Regarding AJAX (the new buzzword, in the past it was DHTML) I think java applets aren’t the worst thing to do. After all, java applets are ‘cool’, just like Internet Explorer seems to be ‘cool’. And imho it’s much cleaner than tinkling around with some **** of markup or script.

Generally speaking, if people use javascript object detection and only apply standards compliant markup and stylesheets, it should work in any browser. Regarding style&markup there’s nearly always a standards-compliant solution. And in javascript there are almost always alternatives for every browser.

The work on a website can be decreased simply by coding in standards in the first place, testing in Opera and using the error console. As mentioned before by others, in most (99%) cases this will work in all other browsers (except IE, surprise). There are some things that need to be cured (default browser stylesheets that need to be overruled; e.g. border=”1″ on img elements in FF and IE), but once you’ve done that a few times it’s routine. You can even include a special stylesheet only serving the purpose of overruling some rules which you can spread across websites.
Creating a seperate stylesheet for IE for websites seems to be the most sensible thing for me atm.

[you see the acronym above mis-rendered in uppercase (I think) in Opera 9? That's no error, it's simply a design decission becoming manifest in the default browser stylesheet]

I don’t know what to do against ignorant minds that should not be called ‘web devs’. I’ve even encountered some idiot webmaster that was too lazy to fix a bug where he forgot to note down several table start-tags. First he said “he doesn’t have time”; when I sent him cleaned-up code he replied “he will do it sometime” and till now he hasn’t fixet it. There are idiots out there harming our dear pet web. Go figure.

I believe the only thing end-users can do about it is advocating for alternative browsers. Web developers can help by doing cross-browser standards-compliant sites. Browser vendors should help by spreading their browsers and making them consequently more strict (I especially want Firefox to go this route … once it is stricter in handling websites, websites will more likely work in other browsers).
That means: An advertising campaign for Opera is highly necessary. And Mozilla people should start doing original work instead of just copying IE.
I know they can do it; they just have objections I can’t really understand or support. This should change.

I found that one of the approaches that work best is to find the error, get the solution, and then contact the web developer to show him how a little change can dramatically improve the web experience for quite a few users.

My point was that if you really think you can’t get it to work using simple, standardized and widely supported web technologies, either think again, or don’t make it a web application at all.

With “Do it in Java”, I meant a standalone Java application, not an applet. Feel free to replace “Java” with your platform-independent language of choice.

If your application absolutely requires AJAX and DHTML, you’re working with the wrong medium. Do it in Java instead.

LOL. Just LOL.
I don’t have Java, I won’t download it for just using a site.

Maybe if the developers were aware of theoretically ideals, although unreachable with any browser, they would develop for capable and widely used browsers alike. If they know the workings of Opera, Firefox, Safari, IE, KHTML, then statements of Opera should be hounded to work like IE might be replaced with: “Firefox does a better job than Opera for the ideal A but Opera is much better at the ideal B.”

If whatever feature is difficult to implement in a browser-independent manner, don’t use it.

If your application absolutely requires AJAX and DHTML, you’re working with the wrong medium. Do it in Java instead.

It’ll save you both the time and money that’d otherwise be spent debugging obscure problems, recovering from XSS attacks and closing those security holes that seem to pop up everytime someone tries to make HTML do stuff it wasn’t designed for.

In other words, KISS.

That’s a silly thing to say. Both sites and browsers shuld follow the standards. It is not up to the browser to adapt to sites.

Of course, browsers do have to adapt today because the web is full of incompetent fools making sites, but that’s besides the point. This situation is far from ideal.

And since all of Opera’s browsers (desktop, mobile, Nintendo, and other devices) all use the same core browser components, not supporting Opera on the desktop, also means not supporting Opera on other devices, in which Opera has a commanding market share.

Saying that Opera dominates the mobile etc market is an understatement - but that does not necessarily mean anything to your common developer.

Generally speaking, the mobile site will look different than one’s regular web site. For starters, the screen is much smaller. A site might specify a different css stylesheet altogether for a mobile phone to render, rather than the default stylesheet.

So, just because a site doesn’t work on the desktop doesn’t mean that its not committed to working on the mobile phone or any other portable device.

Oh, that’s so true. Current error console is awkward and annoying. You can’t even customize/hack it anymore.

In countries where Opera has 0.1% market share it’s really hard to convince anyone to practicularily support Opera… :/
I’d rather explain that they should code properly and avoid outdated/broken methods and properties - this doesn’t only decrease chances of breaking site in Opera, but usually also makes code more future-compatible, clean and reliable.

But if you write for Gecko and don’t check with Opera and KHTML until it’s done, the bar will be ar 90%.

Of course, IE will always be around the 30% mark

Opera is the most standards-compliant and least-forgiving of all browsers/rendering engines. I’m not sure if that’s a curse or a blessing.

But there’s another thing: Opera is missing a true web developer toolbar (yes, I know about that one) and a real JS debugger. You can’t expect people to test in your browser if you fail to provide meaningful tools. The time they spent on crappy widgets, which almost nobody will use, could have been better spent on adding rudimentary extension support.

Opera is also losing the battle (no pun intended) in online browser-based games, most of which allow people to apply their own skin packs. Impossible in Opera, because it restricts access to local images from UserCSS. Why?!

Heard of Hattrick? It’s an online football manager game with roughly 800.000 users. I bet at least 100.000, if not more, have switched to Firefox from other browsers (including Opera) just because of a very neat and powerful 3rd-party extension.

So there you have it Opera - you could have had tens of thousands more users with extension support instead of crappy and useless widgets.

The most important contributor to web site compatibility is not the browser - it’s the developer. The reason just about every web site works in IE is due to the hours and hours developers spend testing and fixing IE issues. They also spend a significant amount of time testing and fixing Mozilla/Firefox issues. Few spend any time testing with Opera, with the inevitable result of things breaking in Opera.

It’s always the last browser tested that gets the bad rap. I was amused to read an email on a web design mailing list who tests in Firefox last, and was complaining about all the bugs and hassles Firefox give him!

For example, the Atlas guys say that cross-browser support is important. Their actual code says differently. Specifically, Opera has problems because it doesn’t support the idea of property getters/setters. You see, there’s no standard defined for them, no documentation on how they should work. More importantly, you can do what programmers in C/C++ and Java do - define getter/setter methods (functions).

IOW, there was no need for the Atlas guys to use property getters/setters. They could have used regular functions for that - a technique that would work in every JavaScript capable browser in existence.

Personally, I can’t wait for the release of Opera 9. From 8 to 9 is as big a jump as from 6 to 7 was, in terms of web technology support. XSLT, the best DOM support, best CSS support, designMode/contentEditable support, and numerous annoyances fixed (iframe z-index, opacity). Sadly, other features like Webforms2, SVG, canvas won’t be important until MS supports them in IE (yes, I know there’s an SVG plugin).

However, none of that helps while web developers insist on using cool, but browser specific techniques, instead of less exciting, but reliable cross-browser ones.

We should also encourage web developers to raise their concerns on the Opera web forums. I’ve lost count of the number of sites with issues that could be resolved by changing literally one line of code. There are plenty of smart Opera folks there who can help them figure things out.