the point. The purpose of uogateway is not to have you code what you like, it is to get as many people interested in UO and UOV as possible. There are many many people using IE7; the argument that if people update they will use firefox is simply flawed.

I agree. UO Gateway is all about getting as many people interesting in UO/AoV as possible, regardless of MFF/IE.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:08 pm

You do realize that to support IE I have to redo the whole thing, twice. One for standard compliant browsers, and one for IE. I just don't feel like doing all that work just to support a 1990 browser that has never been updated to today's standards. If people refuse to upgrade, then I don't see that as being my problem. Pretty much every site I've ever coded looks like crap in IE but is still viewable. I just totally gave up on it, I just find it retarded that MS refuses to follow standards.

Some people even go further then me by using CSS/div/span only sites. Those don't even load in IE at all without serious major workarounds using tons of javascript.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:57 pm

I can make a site completely xhtml/css with no JS at all that woks okish in IE6 and looks like FF in IE7/8. With 1 CSS2.0 file. Its just a case of a few tweaks/workarounds. JS does make coding for IE easier but it can sometimes be better not to use it

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dprantl · Post by **dprantl** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 4:16 pm

Ok, let me ask you this. Would you code another site (double the work) if you could double your viewing rate?

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 4:48 pm

Depends. Most people using IE are most likely not gamers, and UOG's audience is gamers mostly. Also, they can still see it, it's just that it looks crappy because IE does not support border spacing/padding. So to me it's not really worth the extra work of having to maintain two sites.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:01 pm

Most people on the internet use IE. Gamers or not. And that is coming from a european stance where FF is gaining better than anywhere else.

Check some stat sites out:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser ... px?qprid=1

But having said that remove IE 6 and install IE7/8. Or get the IE render addon for FF.

Uogateway doesnt actualy look too bad in IE7 and I cba booting into windows7 to look at it in IE8 but its similar to FF2 so I assume it renders the same.

I do half agree with you though. No gamer nowadays will use IE6 on a regular enough basis to bother pissing about with trying to code for it. Only corprate websites are usaly IE6 compliant.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:54 pm

I just installed IE7 in a vm. Wow, it actually looks worse. The font sizes are way off. The borders are even more screwed up too. I don't get why so many people insist on using that POS browser. I tried it in FF, Opera, and Chrome, and it looks all the same, only IE renders it differently. And I see they STILL did not fix PNGs in IE7. This site looks super brutal too in IE. It does nto support iframes properly so the bottom of the page does not even render. It seems to choke on the iframe and not want to render the rest.

Brutal.

Makes me want to write a super virus that deletes IE icons and installs firefox.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 12:47 am

Added another fix for graph display of names with quotes or other special chars. I store those in the DB as the &nnn; value so it shows up properly in the shard edit form, so just had to write a C++ function to reverse that when writing graphs.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:22 am

I have to agree with most in that you should make the website accessible to everyone, regardless of your own browser preference. We can go on for days on end about how much better safari or mozilla can render a page VS IE, but that isn't the point.

Because of Microsoft, there is no way to get around it being the default browser installation that a very large majority of people are using. You don't build to them, then you're neglecting a certain range of customers. Although most people who play MMORPGs are indeed gamers, you can't assume that they use a different browser.

On the bright side, I heard rumors IE8 is W3C compliant so hopefully that brightens your day somewhat.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:46 pm

Comming from a web developers view IE8 is quite exiting, just a shame that most people who use IE wont update for about 5 years

. Although the % of people using IE8 is about 2% and growing.

I dont know whats up with IE7 for you red? It looks passable in IE6 for me and better in IE7.

Your cells have side borders which display different in IE which is your border problem.

Code: Select all

* html img,
* html .png{
position:relative;
behavior: expression((this.runtimeStyle.behavior="none")&&(this.pngSet?this.pngSet=true:(this.nodeName == "IMG" && this.src.toLowerCase().indexOf('.png')>-1?(this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none",
this.runtimeStyle.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + this.src + "', sizingMethod='image')",
this.src = "transparent.gif"):(this.origBg = this.origBg? this.origBg :this.currentStyle.backgroundImage.toString().replace('url("','').replace('")',''),
this.runtimeStyle.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + this.origBg + "', sizingMethod='crop')",
this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none")),this.pngSet=true)
);
}

Add that for transperent .png files

Add the following if you want it to only load for IE.

Code: Select all

<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”png_fix.css” />
<![endif]–>

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:53 pm

The border problem I see all the time though.

IE does not seem to understand the CSS padding and the CSS border-spacing attributes. I usually set border-spacing to 0 and padding to 0 then change padding to another number as needed.

The only way to fix this in IE is to manually edit the html tags individually, which is also against W3C standards. I actually have some W3C errors though that I will be looking at fixing, which may possibly help some issues.

The issue with PNGs is not only the transparancy, but the color scheme is totally off. If you open this site in IE you'll notice the top logo does not match up with the rest of the site. It's a different shade of blue. You'd think a multi trillion dollar corporation like M$ could figure this out, when non paid open source programmers figured it out YEARS ago.

Also this is another reason I can't stand IE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_e ... extinguish

IE's lack of standards is a plot by MS to make people stuck using it, which sadly, works, as all corporations are basing all their code on it. It also locks them into older versions. Microsoft is nothing but an IT nightmare. I would love to see a full blown Linux infrastructure. Then again, microsoft is why I have a job. If everything was Linux they'd need less techs since everything would be like lego and just fit together and always work.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:03 am

Agreed, IE is shite, but as most people use it you have to support it to some extent. You of all people should know working in IT that supporting MS can be a pain in the arse but is needed.

This should help. IE8 is miles ahead of any other IE. and almost W3C compliant.

Colour schemes are a moot point as every rendering engine displays colours slightly differently.

Use class selectors for your borders.

Inline styles are W3C compliant. Just do

Code: Select all

<p style="border-left:none">

Or whatever you need

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:43 am

inline kinda defeats the purpose though. Still have to apply it to every page + element. In my case it's the border-spacing attribute, and IE refuses to support that. They've had years to add support.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:06 pm

Like I said, use a class then.

Code: Select all

.noborder {
border-right:none;
border-left:none;
}

ect.

Inline is also a pain when next year you come to change something and spend two hours tearing your hair out trying to figure out why something is wrong then realise you have an inline changing it lol.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:59 pm

That's for border, which IE sorta understands (but not well). I actually use border-left / right etc. It's cell-spacing it screws up at, and padding.

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shakyj · Post by **shakyj** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:17 am

Yeah, but if you remove the border it isn's so obvious that it looks that way. Btw, I'm assuming you are on about the home page for the borders which the container is the same colour as the cell.

Making a website for IE isnt so much as coding it right and it looks good, its more making it look like its meant to with workarounds. The best way I have found so far is have 2 css files. One with all your IE hacks in and the other for FF, opera, chrome, safari, konqueror ect and have a <!--[if lte IE 6]> in the header to load the IE hacks for IE. That way you dont have to rewrite the css file twice as the IE one just contains the workarounds.

Padding in not somewhere you want to go in IE6... Trust me. IE7 is a lot better at it though.

What are you wanting to do with the borders?

To have a space use

Code: Select all

Table {
border-spacing:1em;
}
Cell {
border-collapse:separate;
}

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