If you are a front-end developer and you are coding/designing a webpage that will be rendered almost on all web browsers and platforms like Windows, LInux or MAC. Then you might get some cross browser compatibility issues. And these issues could be in CSS programming.
Now we need a solution to resolve cross browser compatibility issues.
Below I have described some ways to solve cross browser compatibility issues in css.
01 – Validate Your Code
First step is to validate your code according to the W3C standards. Sometimes it could be some syntax issues or any nonstandard code which is not working correctly with your browser during the rendering process of the document. Because before fixing CSS issues you need to fix first HTML issues. So with W3C validator you need to validate the HTML code. This will help you to write and find exact issues for compatibility.
02 – Try to Add Proper CSS Properties
There are some CSS properties which are specific for some specific browsers like, transitions and transform properties are the best examples.
If you want to write transition property, then try to write for all platforms. Like below example.
transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-o-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-moz-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-webkit-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
03 – Try to Write Reusable Code
Sometimes you need to write a lot of code and there are some classes that you can reuse instead of writing that code again and again. So first of all try to inherit the style of the parent if you need the same styles in the child. Or if not then try to add existing classes of the same style and then write a new class to override that specific property of that css class. This will give you some good experience and will keep your code neat and clean and you can also fix cross browser platform compatibility issues easily.
04 – Keep your design simple
Another great tip is to keep your web design as simple as possible. Because a complex design could create many compatibility issues than a simple and neat design. So always try to create a more simple and user friendly UI so that you could code that easily and could get rid of cross browser compatibility issues.
05 – Try to Use CSS Standard Libraries
There are some popular libraries of CSS like Bootstrap and Materialize CSS. So try to use them because they have great syntax and standards that are used world wide and could save your time to writing custom code which could give you some cross browser compatibility issues.
06 – Choose Best Frontend Frameworks
There are some great frameworks in the world nowadays like Angular/React. So choose the best match framework for developing the frontend of your specific project/task. And the benefit of these frameworks is that they have separate components and these components have separate CSS files. So this will help you to find the compatibility issues more quickly than without any framework.
07 – Focus on Testing
When you successfully designed/developed a web design. You must test it before publishing it. So try to test your web page almost all modern or minimal versions of the web browser, for which you are going to target. This will help you to find the issue on a specific web browser and you can easily resolve it for that specific browser.
Sometimes it is difficult to resolve issues only with CSS but you can also take help of JavaScript to detect the browser platform and can add/remove specific CSS according to your need.
08 – Check Limits Before Using Modern Features
Nowadays CSS3 is mostly used. But you need to check that the CSS3 feature which you are using is supported by almost all web browsers. This will reduce your compatibility issues.
Summary
Overall summary is that if you are writing a good code and proper testing your code on all web browsers. You will get no cross browser compatibility issues. But if you are not following the standards and the requirements which your app meets. Then you will fail to make your web app flexible and compatible for all web browsers.