Browser usage by useragent

SpaceGirl wrote:
> Toby Inkster wrote:
>> C A Upsdell wrote:
>>
>>> Oddly, it contains lines such as "www.opera.com=1", which AFAIK should
>>> correspond to no spoofing. Which makes me wonder why such lines are
>>> there.
>>
>> But the user may have chosen a UA other than "Opera" as their default.
>
> Come on, be realistic. How likely is that?

If we're using your "most users leave the setting at the default"
principle: very.

The default User Agent for Opera from version 5.0 to 8.5 (excluding 8.10)
is to identify as Internet Explorer.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

Toby Inkster wrote:
> SpaceGirl wrote:
>
>>Toby Inkster wrote:
>>
>>>C A Upsdell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Oddly, it contains lines such as "www.opera.com=1", which AFAIK should
>>>>correspond to no spoofing. Which makes me wonder why such lines are
>>>>there.
>>>
>>>But the user may have chosen a UA other than "Opera" as their default.
>>
>>Come on, be realistic. How likely is that?
>
>
> If we're using your "most users leave the setting at the default"
> principle: very.
>
> The default User Agent for Opera from version 5.0 to 8.5 (excluding 8.10)
> is to identify as Internet Explorer.
>

Hmm are you sure? I think they all still have "Opera" in the application
string. Yes the first bit of the string says Internet Explorer, but
right at the end it says Opera x.x, which is easy to detect. So really
Opera doesn't identify itself as IE - it sort of munges the string so
it's a bit-like-IE. Only really basic scripts would detect IE surely?

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

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# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
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# to duplicate this post.

Tony wrote:

> I'm not targeting pixel-perfection, but keeping table headers and contents
> aligned with each other is nice.

It's a myth anyway. Pixel perfection can (and often is) achieved. While
a lot of people whine about not trying for pixel perfection, go look at
actual web sites out there. How many millions of commercial & popular
sites have pixel-perfect designs? Of course some of them fall apart
when you increase your font size or use less popular browsers, but so
what? It really doesn't matter, so long as you are maximising your
target audience.

> > What happens when the next big thing in browsers is delivered? Will that
> > mean that every page one ever built has to be re-worked to accommodate its
> > quirks?
>
> Probably.

That's just daft. If you design a web site to last that long, then
really you need to rethink how you market your site. WWW is moving
along to fast. Browsers go through a generation about every two years.
You should be at least revisiting the design of your site way more
often than that. That's when you can adjust your site for new abscure
releases of browsers IF NEEDED. It's not as simple as that anyway;
generally you design for a browser engine, which will generally render
fine in all versions of the browser.

> > It's a myth anyway. Pixel perfection can (and often is) achieved. While
> > a lot of people whine about not trying for pixel perfection,
>
> hrmm - I think you'll find the whiners, whingers and general
> ne'er-do-wells, the foot-pads, scoudrels and wastrels are the smoke and
> mirror artists, the snake-oil merchants peddling the myth of cross-browser
> pixel perfection.

It can be done, for the the majority of user. Think about it - almost
everyone still uses IE6. You can design pixel-based sites that look
perfect in IE6, Fx and Opera to MOST users. Yes people can increase
their font size etc, but most DONT. That's the important bit. Yes they
can, but they DONT. While that's not a justification for pixel-based
design on it's own, it's reason enough to be flexible about what type
of design you use to achieve what a client wants for a particular
market; sometimes pixel-based design is just what they want or works
best for their market, other times it's not. If you argue one is better
than the other then you are in danger of being very closed about how
you achieve a solution to your clients needs.

> > go look at
> > actual web sites out there. How many millions of commercial & popular
> > sites have pixel-perfect designs?
>
> not one.

Not if you think about it; every site from bbc.co.uk to apple.com uses
elements of pixel based design. The columns on the BBC site are fixed
and look the same across all browsers. Pixel perfect. Yes the user can
enlarge their fonts, but as I already suggested above, how many people
actually DO change their font sizes? Not many. You're also completely
forgetting about the many 1000s of Flash sites out there.

You could argue in the future that this is likely to change, but I
think it could go one of two ways; With the launch of Vista next year
windows (all windows) become scalable. I think more people are likely
to "enlarge" a window (like the Opera zoom function) than increase
their font size. The other way is of course truly flexible design, but
even then I wonder how this will work with the likes of Metro around
the corner and Flash.

Flexible design (non-pixel based) is no more or less important than
pixel based design in the scheme of things. It's up to a designer like
you or I to build what's best for a particular project and not be boxed
in by these artificial constraints. After all when it comes down to it,
if people can use the site, it works, and achieve what the client is
after, who cares about how it's built, standards, or the technology
used? End users certainly dont give a poo until their fave site breaks.
And that's the only time clients start to worry you too.

m

SpaceGirl wrote

>
> Tony wrote:
>
>> I'm not targeting pixel-perfection, but keeping table headers and
>> contents aligned with each other is nice.
>
> It's a myth anyway. Pixel perfection can (and often is) achieved.
> While a lot of people whine about not trying for pixel perfection, go
> look at actual web sites out there. How many millions of commercial &
> popular sites have pixel-perfect designs? Of course some of them fall
> apart when you increase your font size or use less popular browsers,
> but so what? It really doesn't matter, so long as you are maximising
> your target audience.

Maximising the target audience? I would have thought it would have the
exact opposite effect.

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com