It is our aim that these web pages should be easily readable and that they should load quickly. Basic HTML markup has been used together with Style Sheets (CSS) which enable the text to be read whichever browser is being used. Unfortunately the first browsers to attempt support of CSS did a rather poor job. The worst offenders are Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x and Netscape Navigator 4.x. The first in their respective lines to attempt CSS support, these browsers have incomplete, bug-ridden implementations of CSS. Some of their flaws are bad enough to cause the browser to crash when trying to handle some styles. Things improved with Internet Explorer 4.x and 5.x. Opera 3.5 started with impressive CSS support which was restricted to version 1 of CSS (CSS1). Netscape v.6, Internet Explorer v.6 and Mozilla Firefox all handle CSS1 and CSS2 very well, although not identically (they don't follow the rules exactly), and work has started on CSS3. Printing is still badly supported by these browsers, particularly as concerns colour. You do not get the same result on paper as you see on screen.
One of the main differences seen in these web pages is that the Navigation menu (the left hand panel in later browsers) appears at the bottom of each page in the earlier browsers as a list of links.
For those using Mozilla Firefox and Netscape V.6.2 (and maybe some earlier versions), you can sometimes change
the Style Sheet by going to "View", then selecting "Use Stylesheet", where you
choose between
None
,
Preferred Style
,
Ian's Styles
and
Anthony's Styles
or possibly others. The default
Style was Ian's Styles
but is slowly being changed to Preferred Styles
.
Anthony's Styles
was an experiment. None
will put the
Navigation menu at the bottom of the page, but use the full page for the text.
In order to enable us to improve the presentation of these pages we would appreciate
your comments.
Please state which browser and which version number you are using
and the make of computer on which it is implemented.
Please also state exactly what you see and what you think you should be seeing
.
(By seeing we include all types of media: screen, printer, projection, braille
and aural)
We support the Best Viewed With Any Browser campaign for non-browser-specific pages although our interpretation of that is that we should code to the standards, not the lowest common denominator.
We now use HTML 5 or HTML, The living standard. For more information see this book.