Hi Mr Papa, I am, in general, discussing browser incompatibility.

I can start a new topic if this is what you need to fix the problem. Although, It is slightly disappointing that all of us can’t even agree that IE9 and Safari 5.1.7 does NOT work with simple press.

I don’t feel that replicating this problem is hard. I just opened your simple press forum all the way down to posts in both IE9 and Safari and the styling is broken. This is not to say that I don’t like plenty other features and the simplicity that this forum offers. I can see a lot of quality work has gone into this forum, but I can not ignore the fact that there is some browser incompatibility. 

Thanks Yellow Swordfish for suggesting something to consider, but given the effort gone into our forum, I don’t want to be changing themes now

If supporting old and now unsupported browsers is a big issue then another option would be to use one of our older themes (like Default) which does not use any CSS3 rules

Could you do Safari specific CSS for the topic page that has all the posts listed within? This page seems to be the worst for IE9 and Safari. All the others aren’t that bad. Or other ways to make the topics page more readable..

Just as I am trying to get safari 5.1.7 to work nicely, the following seems to target safari 5.1.7 well. 

_:-webkit-full-screen-ancestor, :root #spMainContainer .spTopicPostSection
{
padding:0px}

#spMainContainer .spGroupViewSection, #spMainContainer .spForumViewSection,
#spMainContainer .spTopicViewSection, #spMainContainer .spMemberGroupsSection {

padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}

I assume – although I am not sure – that the Safari version you are referring to is the old Windows version. I assume this because the latest Safari on my Mac is version 9.1.1 – quite a step up from the old 5 series.

I am not sure when your Windows Safari  was released but Apple ceased to support and fix Safari for Windows back in 2012. It was riddled with problems and incompatibilities and, as far as I recall, the usage was so minuscule that it was deemed not worthwhile for Apple to devote time on it.

it is, quite simply, a dead and unsupported browser. We know it will not run CSS3 rules hence the suggestion I made regarding themes. To be frank old browser = old themes. This is going to be exactly the same for WordPress themes, many of which will fail on old browsers.

The same, up to a point, is true of IE9. And the reason we disagree on this one is that using the best option available to re-test things, we could not replicate your problem. One of the big issues with OS built-in browsers like Safari on Mac and IE is that they will no longer function properly on the latest OS’s. To actually instal a vanilla copy of IE9 – as I understand it – would mean finding an unused PC and installing an old and out of date version of Windows. IE9 has been superceded twice now over several years.  

The bottom line actually is that if we were to continue to support old, out-dated, no longer developed browsers of all flavours then we would not be able to do much that we do do. Simple:Press is compatible with all the major modern browsers and that, in itself, has been quite a challenge.

It is also worth noting that without browser support for many of the CSS3 standards – not to mention meeting proper standards for the almost ancient CSS2, then there would also be considerable problems getting SP (and other plugins of this type) to function well on mobile devices. And these are now virutally being used more than desktop equivalents as I understand it.

Thanks for that explanation. I do understand your reasoning and it must be hard supporting a myriad of browsers, different browser versions and mobile devices.Sometimes you just have to pick a bunch OS/browsers/versions and work towards making your product compatible….rather than worrying about catering for a handful of people who are still on old browsers.

Yes I was talking about ver 5.1.7 for Windows. Anyhow, for now I have just targeted these browsers with some css..and this seems to take care of the problem

okay, thanks for the update…

I don’t know where you have added the CSS but do remember there is a custom CSS option in the SP Themes menu section and anything in there is NOT overwritten by any SP updates in the future so is protected.

I have added css to the .css file in my reboot child theme folder. I don’t think that would get overwritten, would it?

If you already have a child theme then yes – that’s just fine.