say all browsers and past versions at least 5 years old. IE6, the most common browser in use when visiting my site, included.

The ootb CSS isn't kind to IE6. A quick look at BVC's own website in IE6 proves this. The number of problems with newer sites posted for review proves this also. With BVC5 now at $500.00 and BVC not strongly recommending that a paid designer by hired, more home starters than ever are going to jump in and get it wrong when using the 'house' themes and CSS, through no fault of thier own. Even some of the designers are tripping on the problems. Closer attention to the OOTB designs could eliminate this considerable hurdle for small firms. A 2 hour fix at BVC could save dozens of people hours of work each. That's why we buy a packaged software product in the first place.

The little things turn word of mouth advertizing from an asset into a liability.

Adding a few lines to the manual about how to affect a fix when your themes bomb in IE6 won't take but a few minutes. I'd rather you come up with a fix and change the ootb code, but if you can't manage that, sell the program after explaining to your buyers that there's a known problem and you won't or can't fix it. Perhaps a few lost sales will convince you that fixing is better than loosing market share.


The fix has been posted on the forum many times, and everyone with an IE6 compatability problem has had to apply some form of fix for the same damned problem, stuff getting pushed around on the screen. This is not rocket science. If the same problem crops up over and over it tells me something's wrong with the basics.



Marcus, have a look at your own site in IE6 - and fix it - to make it simple for you, it's shown below. Figure out how to keep this from happening to everyone else and you'll avoid creating at least some bad feelings about the ootb package.



BTW, your attitiude towards my grousing about this isn't appreciated. I didn't write the code. I and everyone else just have to de-bug it right? Jeezus man, there's competition out there. How many sales are you willing to give up over dumb stuff like this?



Do these look right to you?

You need to market to the common man. The geeks run FF and IE7 and understand, the non-geeks (businessmen deciding where to spend their money) run IE6 on a 3 year old computer. They'll move on to a better looking website. First impressions count... Simple as that. Your site's been broken on IE6 for months. There is no good reason to put a less than perfect page on someone's computer screen while telling them you're the best in the price bracket. I wouldn't pay a designer if my site looked like that at delivery, would you?

I didn't say I could do it in 2 hours.

I implied that YOU could. Quite honestly, I'm a total noob and a boob... HONEST -never touched CSS or aspx files until I loaded BV5, but I fixed mine (Painted Paper theme) about a year ago by reading forum posts and browsing a few good books. I shouldn't have had to, it should work ootb for the most commonly used browser(s) at ootb screen width.

I see no down-side to tightening up the basic package. None.

Yea... I'm in a pissy mood. Sorry.

Trying to change the sig still gets you a server error.

I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, but I don't think MitchA wants to tell the majority of his customers that if they can't buy his stuff then "too bad... it's your own fault". I think he would rather design the site to work for his target audience and make the sale.

Mitch, don't let other people put you down. Your suggestion is more than reasonable. There are two types of criticism, constructive criticism designed to help improve the product, which was what your comments were, and just plain criticism (bitching). Often times on these forums, constructive criticism is seen as bitching which is unfortunate, because the product can't improve without customer feedback. While the customer isn't always right, s/he deserves respect.

Rick

I think this thread illustrates the differences between people who are developers and people who are not.


The developers understand clearly why making web products 100% backwards compatible can and generally will impede new developments and features, while the non-developers just want it to work, as well has have all the shiny new toys that comes with new versions.


To Mitch: Prime example of what I said before. Microsoft released Windows 95 and stopped supporting Windows 3.11. Then Microsoft Releases Windows 98, and stop supporting 95. Then XP and stopped supporting 98. Now Vista is out and they plan to stop supporting XP in June 08. Their customers can use whatever they want, but if new bugs are found in XP, Microsoft will just say they don't support it anymore, please upgrade to Vista, etc.

The whole point is, technology is constant Moving forward, and you cannot continue to add all of these new features and retain 100% backward compatibility forever.

IE6 is a buggy browser that doesn't Fully support javascript OR CSS 100%, which means any site using either technology heavily will probably not look or act like its supposed to compared to a more modern browser. That is the customer's choice, to use an outdated piece of software that isn't supported anymore. Can you make them upgrade? No. But will they benefit of all the updated code on the website? Probably not. Will they see errors on the website because the browser is buggy and can't render the CSS correctly? Yes.


Anyone that has done any web development understands this.



I am also a BVC5 customer, and I paid the same as you guys to get this, but the difference is I've been a Web Developer for years now, and I understand what is reasonably possible and what isn't.



I believe BVC5 should move forward to XHTML 1.1+ and start phasing out the older code asap.


Every new web design book/website you look at will tell you the same thing. . . MOVE towards the new standards because the old standards are going to be left behind sooner rather than later. Ex: http://www.webdesignscho...com/moving-to-xhtml.html

We would much rather see XHTML 1.1 compliance and standard themes that are 100% w3c compliant than compability with IE6.


I believe MS officially has ended support for IE6 at this stage or are they still supporting it?

I just want to add that I didn't mean to be rude in any way in my post, and do agree with MitchA's subject line. My responses were a reaction to the rest of his comments and arguments, which were largely incorrect and showed a massive lack of understanding of how these things work (again, no disrespect meant). It's just that merchants and developers alike use these forums to learn, and I get nervous about posters providing them with any kind of misinformation.

I was the first to say during the BVC5 beta that the Modules needed serious work and greatly impede what you can do with OOTB themes due to the inconsistent and generally bad markup they provide. A wall needs to be more of a smooth surface than a cliff face if you're going to wallpaper it. You must begin with ideal markup coming out of the application before you can build an ideal theme that will work on all modern browsers.

Even IE6. Yes, it's phasing out (slowly) but is still quite prevalent, and I'm as guilty as anyone for ignoring it sometimes when it isn't a site-breaking issue, and that generally isn't a big deal, especially if you help direct users to a new browser. But I guarantee you, with a good bit of work and experimenting - depending on your experience, of course - you can get exactly the same results in IE6 as you can in Firefox2, in most cases, without hacking up your stylesheet. BVC6 should provide a better foundation for solid design, and that's it.