Design Imperfections on MAC browsers

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gavinmacrae1

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Greetings:
I've been searching high and low for this program (if it exists), so I thought what better place than here to ask. Here is my question:

I design websites and when they are complete, they appear to be perfect on windows IE/Mozilla/Opera (spacing/alignment/text etc.).. but when I view the sites through a mac.. ibook,imac,G4.. whatever.. there is always something that is off.. or isnt right.. and I was wondering.. seeing I do not own a mac.. is there a program for windows that I can VIEW my sites through (browser?) and I can see the problems mac's have with them.. so I can fix them without travelling to an actual mac to see.. know what I mean? just wants a heads up before my sites go live for customers.. because a lot of them do indeed use mac's.. and i never really know what the problems are until I view them on a mac.. i hope someone knows the answer :p

gimme me a shout if ya do :)

Thanks!

Gavin
 
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steveedge

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That's funny, I though PC's had the problems...kidding. I design on Mac's but the problems are mostly differences in browsers, not OS's.
There is one difference though, a big one, Mac's gamma is 72 dpi screen resolution. Windows is 94 (I think) so, when designing ON PC, and all your text looks perfect...it will look to small on Mac's...if you have specified sizes that is. In other words, without writing a book here.... There is a size difference in text and images (sometimes).
Mostly, IE doesn't play well with others though. It's almost as if someone planned it that way. ;)
The Mac version of IE hardly works anymore. So, I normally check clients pages in Safari, Firefox and lastly on IE on the Mac side. There are even differences in browser versions so you really just have to do the best you can to settle on a design that works across both platforms.
It's a give and take thing. :)
 
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steveedge,

Gamma has nothing to do with the display density.
See this link at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma

I look at it this way. When I edit images on my Mac, I make the images a little bright so they look OK for my wintel friends. When I edit images on a wintel box (never), I make the image darker so it isn't too bright for the Mac users.
 
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yes, it usually is just the browser, I notice when deving on my site (www.ghostknox.com) it is flawless in firefox, but in safari affiliate scroller appears to be a shade lighter, etc. it's do to different browsers, some act different'ly than others do. It's best to test on all the browsers you own,
 
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steveedge said:
There is one difference though, a big one, Mac's gamma is 72 dpi screen resolution. Windows is 94 (I think) so, when designing ON PC, and all your text looks perfect...it will look to small on Mac's...if you have specified sizes that is. In other words, without writing a book here.... There is a size difference in text and images (sometimes).....
Acutally, ANY monitor, regardless of the OS will only be able to display a 72 dpi resolution.


And in response to the OP, as long as the page you are designing is HTML compliant, it will be fine in any browser.

You can check the compliance here:

http://validator.w3.org/
 
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OK, so there is at least one that can go above 72 dpi....:black:

Though, with a price tag over $8000, I don't see a large portion of the computing public owning such a beast anytime soon.
Your "standard" monitors, regardless of the OS, are still only going to display 72 dpi.
And as long as you design a page according to HTML compliance, it should display the same in any browser on any OS.
 
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D3v1L80Y said:
Your "standard" monitors, regardless of the OS, are still only going to display 72 dpi.

You really need to remove the 72 dpi number out of your brain. Apples 20" widescreen monitor has about 98.5 dpi. A quick look at the Dell site and a little math shows a 17" wide screen laptop with 133dpi.

I generally agree that if web standards are used and the browsers interpret them the same, then the viewer should see the same general image. Text is a big factor here because different systems draw text differently and take up space differently. Then of course the audience can set the text sizes differently than what the web developer expected.
 

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