# Just a friendly reminder - IE Sucks.



## Michael Morris (Mar 19, 2008)

I'm currently going through one part of my job I hate - fixing sites to look - passable - in IE. Actually, in my day job I have to make it *exact* but I'm not going to do that IE users - I will make it passable.

For example, in EN2's layout the navbars have a left margin away from the logo on the left and are allowed to expand to hit the right page. The top one's margin is 300px, the bottom one 400px.  Now the internal table in Firefox, Opera, and Safari (read *CSS compliant*) is set width 100% to fill this space, and only this space.  IE thinks 100% is relative to the *page* so it shoots out part of the menu 300px beyond the right margin of the page.

PAMWF, the support software I developed for DMGx and am using on EN2, solves this problem by letting me selective add or omit lines of CSS from a master file from being sent to a browser.  So in IE the table has no set width and as a result all the nav options - though present and functional, are crammed up against each other.

Microsoft has bragged that IE8 will be compliant - I'll believe this when I see it but given the company's past foot dragging I won't be on it. In the meanwhile be forewarned that pages will look slightly worse on IE 6 and 7. This is unavoidable - IE sucks.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 19, 2008)

Or, just possibly, Firefox, Opera, and Safaris suck  

More seriously, I'm not an IE fan either, though coding a site to work with several browsers that are used by only a tiny fraction of the consuming public as opposed to the single most popular browser used by consumers seems to be more than a bit counter-productive. 

If it were me, making my site accessible to more people would take precedence over making my site accessible to fewer people just because they use browsers that I personally prefer (for the record, I'm an Opera guy).


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## Michael Morris (Mar 19, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Or, just possibly, Firefox, Opera, and Safaris suck
> 
> More seriously, I'm not an IE fan either, though coding a site to work with several browsers that are used by only a tiny fraction of the consuming public as opposed to the single most popular browser used by consumers seems to be more than a bit counter-productive.
> 
> If it were me, making my site accessible to more people would take precedence over making my site accessible to fewer people just because they use browsers that I personally prefer (for the record, I'm an Opera guy).



 That tiny fraction is 60% of this board last time I ran tracking software.  IE has about an 80% global market share, but 1 year ago accounted for only 40% of ENWorld's hits (50% firefox, 10% others).

And I don't code for other browsers. I code to standards - then complain about fixing IE because of it's market share.  If Opera didn't follow standards I would ignore it.


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## Morrus (Mar 19, 2008)

I would argue that "standards" are meaningless; the only standards that matter are the ones used by the software adopted by the majority of people.    If 80% of people use IE, the "standard" is the way IE does it.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 19, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I would argue that "standards" are meaningless; the only standards that matter are the ones used by the software adopted by the majority of people.    If 80% of people use IE, the "standard" is the way IE does it.




No no no! That's a little like saying "vomit over your food before eating it. Millions of houseflies can't be wrong!"

Web standards are good. IE is bad. IE7 was better but still defaulted to quirks mode so that nobody had to worry about poorly coded sites breaking. At least IE8 promises to use standards mode as default - short term some broken sites, longer term better usability for the web all round.

Standards are important (if people didn't follow the HTTP standard there would be no internet as we know it today! If browser manufacturers didn't follow the HTML standard we'd be in a sorry state. The CSS standard is no different.

Buggy software which doesn't conform to the standard needs to be fixed; workarounds may be necessary to support buggy software, but the software needs to be brought up to spec.

(yes, browser compatibility is part of my day job. How did you guess?)



Cheers


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## hong (Mar 19, 2008)

Someone pointed me to this blog post re the whole web standards thing, at least as it applies to the forthcomign IE8.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 19, 2008)

Michael,

I suppose you've considered using conditional comments to load a different stylesheet for IE, but dismissed it?

Cheers


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## Angel Tarragon (Mar 19, 2008)

I ditched IE a long time ago. I'm mostly an Avant user now. I only use IE for websites that won't properly display in Avant.


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## jonesy (Mar 19, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I would argue that "standards" are meaningless; the only standards that matter are the ones used by the software adopted by the majority of people.    If 80% of people use IE, the "standard" is the way IE does it.



I would argue that Microsoft should be the one who is meaningless.

There are only two possible reasons for how they write code.

Either they're just really bad at it due to the unmanagable size of their company or the ineptitude of their coders which is also mostly due to the size of the company. Who can go through the past code of several hundred/thousand people and stay sane?.

