The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas were supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas were supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas were supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas were supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

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However this leads me to two API observations:

However this leads me to two API observations:

* If I used an API in some version and it used to work, I consider it a bug that it does not in new releases. I guess many programmers feel the same. And this all applies in some situations even to visual outcomes.

* If I used an API in some version and it used to work, I consider it a bug that it does not work in new releases. I guess many programmers feel the same. And this all applies in some situations even to visual outcomes.

* Even rendering can sometimes become part of API, especially if you accidentally start to render black text on black background, there will be many people who complain about behaviour of your rendering engine.

* Even rendering can sometimes become part of API, especially if you accidentally start to render black text on black background, there will be many people who complain about behaviour of your rendering engine.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas was supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas were supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

I was not sure where is the bug and I [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 asked for help the mozilla guys]. To my surprise they reacted pretty quickly, verified that this is behaviour of Opera and other browsers as well and even suggested how to fix my [[wikipedia::CSS|CSS]] files. Thanks guys, my website is looking much better now.

== Visual Aspects ==

== Visual Aspects ==

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggest that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggests that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas was supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas was supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

Still, I'd like to apologize and thank mozilla guys for quick resolution and help. Solving incompatibilities between versions of some product is definitely much easier with such great support that I got as part of [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 449911 issue]. Thanks.

Still, I'd like to apologize and thank mozilla guys for quick resolution and help. Solving incompatibilities between versions of some product is definitely much easier with such great support that I got as part of [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 449911 issue]. Thanks.

<comments/>

<comments/>

Still, I'd like to apologize and thank mozilla guys for quick resolution and help. Solving incompatibilities between versions of some product is definitely much easier with such great support that I got as part of [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 449911 issue]. Thanks.

Still, I'd like to apologize and thank mozilla guys for quick resolution and help. Solving incompatibilities between versions of some product is definitely much easier with such great support that I got as part of [http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449911 449911 issue]. Thanks.

== Visual Aspects ==

== Visual Aspects ==

The usual consensus is that visual aspects that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggest that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

The usual consensus is that [[APITypes:VisualAspects|visual aspects]] that are presented just to the end user are not part of API of some application. This is usually well justified and correct, especially in multi-platform framework like [[wikipedia::Java|Java]]. Programmers that would rely on some library to render a button 8px next to right border, with a certain text painted in dedicated RGB color could be successful with their application on one screen resolution, while horribly fail on small monitors with limited gray scale. Common sense suggest that writing this kind of checks is against good habits of using APIs.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas was supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.

However recently I had an opportunity to face this kind of ''rendering bug''. Stylesheets of [[Main Page|this website]] were reported to be broken on [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]], while working fine on other browsers and older versions of [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox]] itself. The text in the navigation and toolbox areas was supposed to be black with yellow background, but for some reason [[wikipedia::Firefox|firefox 3.0]] was able to render it without the desired background. Some users reported that reading black text on black background is not really pleasant.