<Supplement>

<Much Ado About Netscape 6>

The Netscape 6 Preview 3 installer program quickly downloaded all the files it was supposed to. And I was pleased to note how much smaller those files were than previous Netscape browser files. Thus ends the positive portion of my report.

Before I could run the browser, there was some low comedy involving Netcenter. When I typed in my Netcenter name, I was told there was no such user. When I attempted to sign up as a "new member" using the same name, I was told that name was not available, and offered a string of impossible-to-remember computer-generated alternatives.
        In other words, Zeldman does not exist as a Netcenter member; but Zeldman cannot sign up as a Netcenter member because Zeldman is already a Netcenter member. However, Zeldman cannot log on as a Netcenter member because Zeldman does not exist as a Netcenter member.
        I began to have a bad feeling.

A new Internet user might have given up right then. Instead, I quit the program and restarted. Voila: the browser loaded immediately. In other words, the dysfunctional Netcenter rigamarole is merely marketing nonsense that can be skipped.

I typed www.zeldman.com and was taken to the Daily Report. I should have been taken to the front page. My script sends Netscape 4 users to the Daily Report to avoid the Netscape 4 CSS crashing bug; it's supposed to let Netscape 6 and Mozilla users see the front page. Apparently the browser identifies itself as something less than Netscape 5+. Okay, no problem; the final release will probably identify itself correctly.

The Daily Report displayed more or less correctly as long as you did not click on or mouse over links. There was no support for the CSS-2 hover property (supported in IE since Version 4) but I attributed that to Netscape's attempt to fully support CSS-1 rather than partially supporting subsequent standards. Fair enough.
        Alas, the HTML 4 TITLE attribute was bizarrely semi-supported. Hovering over a link may lead to a tool tip in Windows and Linux (I haven't checked yet). On my Mac, a tooltip box popped up, but it was empty. As in, no text. Just a stupid empty box. I confirmed this repeatedly. Mouse over a link, get a stupid empty text box. Useless.

Next I attempted to load A List Apart so I could see Netscape 6's DOM support in action. Alas, A List Apart loaded as a blank white screen. Now, maybe my code is at fault, but ALA works in Mozilla for Windows. I tried again and got not only a blank white screen, but also a blank white alert box of some kind. Perhaps the alert box was trying, in its blank textless empty void utterly meaningless way, to alert me to the reason the site does not display. Since there was no text in the alert box and no text on the web page, there's no way of knowing.

I tried another site—it doesn't matter what site—and again got a blank screen. Then I gave up.
        Another developer I know was able to run Netscape 6 Preview 3 on his Mac just fine. Maybe the browser does not like my particular graphics card. Maybe it does not like Mac OS 8.6 and only runs in OS9. Maybe it is incompatible with Suitcase. Or only runs on a G4. Whatever the cause, if a Mac browser does not work on the Macintosh I'm using at the moment, it is not ready for primetime. And after waiting for nearly three years, all I can say is, it looks like I'll have to keep waiting.
        I hope Netscape has not simply given up on the Macintosh market. I hope the final release will be functional. As a developer, I'm stymied as to how to develop pages that will work in this browser. I'm not even sure how to help Netscape, since I reported similar problems to Mozilla months ago, and I find they have not been solved.

Netscape's goals are to fully support web standards and to work on multiple computing platforms (not just Windows and Mac OS). I endorse these goals. Anyone who believes in the web as an open communications platform would endorse these goals. Alas, so far, the execution does not live up to the concept. Let us continue to hope.
 

Reader Comments 8 October: Brent Gustafson reminds us that Netscape 6 creates a folder called "Documents" on the root level of your hard drive. If you already have a folder called "Documents" on the root level of your hard drive—for instance a folder called "Documents" that contains all your work—this might be a problem. (The browser also failed for Brent, using OS 9.04.)
        On the other hand, Brenda von Ahsen had few problems running the browser on her iMac DV SE. The TITLE attribute worked for her; no websites were blank. However, on attempting to use Netscape mail to share the good news with us, she received the following notice:
        Netscape cannot find the Plugin downloader Plugin. Without the Plugin Downloader Plugin, you cannot automatically download and install plugins. Please visit http://www.netscape.com/ to install the Plugin Downloader Plugin.
        From this admittedly limited sample, Netscape 6 Preview does not appear primed to take the Mac OS market by storm.

Reader Comments 9 October: Following up on yesterday's report, Windows users have reported no trouble at all with the browser. About half the Mac users had good experiences; the other half experienced the same problems we did. We could find no common denominator: the browser worked on one G4 Mac and failed on another; worked in OS 9.04 on one machine, and failed on another.
        Readers on both platforms had problems with Netcenter. Several complained about "My Sidebar." Several others found the new GUI attractive. We would have commented on it ourselves if the browser hadn't distracted us by failing on every site we tried. It is a pretty interface, though its subtleties cut both ways. For instance, you almost don't notice URLs and JavaScript text messages because the text is so light-colored. But since the browser is "skinnable," this is a non-issue. (Don't like the look of the browser? Change it to whatever you like.) Alas, for us, the problems are more than skins-deep.