Tag Archives: IE6

IE8 Compatibility Mode and IE7 are Not the Same Thing

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Just so we’re clear, testing your website in an actual copy of IE7, and testing in IE8′s Compatibility Mode are not the same thing. Compatibility Mode does an acceptable job of imitating IE7, and for the average user who’s just trying to fix a site that looks broken under IE8, it’s good enough. However, there are lots of small differences, and if you’re only testing your client sites with Compatibility Mode, it could come back to bite you.

On the IE Blog, Tony Ross published a list of mostly technical differences between the two. Perhaps more useful for web developers is this article by Estelle Weyl outlining some of the presentation differences between the two, such as border handling and box model differences.

Why does this matter? Because I’ve heard some otherwise intelligent web developers (including Microsoft’s Expression Web team, which uses IE8′s Compatibility Mode for IE7 testing) claim that testing will be much easier now, since you can test everything in one place.

To be sure, tools like Expression Web or the old Stand-Alone IE installers are helpful, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that they are an accurate representation of a “clean” IE6 or IE7 installation. To test against those, you’ll still need to resort to more thorough measures like keeping separate machines around, or using the free Virtual PC images for IE6, IE7, and IE8.

Note: This was originally posted on my work blog, and I’m re-posting it here for archival purposes.

Version Targeting and IE8 Followup

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Hooray! The feedback from the web development community convinced the IE development team to change their minds about the default setting for version targeting in IE8 (as I discussed in a previous post).

“In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting ‘Standards’ mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s ‘IE7 Standards mode’ will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach).”
– Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles and IE8

To clarify, version targeting will still exist in IE8, which is a good thing. The change is that instead of defaulting to IE7′s rendering engine, it will default to IE8 — which is the behavior you would logically expect.

You know, it’s really nice to make a post where I can say something nice about Microsoft, and that’s been happening a lot more often lately, thanks to the IE development team. Way to go, guys!

Note: This was originally posted on my work blog, and I’m re-posting it here for archival purposes.

Version Targeting and IE8

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Previously on Web Developer Controversies: Aaron Gustafson from the Internet Explorer development team announced that IE8 will use a META tag to kick the engine into standards mode by targeting a specific browser version, something that was previously done by using a valid DOCTYPE. A lot of people, including Jeremy Keith, think this is a bad idea. Here are some of the more interesting points that have been raised in the discussion so far. Continue reading →

Villagers Need Flowers

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Sorry for such a long delay in posting, but I just bought a copy of Black and White, so I’ve been playing pretty much non-stop. I felt guilty for not posting much, so here’s several various tidbits.

  • I would like to repeat, once again, my undying love for annna from Things I Hate. This article has only strengthened my feelings.
  • I sat down at my friend Urn’s work computer and found this note taped to the monitor: “Urn- Some woman called and said something- could have been about you, or someone else, or something like that. Call her back. I think her number was 1-900-something, but I can’t remember. -Colin”
  • Netscape sucks. I feel bad saying this, since up until a year ago, I was a strong supporter of the “Netscape is better than Microsoft” mentality… Until Netscape proved me wrong. IE is faster and more stable (on my system) than Netscape 4.7, and WAY more stable than Netscape 6, which is awful. This is old news, though. What’s new to me is that I recently discovered that Outlook Express is better than Netscape’s mail client! I put it on Annie’s computer in desperation to find something that would crash her computer less than Netscape Mail. Outlook not only loads faster and crashes less, it was WAY easier to set up. The configuration just make more sense.
  • In Black and White, the villagers express their needs to you by raising little flags around the village store. These flags have little icons on them to tell you what they mean. Little pictures of grain mean they need food, the little heart means they need to breed, and the little tree means they need wood. So I was walking around campus in a bit of a daze, and I saw this banner they have hanging from all the light posts, which just has an image of a flower on it. My first reaction: VILLAGERS NEED FLOWERS.
  • A few years ago a coworker of mine from Egghead set up a website called the Psychic Dog Network. In a freakish coincidence, Jill just gave me a link to the amazingly similar, but wholly separate Psychic Puppy Network.
  • Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!
  • Oh, and also, Annie and I may be moving back to Portland in mid-June instead of late July. More on that as we get details firmed up.