I would like to make sure that the new board templates work on as many forum members' systems as possible. Please choose ONE Mac browser and if you also view on Windows.

Thanks,

Joe B

Joe,

I just stumbled upon this enquiry again (had already voted weeks ago)... and it reminded me of what I wanted to tell you:

When I was on vacation (last week of May) I also visited my old home town in South/West Germany, where I had the chance to visit these pages using my mother's Mac (she uses an old iMac G4, running Mac OS 9.2 with older browsers):

On her Internet Explorer (5) the boards looked AWFUL, apparently IE (which is a shitty-program anyway) can't correctly display the forum software:  all the headings looked normal, but the text of the posts was all crammed into a very small "stripe" on the right side of the display.


She also has the browser iCab installed, which is a bit of an Firefox clone (in fact it's recommended by Mozilla for Mac OS 9, as their browser don't support older Mac OS anymore.

On iCab the forum looked better, but still pretty strange.... I can't quite remember what was wrong, but it was something with font sizes and relationship between fonts and pics etc.

I'm just telling you this to show you that, indeed, it's very important to check everything with as many different browsers and OS's as possible....as even the forum software WITHOUT your design changes apparently can't be displayed correctly on too many systems.

Just thought I better let you know.....

thanks aquaMat but I think both of those browsers are pretty ancient. I'll see if I can find them around and see what the issue is.

joeb

Sure...those browsers are dated. But this was only intended as an example of the potential problems that can arise....

I was very surprised to see that a rather "simple" page as our forums is shown in a completely different manner, depending on the browser used.  Also I think we'd probably be surprised if we learned aboiut the number of people that still use old browsers.
Might be more than we think.....

MM is designed for Mac OS X, not 9 or older systems.  So people visiting our forums because they are playing the game have a version of X and never versions of browsres, that read the forum layout correctly.  Note that many things have changed in web making, like xhtml instead of html, php, etc. that older browsers just can't handle.

Yeah....  there you have a point, definitely !! (I completely forogt that MM is for Mac OS X only....  8-) )

However, just look at my case..... even if I play MM at home on a Power Mac G5 running 10.4.5, I visited the boards from an old Mac while on holiday....  of course that probably only happens for 1 out of a 1000 visitors...so we probably can ignore it...

;D While on holiday:
1° one stays at home to be busy with MM;
2° one doesn't stay at home and ... forgets MM for a (very short) while?

Wanted to comment about 'outdated' browsers a little. As for older browsers, depends on your hardware - for example, I have an Intel iMac at home (no internet access there, 'nuther story), on which I play MM 1, 2, and HD (Episodes 1, 2 and am in process of converting and testing various custom mansions from MM1). Then, I have my (10 year old) PowerBook 2000 (which at least has OS X 10.4.11 - older G3 CPU and with RAM bumped to 1GB and hard drive now at 120GB), with which I can use local WiFi spots at restaurants and download updates, new mansions, surf the boards here, etc.).

Because Firefox has stopped support for the last G3 version (3.6.15), I have changed to TenFourFox, which supposedly is like Firefox 6 - except that TFFx doesn't support plug-ins anymore in their current version ( = no Flash). Apple's version of Safari on my PowerBook is capped at 4.1.3 (and there are security gaps with that). And for those wondering why I haven't got a newer MacBook, the simple answer is, not making enough money (after student loan payments and regular expenses). The iMac was a gift from my older brother, who retired better off than myself, and he upgrades his system every 3-4 years. So last fall, he asked me if I wanted his 'old' system (Heck yes!), and I now am able to run OS X 10.6.8 (and could run Lion) on it (which means MM HD... :D ).

So please don't get too hasty about those with 'outdated' browsers, as it may have more to do with how the person connects with the internet. Let's not further what digital divide is happening (with Firefox coming out with monthly updates, and abandoning the version that was top-of-the-line six months ago). A little consideration for others, okay?