to manage. [View full size image]   Although I've attempted to shed some light on the differences between HTML and CSS formatting, the real comparison will be made by you as the chapter unfolds. Browser Support for CSS CSS has been around for nearly a decade, but it's only recently that widespread support for CSS has been integrated into browsers. Early implementations of CSS, notably Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape 4, were well-meaning but left much to be desired. To that end, most web developers wisely avoided using CSS until browsers would correctly interpret their designs. The listing of browser versions in Table 7.2 should give you a rough idea about the adoption of CSS. This is just a representative sample of the most common browsers and doesn't include many of the other browsers out there, such as OmniWeb, Konqueror, or iCab. Table 7.2. A Comparison of Browsers and Their Support for CSS Browser and Version CSS Implementation Internet Explorer 3 Poor Internet Explorer 4 Fair Internet Explorer 5 (Win) Good Internet Explorer 5 (Mac) Good Internet Explorer 6 Exceptional Lynx None Netscape 3 None Netscape 4 Poor Netscape 6 Great Netscape 7 Exceptional Netscape 8 Exceptional Opera 3 Fair Opera 4 Good Opera 5 Good Opera 6 Great Opera 7 Excellent Opera 8 Excellent WebTV Fair FireFox 1 (Mozilla) Exceptional Safari Great   The good news is that CSS support continues to improve, and the newest browser versions are quite good at displaying most CSS styles. The bad news is that older browsers are still out there. What that means is that you must test pages you've designed using CSS in as many browsers as you can. NOTE Several newer browsers have a special compatibility mode for HTML and CSS, where they adhere more closely to the published standards. FireFox, Netscape 6 and 7, and Internet Explorer 6 turn on this mode when they encounter a valid DOCTYPE for HTML Strict and for a few other DOCTYPE declarations; other pages are done in a "quirky" mode for backwards-compatibility with older browsers. For more information, visit http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/quirks or http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnie60/html/cssenhancements.asp   Now that you've seen the CSS support by browsers, let's divert our attention to Dreamweaver's support of CSS. As you know, Dreamweaver is merely a development tool for web pages that will ultimately be viewed in the browser. Your designs are ultimately limited only by your knowledge of CSS and your knowledge of Dreamweaver's CSS support and formatting capabilities.