I have been putting together a site in Expression Engine, and generally all is well. I can get my site to render correctly in:-
- Internet Explorer 6.x
- Internet Explorer 5.x
- Internet Explorer 8.x
- Firefox 3.x
- Safari 4.x
- Chrome
As you can see, the notable (aside from Opera) omission is IE7. This browser has frustrated me beyond belief, and I wish I could vape it from this earth full stop.
Here is my problem, the site I am developing is for a charity, and will likely be accessed by people with fairly old PC’s. I am pretty sure that most of the users will use IE, of either 5.5 or 6.0, but there will be some with 7.0, and frankly I just cannot be arsed to frig about with the CSS just because IE7 doesn’t work.
Has anyone implemented a stragey to actively stop the use of a certain browser, or can full cross browser support be done?
I think it is a good idea to support IE6+ and would say that a strategy to block a certain browser (especially one as common as IE7) would be a bad idea—as frustrating as it can be at times to get IE on board.
You know about conditional comments, right? They are very helpful in loading specific styles (or even JavaScript) for specific versions of IE. Or for that matter, all browsers besides IE.
I’ve never seen a site that worked fine in IE6 and couldn’t be made to work in IE7. There’s almost always something fairly simple to get IE7 back in line with 6. The reverse isn’t necessarily true, but generally IE6 isn’t *awful* either. If you post a url someone might be able to prod you in the right direction.
Determining browser support may require a look at browser traffic stats. I have an ‘official’ policy of no support for IE 6. Sites are built to valid XHTML/CSS standards, and will look acceptably in IE 7.x and IE 8.x. If IE 6 support is required the price tag matches the effort.
That said, IE 6.x still shows up as a substantial percentage of users in web logs (slowly dropping; too slowly).
I don’t think dropping support on IE 7 is the smart way. Lot’s of people use it. Also from my experience, fully supporting IE 6 is allot harder with all the new technologies out there compared to IE 7.
Usually, if you have valid html and css, IE 7 displays correctly or only very few extra css lines are needed for a fix. For IE6 the common “display:inline;” is usually needed to fix the double margins, and for very complicated designs you can fall back on conditionals.
I try to support every major browser which, based on my stats (and my clients) are:
IE 6,7,8
Opera 9,10
Firefox 2,3
Safari 3,4
Chrome (doesn’t get used allot but its rising, so I test new websites just in case)
Just recently I’ve launched the first clients site which doesn’t fully support IE6, however is still functions well, just misses out on some features. For some clients, especially the non-profit ones supporting both IE 6 en 7 is a must according to their stats.
Maybe if you share a link, we can see what goes wrong in IE7 and help you find a fix?
I knew the answer really, and my original post was made shortly after getting a substantial set of content layouts completed, and was totally dismayed when I checked it out in IE.
The answer is, you have to make the site IE 6.x, 7.x and 8.x compatible!
I downloaded the rather nice, IETester tool, which allows me to preview in 5, 6, 7 and 8, and after a lot of tinkering with the CSS, and using a few CSS hacks, I have got the level of presentation to a reasonable level with all of these.
The result was that nothing in FF, Chrome or Safari broke in the process.
I do find it very difficult to accept that a single product line, from a single manufacturer can yield considerably different results from usage.
I feel a ‘if Microsoft made cars…’ line coming on.
I used to sing the praises of IE at one time, with it’s freely accessible DOM, but at the expense of compliance to standards, but I can now clearly see why so many web developers have a mis-trust, dis-like or even hatred toward IE.
The sad thing is, the majority of web consumers, have no idea of anything but IE, when they could be having a much better ‘Experience’ with another browser.
Determining browser support may require a look at browser traffic stats. I have an ‘official’ policy of no support for IE 6. Sites are built to valid XHTML/CSS standards, and will look acceptably in IE 7.x and IE 8.x. If IE 6 support is required the price tag matches the effort.
That said, IE 6.x still shows up as a substantial percentage of users in web logs (slowly dropping; too slowly).
I agree with the statement here that you need to evaluate what to support based on the traffic you are getting. If you’re not getting traffic from people browsing the web with IE7 maybe it’s not such a pressing issue.
I find that there are still people using ie6 which surprises me but that’s simply a fact. so developing for IE7 is a no brainer for me. But that might not be the way everyone else feels.
If you’re not getting traffic from people browsing the web with IE7 maybe it’s not such a pressing issue.
When IE 8 was released I ran into a bunch new quirks to deal with. Surprise! That means a valid XHTML/CSS site which renders fine in Firefox/Safari could easily break in totally different ways in IE 6.x, IE 7.x, and IE 8.x. I wasn’t happy about having to add another list of hacks for Microsoft’s latest non-standards rendering browser, but found a way to invoke IE 7.x in IE 8.x using this in the header.
That tells IE 8.x to render a page the same as IE 7.x. One less set of hacks to worry about.
I’m intrigued with Google Chrome Frame, which is a plugin which bypasses IE 6.x, IE 7.x, and IE 8.x’s rendering engine in favor of Google’s (WebKit). Now, if only there was a way to auto install and activate it…
That tells IE 8.x to render a page the same as IE 7.x. One less set of hacks to worry about.
I agree, Why code for three versions of IE?! That trick has saved me a lot of trouble. I found that it only works if inserted immediately after the opening head tag.
If IE 6 support is required the price tag matches the effort.
Maybe I’ll to get up the guts to have an “official policy” like you, gramps. I see IE6 is still an amazingly high percentage and fading all too slowly.
