Cross Browser Compatibility

As a front-end developer, what are you doing to minimize the time spent tweaking your stylesheets and scripts so that they behave identically in each of the popular (and not-so-popular) browsers?

Because each browser handles CSS and the DOM in slightly (or not-so-slightly) different ways certain measures must be taken if you are to have a truly functioning and accessible Web site.

Even when crafting standards compliant code in a Strict DocType, it is inevitable that you will run into various property handling by proprietary browser settings.

A preferred method of targeting just about every temperamental browser you can think of (going back to IE 5.5 on the Mac) which I find useful is a combination of HTML conditional comments and the chaining together of multiple stylesheets using the @import rule.

This will minimize the tweaks present in your markup while providing a great deal of flexibility to debug your site in various environments.

A valuable resource for uncovering these little esoteric broswer ticks is quirksmode.org. Quirksmode.org bills itself as a resource guide of:

about 120 pages with CSS and JavaScript tips and tricks, and is one of the best sources on the WWW for studying and defeating browser incompatibilities. It is free of charge and ads, and largely free of copyrights. 

 Jeffrey Olchovy is a Web developer, designer and marketing strategist.