Is it useful to include that JS always as a standard solution? I am thinking about loadtime and uncontrollable effects, since I seldom test in browsers on Windows platform.
Personally, for testing I use Browserstack (http://www.browserstack.com) as it covers so many different ways to test a site on a huge combination of browsers / devices / operating systems. They also have a useful offline testing mode to check sites as you build.
Some of my sites look shocking on other devices !!
I understand that not all new HTML5 tags are understood by all browsers.
True. But it’s been my understanding (have I been wrong?) that those browsers will simply ignore the tags (assuming no js fixes), and depending on how you write your code, will not negatively impact the layout. Here’s what I mean, let’s use this first code block as the baseline example:
This is a simple a lightweight stop-gap that works well. Yes, it relies on js which is not without problems but it’s a simple fix.
Is it useful to include that JS always as a standard solution? I am thinking about loadtime and uncontrollable effects.
I’ve been using one of the two options above by default and have never noticed any load problems or adverse effects. For me it’s had a minimal footprint.
I’m generally thick about these things, but isn’t HTML5 good to go as far
as new browsers? If the goal is old browser inclusion, then why not just
use something other than HTML5 structures - divs instead of headers and
such?
At some point I think it is advised to abandon the old technology, or to
refuse the new - but to cater to both is such a waste in my opinion. I
wonder if this is why so many browser-testing sites have gone away, because
new browsers are more predictable and the audience for old browsers is no
longer a sustainable market. Like buggy whips.
Yes, most browsers have good HTML5 support but things fall apart below IE9 which is decent.
I think the consensus is that these js fixes are a small and acceptable solution compared to giving up the semantic power of html5 which might be a bigger step backwards.
Todd
I’m generally thick about these things, but isn’t HTML5 good to go as far
as new browsers? If the goal is old browser inclusion, then why not just
use something other than HTML5 structures - divs instead of headers and
such?
If someone disables JS on their browser, many important sites won’t work at all. Anything built in Rails will just kick them out. I’ve been using HTML5 since two or three years ago, when Rails 3 came out and used it as the default. Most of my work is in corporate (read IE-enabling) business tools – intranets, extranets, document management systems – and not one of those clients has had an issue with HTML5 + the Shiv in my experience.
!!