The Best Web Design Browser

By David on Aug 8, 2007 in CSS, Web Design, Webmaster's Resources

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

As a web designer, with every project that I do I have to ask myself which browser would be the best to use as my default for testing. Many argue that Mozilla Firefox is the best to use during the design process. And I must say that I agree somewhat.

My reason is quite simple. Conditional comments and the top-to-bottom page code. Unlike many designers, I do not use CSS hacks. They are ugly, they do not validate, and they confuse me. Instead, I design my websites for three basic users:

Internet Explorer 6 users
Internet Explorer 7 users
Mozilla Firefox users

Conditional comments as I use them only apply to Internet Explorer need to follow a logical order or they will not work correctly.

Most people know that the best way to execute a stylesheet is by calling it in the head tag using <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”foo.css” />.

You can execute as many stylesheets that you want in that manner. First, here is the order that I personally.

My Mozilla Sheet
My IE 7 Sheet
My IE 6 Sheet

Please note that the if you are using CSS Conditional Comments, the browser will first read the Mozilla CSS and then look for the stylesheet that applies to it and read that one for it’s proper rendering.

Here is the two formats that I use: One if for IE 6 and one is for IE 7.

<!–[if IE 6]>

<![endif]–>

and

<!–[if IE 7]>

<![endif]–>

Here are all of the rest of the valid formats, or at least the most common ones.

<!–[if IE 5]> for all IE 5 browsers

<!–[if IE 5.x]> for specific IE 5 browser

<!–[if IE 6]> for all IE 6 browsers

<!–[if IE 6.x]> for specific IE 6 browsers

<!–[if IE 7]> for all IE 7 browsers