Or they're doing it on purpose to hinder the other companies.

So, incompetent or malicious. If we follow them blindly we are only pardoning their mentality and that path leads to a bigger market share for them, and more of the same problems.

The only reason I am on Internet Explorer right now is the fact that my job doesn't allow anything altered. The only reason for that is that it is easier for their IT staff. And of course hiring IT staff who are only familiar with MS is easier and cheaper. And the reason for that is their market share.

Besides which "adopted by people" is a dire misnomer in this case. Most people don't even know that they have a choice in the matter.

Hmm. Is there monster called Dire Misnomer? Gonna have to use one next game time. =)


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## Umbran (Mar 19, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I would argue that "standards" are meaningless;




I would argue that the very existence of the internet is a testament to the strength and utility of standards.  "Internet Protocol" - a standard.  Wireless connectivity - a standard.  HTML (and every other ML) - a standard.  Every little piece of this amazing communications system is based on, relies upon, and shows the strength of having and meeting standards.  The thing that makes this place possible can hardly be meaningless to it's further development, hm? 

Admittedly, for a small business ideological arguments must give way to practical realities.  In the past, the practical reality was that folks coded to a standard - the unofficial IE standard.  Now the practical reality is that competition is pushing the web towards compliance to official standards for a very simple reason - the standards are well-considered, so that browsers who meet the standards _work better_.  And, as Michael reports, the majority of the users here are using more standards-compliant browsers.  Add to this the fact that coding to the standard is easier and faster for the engineer, and the meaning of the standard starts becoming more clear.

For a small business, the goal is the best service for the most people - and that means jumping on the standards bandwagon.


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## Michael Morris (Mar 19, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> Michael,
> 
> I suppose you've considered using conditional comments to load a different stylesheet for IE, but dismissed it?
> 
> Cheers



 Not really - PAM evals the stylesheet as it sends it.  My stylesheet may have a line like this


```
[[IE6: background: url(images/top.gif)
[else]
background: url(images/top.png) ]]
```

PHP reads the sheet before sending it and adjusts as necessary. This way I don't have to maintain multiple sheets nor do I need to rely on CSS hacks.


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## IronWolf (Mar 19, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> No no no! That's a little like saying "vomit over your food before eating it. Millions of houseflies can't be wrong!"
> 
> Web standards are good. IE is bad. IE7 was better but still defaulted to quirks mode so that nobody had to worry about poorly coded sites breaking. At least IE8 promises to use standards mode as default - short term some broken sites, longer term better usability for the web all round.
> 
> ...




Very well put!   I agree wholeheartedly.

The very fact that MS has *finally* decided to actually use standards in IE8 is a testament to those of us who have stood up for standards compliance.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Mar 19, 2008)

If they update from IE6 at work I will be able to view the pages correctly and get even less done.  

Thanks for trying to make it look at least passable on IE6 and 7, Michael.


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## drothgery (Mar 19, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> No no no! That's a little like saying "vomit over your food before eating it. Millions of houseflies can't be wrong!"
> 
> Web standards are good. IE is bad. IE7 was better but still defaulted to quirks mode so that nobody had to worry about poorly coded sites breaking. At least IE8 promises to use standards mode as default - short term some broken sites, longer term better usability for the web all round.




Of course, if you go back to the beginning, Netscape was terrible and IE went from at least trying (IE3) to quite good by the standards of the time (IE5/6 -- remember that IE6 was out _years_ before FireFox was useable). Despite building in a lot of stuff to handle Netscape's quirks. Microsoft did far more to get CSS from 'a nice idea' to 'something that can actually be used' than anyone else.


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## Elephant (Mar 21, 2008)

drothgery said:
			
		

> (IE5/6 -- remember that IE6 was out _years_ before FireFox was useable).




Well, more than one year, anyway.  I was using it back when they called it Phoenix, and it was definitely usable.  Despite there being a few sites that didn't behave properly when viewed in Phoenix, it was usable long before they renamed it Firebird.

Internet Explorer 6:  August 2001
Mozilla Phoenix:  September 2002
Mozilla Firebird:  April 2003
Mozilla Firefox:  February 2004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Internet_Explorer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mozilla_Firefox


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## Dinkeldog (Mar 21, 2008)

Maybe Safari will work for me.  Firefox has been acting up on me for the last 9 months.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Mar 21, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> Standards are important (if people didn't follow the HTTP standard there would be no internet as we know it today! If browser manufacturers didn't follow the HTML standard we'd be in a sorry state. The CSS standard is no different.




