{"id":37,"date":"2008-06-20T13:29:43","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T18:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.killersites.com\/magazine\/?p=37"},"modified":"2008-06-20T14:59:15","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T19:59:15","slug":"here-comes-internet-explorer-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.killersites.com\/magazine\/2008\/here-comes-internet-explorer-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Here comes Internet Explorer 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft’s response to the growing interest in interactive web services<\/a> and rich online experiences. This is Microsoft’s second attempt to build a browser that follows standard compliant HTML and CSS. So, will designers and developers embrace this new Internet Explorer?<\/p>\n

Maybe. <\/strong>IE8 is becoming CSS 2.1 compliant<\/a>. The beta release also fixes many of the browser inconsistencies and more closely supports the HTML 4.01 Specification<\/strong>. One notable change is the elimination of the problematic haslayout<\/a> functionality.<\/p>\n

IE8 departs from earlier versions in how it displays form controls. Chris Hester created a demo<\/a> showing how various browsers handle form buttons.<\/p>\n

Since beta releases can be buggy, it is probably too early to target IE8 with conditional comments. But, knowing your options will keep you ahead of the pack.<\/p>\n

Two methods to work with differences found in IE8:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Internet Explorer Conditional Comments.<\/li>\n
  2. The Emulate IE7 Meta Tag.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1.<\/strong> Designers can use Conditional Comments<\/a> to target Internet Explorer 8 with alternate content or CSS rules. The typical conditional comment to target IE8 is:<\/p>\n

    \n
    <\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
    2. <\/strong>Microsoft introduced a new meta tag to control the display of your web page in IE8. The meta tag will tell IE8 to render the page using IE7’s rendering engine.  To Emulate IE7, add this inside the <head><\/head> of your web document:<\/p>\n
    \n
    <\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
    This will allow a site to use the new features of IE8 while using IE7’s rendering engine.<\/p>\n
    \n
    \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
    More information can be found here: Update your site to render in IE7 Mode<\/a>.<\/p>\n
    Methods to test your site in IE8:<\/strong><\/p>\n