[WEB4LIB] Re: Different Browsers, cont'd

[David Merchant]

> > <td align="center" width="70" bgcolor="Gainsboro">
> > #Current#
> > </td>
> >
>
>This is not the problem you're having, but you should be aware that
>"Gainsboro" is not a defined color name.  It's apparently a netscapism,

Not sure if it's a netscapism per se, but I've found that "Gainsboro" works 
in all the browsers I tested it on for an upcoming article of mine on web 
color support in browsers:

Netscape 3.0 and 4.0 on both PC and Mac
IE 3.0 , 4.0, and 5.0 on both PC and Mac
Opera 3.60
WebTV
AOL 4.0 on the PC (yes, AOL uses IE, but there can be some color 
differences between AOL 4.0 and IE, even on the same machine).

However, I just recently tested it in the 1X Net Browser (a "minor" browser 
that recently has been showing up more and more in some site stats. I'm 
using the final 0.95 beta version right now 
<http://www.scitrav.com/1X/>.  It supports just the 16 color names, the 
rest are ignored if used as a background color, or are rendered as black if 
used as a text color).

Thus, I do agree that color names should be carefully used, especially 
those beyond the 16 basic color names, for not every one of the140 color 
names are widely supported by every browser I tested. Only 118 of them 
showed up correctly in all of my test browser/platforms. The 140 color 
names are slowly becoming  "de facto" in definition, but still, use with 
caution.  Believe it or not, but not every one of the 16 color names are 
fully supported.  I still strongly suggest people use the RGB values for 
colors.

You can read more of my intensive study and testing of web colors in the 
upcoming issue of Library Computing Journal.

TTFN,
David

Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University
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