IE6 and 5.5

[lesley]

Hello,

 

I am using http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/ to view my site in IE6 and 5.5. Alot of my clients still use these browsers. However, my website http://tica.org is showing up inconsistent. Any ideas why?

[Wickham]

I don't think anyone on this forum will be able to test IE 5.5 now but IE6 is still worth checking as it still has about 25% of browser use.

 

Generally, make your site suit Firefox which will usually be OK for Opera and Safari and in most cases IE7 and IE8 but if IE6 is bad, use a conditional comment like:-

 

 

The above comment should be placed in the head section of every page AFTER the main stylesheet links. lt IE 7 means less than IE7 so it would cover IE5, IE5.5 and IE6.

 

You have lots of stylesheets and I haven't got time to check them all; do you really need so many? There may be a conflict between them.

 

IE6 problems can be varied, but often relate to widths or side margins. Find out what works in IE6 and put the revised styles in the conditional comment.

 

The validator http://validator.w3.org/ shows 27 errors, you can't do much about the embed tag except avoid using it. "Alt not specified" means put alt="image description" inside an img tag.

 

You have several opening and ending tag mismatches in yout table cells and divs which may be affecting IE6 so sort them out.

 

An id="tanad" tag has been used more than once - use a class if used more than once.

Edited March 23, 2009 by Wickham

[LSW]

IE5.5? You are sure clients still use that? Tell them to upgrade or use a different browser.

 

IE 5.5 is something like 10 years old, there is no excuse to be using it. It is pre-CSS, that is why is looks different. IE5.5 does not understand much CSS and no modern CSS2 and it did not exist then. Microsoft no longer supports IE5.5., it is neither updated or further brought up to speed. It is dead.

 

It cannot be that any developer be expected to support a dead browser. You would not expect to be able to go to Ford and have them be producing parts for a Model T would you? We waste enough time trying to get things working right in a piece of junk like IE6 to spend time on a browser that does not even support modern standards. I would literally charge them more for that kind of support.

 

About the only way to make a web site for IE5.5 and below is to create a second site free of standards, CSS and using tables and all the HTML Tags that the W3C has retired over the last 10 years.

[lesley]

I guess they arent using 5.5, that was on the netrendering website so i was looking at it.

 

However i do have to fix this site for IE6. I placed some conditional comments in to fix the layout and it worked out. It's not perfect though. Now i am working on making the menu functional and it looks like i will have to use java.

 

I do have alot of stylesheets, they help me stay organized - but i do need to clean them up and make sure they dont conflict with each other.

 

"An id="tanad" tag has been used more than once - use a class if used more than once."

*I didnt know this! Is there a specific reason?

 

Thanks for your help Wickham.

 

LSW - i cant agree more about IE6, i am so frustrated with it!

[LSW]

LOL - OK, got it. I mean IE5.5 no longer even registers on allot of statistics. So I was amazed to think someone was still using it.

 

Yea, the only way to deal with IE6 is conditional comments. So your on the right track. But keep something in mind. All browsers are built by different teams and those teams have different people. So even standards based browsers show some things different because the individuals understand the standards differently. So all browsers have some differences on the same web site. That is good or we would all just use one browser. So my position is to never waste time trying for perfection. The site should look "about the same" but there will always be margins that are wider here than there etc., no one will notice because they are always using the chosen browser, it is just clear to you because you test all. It should look good and it should work. That is all. Don't sweat the little stuff. You say tomato, I say Tomato type of thing (unless writing it, then it sort of doesn't work) or we write Color and Brits write Colour... it does not make a difference.

 

To many folks get wrapped up trying to make things pixel perfect..., fine, turn your site into a screen shot and then it will be perfect on all browsers.