Are there any asp.net server controls that only work with Internet Explorer. I am looking for a list so that I can know what to avoid putting into my webforms application.
I am looking for something like a list of controls and those that downlevel firefox and safari for example. I understand that the client side validation javascript is IE only. Is this still true ?
The regular asp.net server controls should work fine. Although with IE, you never can tell. ;)
I have yet to find any controls within the framework that do not work in all browsers.
ASP.NET controls are very simple from the perspective of browser implementations.
Microsoft stuck with standard tags and form widgets so everything you use in the framework should work just fine.
It's more about the way you structure your pages that affects browsers differently than what ASP.NET controls you use.
I don't believe there are any controls that just don't work in non-IE browsers. ASP.NET will render some webform tags different based on the requesting browser. 4GuysFromRolla has a pretty good write-up on this: A Look at ASP.NET's Adaptive Rendering.
I had some issues on a recent web application I built where the HTML being output for FireFox was noticeably different than the HTML being output for IE on certain controls. I used the 4Guys resource and it helped but I eventually just dropped the offending web form control and went a different route.
As always, make sure to test your website on all browser platforms during development.
the asp:menu control doesn't work too well in Safari without adding an App_Browsers file.
<browsers>
<browser refID="safari1plus">
<controlAdapters>
<adapter controlType="System.Web.UI.WebControls.Menu" adapterType="" />
</controlAdapters>
</browser>
</browsers>
That being said, it doesn't work very well in IE8 either!
(pretty easy fix, just add a z-index to the hover menu items)