Subject: [css-d] Netscape 4.76 Bombing

From: Michael_Landis at capgroup.com ([email-masked])
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 07:38:57 -0700

George Smyth wrote:

> I have the following style, which "works" in all browsers outside of
> Netscape 4.76:

> .NavText {
>   font-size: 0.7em;
>   text-align: left;
>   width: auto;
>   padding: 2px;
>   background-color: #FFE;
>   border-top:  1px solid #EEE;
>   border-left: 1px solid #EEE;
>   border-bottom: 1px solid #333;
>   border-right:  1px solid #777;
> }
>
> Netscape 4.76 actually bombs and closes because of these two lines:
>
>   width: auto;
>   padding: 2px;

Netscape 4 tends to act like the proverbial straw-carrying camel. We all
know it is buggy to one extent or another, but each bug-tripping style
declaration seems to add a little bit more to its instability. If too many
buggy declarations (that is, valid CSS that causes bugs in NS 4) appear in
the CSS, it will hang, crash, and otherwise let you down when it hits that
final straw.

If you don't want to switch stylesheets, you might want to resort to the
Ciao NS4-hiding hack (http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=CaioHack) to
remove enough styles to let it limp along. You may want to hide additional
ones, so that you aren't right at the edge of instability.

Another alternative is to link a stylesheet that only contains styles that
are solid with NS 4, then import a second sheet that adds additional styles
for "good" browsers.

HTH,

MikeL