Maybe I’ll to get up the guts to have an “official policy” like you, gramps. I see IE6 is still an amazingly high percentage and fading all too slowly.
It was quite simple, actually. When working with a designer/site owner, I’ll bid out my EE work as XHTML and CSS standards compliant, including acceptable rendering using MSIE 7.x and 8.x. There’s a separate price tag for IE 6.x compatibility, and I make it worth my time. I haven’t lost a deal over that issue.
In my corporate job we are stuck with an old CMS which inserts an html comment above the DOCTYPE on every page.
As you may already know, this triggers an IE bug which throws every version of that browser into quirks mode rendering. At first I found this incredibly frustrating, since it means IE6 behaves as though it were IE5.5, IE 7 behaves as though it were IE6 and IE8 behaves as though it were IE7 behaving as though it were IE6.
4 years down the line though, I have learnt to embrace this disability - it has the advantage that I can serve up just one set of the same hacks to every version of IE and they will all react roughly the same.
I’m not sure I would actually advise anyone to invoke this bug on purpose since it’s pretty backwards-thinking, but that option is available to you if you don’t want to deal with different IE’s and are happy to keep a close eye on what IE9 10 and 11 decide to do… (You can, by the way, counteract this bug in IE8 using the meta tag mentioned above to force it back into standards mode (with content=“IE=edge”) - that way you could still serve up the same hacks just to “lte IE7” and be fairly sure of future compatibility).
With my past experiences, supporting IE is still important. For me, I suggest you to work to get IE7 support you site. Main reason is because - There are still many people out that does not know what is Firefox. Yes, this is truth.
IE support is a fact of life. It is ugly, does bizarre things in a non standard i.e. Microsoft, and most developers hate it, but we have no choice but to deal with its many quirks. This recent article can give you a bit more background on the differences between 6, 7, and 8: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/14/css-differences-in-internet-explorer-6-7-and-8/
I also agree with one of the comments made in this thread, and sort of supported in the article just mentioned, that 6 is the real problem child. There are loads of IE7 hacks to deal with the most common problems.
Bottom line - if web development was easy, anyone could do it, and where would that leave us? Ha!
...and most developers hate it, but we have no choice but to deal with its many quirks.
Amen, that. Dealing with all the quirks in IE 6.x, 7.x and even 8.x is enough to develop a severe hatred for anything Microsoft.
I also agree with one of the comments made in this thread, and sort of supported in the article just mentioned, that 6 is the real problem child. There are loads of IE7 hacks to deal with the most common problems.
Yep, 6.x is the real issue, and it’s dying an all to slow death. Not surprisingly, IE 8.x also has quirks which don’t exist in either 6 or 7, which is all the more frustrating except for that wonderful meta tag which drops IE 8 back into 7 mode. One less set of quirks to worry about.
A screenshot or link would give us an idea as to the kind of problem you’re having. If it’s structural, and if you’re not using a framework, it would be worth considering one such as 960.gs or similar, which makes most layouts a piece of cake. If it’s Jscript then again, it might be worth looking at frameworks, they’ve taken a lot of hassle out of my cross-browser issues.
In terms of ignoring IE7, or IE6 for that matter, I run a travel blog platform which is widely used by a fairly broad range of users. Our stats are roughly as follows:
The unmistakable trends include IE dropping steadily, IE 6 dropping steadily but slowly, Firefox/Safari growing, Chrome growing quickly (now past Mozilla, Opera, et al).
Another trend is unmistakable, too. iPhone/iPod touch usage at well over 4%. No other non PC mobile platform garners half a percent.
I bit the bullet, and went through IE 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 and have now managed to get the site to render correctly in all of these. What seemed to be a real problem was having an absolute positioned DIV within a parent DIV, which IE 6 seemed to not like at all.
When I fixed this for IE6, IE7 wasn’t working!!!
Anyway, for anyone who stumbles upon this, my main strategies for dealing with this were:-
1. W3C Validation - go an validate your site, it wont hurt one little bit, although it can be a pain in the behind. What is nice, is that this will give you a level of assurance that your code will render in all W3C compliant browsers. Dont forget to validate your CSS as well, as this can reveal some interesting ones!
2. Simplify your design - I had a complex set of embedded DIV’s, which was just too complex for my needs. Took a step back, and rationalised, and made life easier.
3. Employ IE CSS Hacks - by using the child selector hack (html>body #myCSSrule) I was able to fine tune my CSS to enable cross browser support.
4. Using Expression Engine, and a plugin called ‘Browser Sniff’, I was able to add specfic conditional HTML for specific browser versions (just IE6 and 7 to be honest).
5. Use a tool such as ‘IETester’ which allows you to test various versions of IE on one PC, this greatly increases the speed at which you can change and test your templates.
6. Backup, Backup and More Backup - If you inadvertenly change something, and something breaks in a big way, then having recent backup’s of your CSS and Templates will be a life saver, or enable the versioning options in EE!
Using these strategies, you will get compliancy across the IE family of browsers, and others!
Let me tell you, it is hard work, and nugatory, but if you want to provide a good experience to your end users, then its gotta be done!
Couple of things to keep in mind if you do not already know:
Make sure all of your divs have a defined height - having no height will give you IE woes.
Avoid “div-itis” by carefully considering your layout before you start coding. There are plenty of other block-level elements you can apply positioning rules to. Also remember that can use display:block on inline elements, e.g images.