On the flip side, a lot of the standards we have and use are standards because someone got tired of waiting around for a de jure standard to evolve, said 'screw it' and did something good enough that it became a de facto standard.

Personally, I think it's a big mistake relying on lots of custom stuff to make the site work.  It'll just lead to the same situation it's in now, where only one person can maintain it, and if Spoony gets hit by a bus, we're screwed.  If it's a choice between a shiny feature or pretty style that needs a lot of custom code to make work, and basic functionality right out of the box, I'll take the latter.

And yes, IE sucks.  I've been using Opera since 2000, and would have a hard time giving it up.  It annoys me no end when I have to revert to IE for something.


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## Mark (Mar 21, 2008)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Personally, I think it's a big mistake relying on lots of custom stuff to make the site work.  It'll just lead to the same situation it's in now, where only one person can maintain it, and if Spoony gets hit by a bus, we're screwed.





QFT  Loads of problems can be traced to this sort of situation.


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## Michael Morris (Mar 21, 2008)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> On the flip side, a lot of the standards we have and use are standards because someone got tired of waiting around for a de jure standard to evolve, said 'screw it' and did something good enough that it became a de facto standard.
> 
> Personally, I think it's a big mistake relying on lots of custom stuff to make the site work.  It'll just lead to the same situation it's in now, where only one person can maintain it, and if Spoony gets hit by a bus, we're screwed.  If it's a choice between a shiny feature or pretty style that needs a lot of custom code to make work, and basic functionality right out of the box, I'll take the latter.
> 
> And yes, IE sucks.  I've been using Opera since 2000, and would have a hard time giving it up.  It annoys me no end when I have to revert to IE for something.



 I disagree. Much of the problem can be traced to lack of documentation in the code.  Twin Rose for instance didn't leave behind more than 20 words of comments in the entire store code. Bad documentation or no documentation plagues most custom work. Contrawise I tend to write more comment text than functioning code because I have a lot of products and poor memory and I don't want to stare at a block of code I wrote 6 months ago and wonder "what the hell?"


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## Dinkeldog (Mar 21, 2008)

There is no such thing as "overdocumentation" of code.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 24, 2008)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Personally, I think it's a big mistake relying on lots of custom stuff to make the site work.




In my professional capacity I agree - where possible if there is a design that will require special handling to get it to work in quirks mode as well as standards mode I'll argue for compromises in the design to get a simpler implementation!

I think the campaign for standards in web browsers has provided real benefit. Think back to the wild and woolly days of the early web, where browser manufacturers implemented new features willy-nilly - many of which have gone the way of the dodo (frames, marquee tags) while others have become fundamental to the web (javascript and IIRC tables). Back in those days it was common to see "best viewed with IE" or "best viewed with Netscape".

Since then, web standards have given a common goal for browser manufacturers to aim for. The standards compliance for Firefox and Opera have kicked microsoft in the butt and got them to develop IE7 and work now on IE8 (when IE6 didn't have any competition, it languished and recieved no development love).

So one way or another, web standards are getting us better browsers. Yay!


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## Bugaboo (Mar 24, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> No no no! That's a little like saying "vomit over your food before eating it. Millions of houseflies can't be wrong!"




No it's not, silly. Different species; bad comparison.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 25, 2008)

Bugaboo said:
			
		

> No it's not, silly. Different species; bad comparison.




Ah, Bugaboo - refreshing to see you again.


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## Mark (Mar 25, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> Ah, Bugaboo - refreshing to see you again.





_Refreshing like a fox._


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## Elephant (Mar 25, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> I think the campaign for standards in web browsers has provided real benefit. Think back to the wild and woolly days of the early web, where browser manufacturers implemented new features willy-nilly - many of which have gone the way of the dodo (frames, marquee tags)




Frames are still useful today for certain ajax uses.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 25, 2008)

Elephant said:
			
		

> Frames are still useful today for certain ajax uses.




I see iFrame used sometimes in that situation (which was a refinement of frames introduced by IE IIRC). I can't remember the last time that I saw an actual Frames website though!


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## Michael Morris (Mar 25, 2008)

The admin panel of vbulletin is frame based.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 25, 2008)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> The admin panel of vbulletin is frame based.




OK, so the last time I saw something frame based was this morning 

Darn you and your inconvenient facts, Michael Morris!


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