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Browsers and settings
Will the Oxford DNB work with my browser? Any modern browser should perform well with the Oxford DNB.
Specifically, the site will work on a PC with Windows 95 or higher, using:
- Firefox;
- Internet Explorer 5 (released 1999) or higher;
- Netscape 6.2 (released 2001) or higher.
For Mac users, the site will work on a Mac with OS9 or OSX, using:
- Firefox;
- Netscape 6.2 (released 2001) or higher;
- Safari.
Note that:
- Safari does not support the Highlight Search functionality (using the mouse to highlight text to be searched on); all other search functionality works perfectly.
- Internet Explorer 5 on a Mac will work with the site, but there is a cosmetic issue involving the display of illustrated articles. This does not affect the visibility of content, or any functionality. But we note that Microsoft are no longer supporting IE for the Mac (December 2005; they recommend that Mac IE users switch to Safari), and so we do not plan to address this problem.
What settings should I have on my browser? Generally, the Oxford DNB will perform best with your browser's default settings.
- To log into the Oxford DNB, your browser must be set to accept cookies. See Accessing the Oxford DNB for more details.
- To use many of its features you must have JavaScript turned on.
Text size The site works best with your browser's default text size setting of medium, or a one step increase or decrease. It will also work reliably at larger text sizes.
- At the very largest text sizes, some features in the navigation area at the top of the screen and in the grey navigation bar may have become so large that they are partially hidden behind each other. All these features will continue to work, so long as they are at least partially visible.
Screen resolution The Oxford DNB is best viewed with a screen resolution of 1024x768, although it will also work at higher and lower resolutions.
Frames The design of the Oxford DNB uses frames. We recommend that you view the site with frames turned on (this will be your browser's default setting), though it is still possible to navigate through the site with frames turned off.
Accessibility Wherever possible, the Oxford DNB meets Conformance level A (Priority 1) of the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). We have tried to avoid the use of non-W3C formats, and have run Bobby validation for Priority 1 accessibility. Where we have not been able to make a particular feature more accessible, we have tried to ensure that it degrades gracefully.
Navigation using your keyboard You can move around each screen by using your tab key to move from each area of the page to the next, and then each link, button or entry field on the page to the next. Shift + tab moves in the opposite direction. Dropdown menus unfold when you use the up and down arrows, and the return key acts as a mouse click: it will activate buttons and follow links.
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