Cross Browserifying your game

[Nexus]

Hello all this has been a huge problem for my CSS coding but I want to knock this off before I ruin everything haha how do you make your game cross browser compatible(look the same on every browser and every screen width) because on my laptop things look great on my widescreen monitor ehh not so much. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Chris]

If you stick to the CSS standards, it shouldn't make any difference what browser you use to view your website, with some exceptions on IE6.

What are the problems your are facing and what kind of game are you making?

You might want to check out http://960.gs/. I use this for all my website templates. Here's a good tutorial to get you started:
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html- ... framework/

[Xaleph]

Like Chris said, if you follow the standards correctly (!) there shouldn`t be any big difference across the browsers. The only problems you might encounter are the IE versions up to 8.

However, following the standards is a pain and after all those years I really cannot recommend it any longer. Mostly because the time to debug for IE6 and all just takes so much time ( == money ) that i stopped caring for IE.

The big problem is also this: IE does not handle the standards correctly, so now i create html and css that`s not compliant with WCC standards but they still work like a charm. It reduces time and effort and i managed to solve pretty much any IE bug by default. But i wont recommend it if you are new to CSS.

Anyway, the cool thing nowadays is Js. You can use to force browsers to do something you want them to do. For example, my macBook screensize is 1280x800, my desktop screen however, is 1920x1200. So viewing sites on my MacBook seems OK, but on the big screen it looks small. That`s where JS comes in to play. Js can check the monitor size and you can use that to resize your site as well. So if a screen resolution is, for example, wider then 1400, change to website`s width to 1200 instead of 960/980 ( default sizes i use). That way you can fit more content on the screen and reducing vertical scroll et cetera. All for the user experience ofcourse.

Anyway, CSS is a pain in the but but it`s a damn powerfull tool to help you accomplish difficult layouts. I wished it wasn`t as quircky as it is now, but it`s a doable language regardless. Stick with it, learn it and you`ll master CSS soon.

[Jackolantern]

Provided you start with a full CSS reset (which needs to be done on every page, every time) and follow standards from there, you should be fine. The only exception to that is IE6, but it has such a low market share outside of China that you can stop designing for it. Unlike Xaleph, I cannot recommend forgetting about IE all together, as that means you are forsaking around 45% of all internet users. However, the newer versions of IE have little problems after a full reset when you follow the standards, and it is worth the extra bit of time to get things working on them.

[Xaleph]

Well, i do care for IE users, just not for IE6. I stopped debugging IE6 and 7 mostly because of the time and pain it costs to solve their weird quircks. Admittedly, i know the ins and outs of them by now, so while creating a design, i already account for those problems, however there`s allways the issue with the float box so i stopped caring, as well as the dubble margin bugs. I dont give a rats ass if IE6 is showing double margin or floated boxes underneath another instead of next to another. IE8 and > handle it all pretty well so debugging those are not that hard, and I do debug those.

Trust me, once you`ve done as many CSS sites as I did, you`ll stop caring for IE6.

[Chris]

I do still care about IE6. I care about it being wiped out of the market all together.

[Xaleph]

Very, Very true. I care for it to be gone with the wind, yesterday.

[Jackolantern]

Honestly, IE6 is just a stone's throw from being eliminated in the US. Microsoft reports its market share to be about 2.5%, which is hardly enough to care about. Even the general consensus in the web development world (as much as it is possible to know such a thing) is now to not sweat IE6 due to its minuscule market share. I am sure the rest of the web has made anyone still using, or having to use, IE6, aware that they are getting a broken version of the web.

And I get what you are saying Xaleph. I just thought you meant you don't care about IE at all, but I see now that you just meant IE6. I totally agree lol.

[Xaleph]

Well yeah, but IE6 is the bane of any webdeveloper`s existence.

I still think 2.5% is a lot however. 400,000,000 * 0.025 is still 10 million users. A lot if you think about it. However, i feel sorry for them, because no way i`ll ever again debug for IE6. I mean, i CAN, but i WONT. I choose not to. It`s time to move on and abandon old artifacts like IE6. Right?

[Jackolantern]

Keep in mind that the 2.5% is every one. So that includes people on old computers working in call centers who can't just surf the web for entertainment, senior citizens with a hand-me-down computer that barely know how to check their email, etc. It is pretty well-established that web developers, and gamers in general tend to be on or near the cutting edge of technology, and are typically computer-savvy enough to know to update their software. All of that basically means that 2.5% shrinks dramatically for most of our purposes