Appendix D. Proprietary Tags

HTML is an ever-evolving language, and progress is spurred forward by tags developed in the head-to-head competition to dominate the browser universe. Although the vast majority of tags work for both major browsers, both Netscape and Microsoft have developed sets of proprietary tags that work only in their respective browsers to gain an edge over the competition.

Despite the acknowledgment of a greater good, dealing with browser differences is the major cause of headaches for web developers. The tables in this appendix list the available HTML tags that are still only supported in either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Proprietary Tags

The following tags and attributes are supported only by Internet Explorer. Tags marked with an asterisk (*) indicate the tag has been adopted by the HTML 4.0 Specification, but as of this writing, is not yet supported by Netscape Navigator.

HTML Tag or Attribute

Description

<basefont>
  color=color
  face=font face

Sets the color and/or font of the entire document when placed in the <head> or for subsequent text when placed in the flow of the body text

<bgsound>

Inserts an audio file that plays in the background

<body>
  bgproperties=value

Determines whether background image scrolls with the background

<body>
  leftmargin=n
  rightmargin=n

Sets the margin between the browser window and the contents of the page

<caption>
  valign=position

Sets vertical alignment of table caption

<col> ...

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