Firefox compatibility

[weddingforasoldier]

I am very new to building my own webpage, and I have a question that I can not answer anywhere. Why is it that the page appears different in Firefox than it does in IE? I notice that this is especially so when I use frames to designate where a graphic goes rather than centering in on a certain line of text.

Can anyone reference me to a good bookor webpage that I can go to to learn the basics? I made my page by starting with coffeecup to put in the first few lines of text and color the background, but then everything else that I did I did by looking up what the HTML would be and then trial and error inserting it to the page. I suppose I am a kind of quick learner, but this has me stumped.

Any suggestions?

[Pepper]

alright, it is a pain to make a website cross complatible with many browsers....i usually always made mine, up until now, only compatible with ff.(just because i don't like IE)......but, alot of people still use the piece of junk, so you have to try to fix things. There is probally no book on how to do it, its pretty much the way the browsers are made. Such as, you might make an error in your code....Firefox may not pick it up and it will look fine. But, when you go to view it in IE ...everything is all over the place. So the best way to do it is to download Firefox, and IE, and build your site steps at a time...and keep checking the different browsers for errors. Otherwise, it can be a pain to go through your line of code to change it (depending on how complicated it is). And for frames, i wouldn't recommend using them. I use them once on my site, but alot of people usually do not like them.

[cruocitae]

Although I'm a big fan of Firefox, I have to tell you something different:

If you want well-rendered sites, you have to make your site look good in an Acid2-compliant browser (OPERA 9)(which renders css absolutely as defined in the specs), and something which can handle Js as needed (firefox is the most advanced, opera is the fastest), and then create css and js files which are only used when the user agent is firefox or ie or anything. You can make this from PHP with the $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] variable, or with the XML if.. (I think something like <![if .... , though I'm not sure), and make the site look good in the specified browsers.
So, the list:

Opera - third most popular, but most standard-compliant, use this to check your initial scripts and style sheets
Firefox - second most popular, and most popular among advanced users. Make sure your site looks good in it!
IE - everybody knows it, and it's the most popular. You should make your site look something like good in it, and put a Get Firefox or a Google Adsense Firefox referral button on the site if the user agent is IE.

[jason.red]

http://get-firefox-with-google-toolbar.co.nr