What is Digg?Sponsored by Activision
Band Hero view!
guitarhero.com - The biggest event music event of the year is now in your living room.
76 Comments
- Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -6/+44This article is pretty good, but is still spreading a bit of FUD about the coming IE7.
Most of the CSS Hacks that are designed to target IE are to address specific known bugs ... exploiting other specific known bugs in IE's CSS parser. This allows your design to render appropriately in IE6 as well as the rest of the crop of browsers out there.
IE7 both fixes the CSS parser bugs that allows these hacks to work, and has fixed most of the rendering bugs that caused these hacks to be necessary.
Sadly, CSS hacking isn't going away anytime soon. IE7 will only be available for WinXP and better. There are still a ton of people using Win9x family operating systems, and Win2K still has a lot of penetration (It's a good OS ... many people had no incentive to go from 2K to XP). That means that IE6 is going to be around for a looong time to come. (as are even older versions of IE ... check your server logs...)
As a developer, I try and keep my hacks to a minimum ... usually limited to minor positioning issues etc. However, I do wish I could use some of the better features of CSS2.0, but it looks like it's going to be a while until we get that joy, as Microsoft has said quite clearly that they won't be up to standard with this release.
So, don't FEAR the upcoming IE7 that won't recognize your hacks ... much of my testing has shown me that you won't NEED those hacks for IE7 anyway. But do hate the fact that IE7 is going to be here, but you're STILL going to have to support IE6 and earlier for the forseeable futrue. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+48and IE sucks :-(
- DDRSkata, on 10/12/2007, -8/+34"As for Microsoft sucking... There's a reason Apple and Linux aint getting nowhere - they suck even worse, usability on Linux is horrible (and the graphics too), support for software and games are abysmal and Apple.. well Apple screwed up a long time ago where their OS required specific Apple hardware to run properly."
Wow. You should be slapped, soldier. What the ***** are you talking about?
Linux and Mac OS X do not, by any means, suck.
Linux is just as usable as Windows unless you're doing complex tasks that would be complex under Windows anyway. Its graphics are only subpar because of sparing releases of graphics card drivers. If companies were to release drivers as often as they do for Windows, there wouldn't be a problem. Plus, haven't you heard about XGL yet?
Mac OS X is better for things like graphics applications, photo and video editing, rendering, etc. The only reason it doesn't have as many games as Windows is that Apple used to use proprietary hardware. Now that they've switched to Intel hardware, expect to see more games. Plus, the Intel switch made it so that their OS can, in fact, run on generic hardware, contrary to your post.
Stop being an idiot. - funkytaco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Easily solved. I'm coding according to W3C standards not some IE7 coder's messy logic.
- valour, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25In the future we're just going to have to use Javascript to detect the browser version, then load a version-specific CSS file. So much for standards -- all it took was Microsoft to ***** up their software to kill CSS2 as a standard. Considering MS's other underhanded business tactics, it makes me wonder if they did this on purpose somehow... maybe to keep IE relevant. If you have to design differently for different browsers, it's easier to just settle on the most popular one and ditch the rest, isn't it?
- GrinningFool, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18"Stop being an idiot."
I've noticed that people often expect the impossible, here. - sishgupta, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16It's more likely that attitude you're carrying around that is getting your comments modded down.
That and the fact that it was incredibly hard to read/understand. Where the hell were you educated? Redneck University? or is it the Community College for Gangstahs? - levpopov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I think this will really hurt IE7 much harder than any website out there. Think about it. Microsoft launches new version of Explorer - all happy users go to their favorite websites and see them rendered incorrectly. Who do they blame? It worked perfectly with their old browser, so it *must* mean that its Microsoft's fault. Sounds like great news for Firefox, Safari and Opera - IE's market share will get destroyed unless Microsoft figures out how to not fall for CSS hacks. As a person writing CSS every other day, i couldnt be happier than to see Microsoft's atrocious CSS support biting them back.
- spirituscanis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Cheers to that - I do that whenever I can, i.e. I code my personal sites to w3 standards and if they don't work properly in IE, well too bad. Of coarse this isn't generally an option when building a site for a client, but at least I don't feel harangued into cowing to MS for my own projects.
- Razerious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I just don't get why it's so hard for a company like Microsoft to implement a decent, working CSS model. Their stance on this issue reeks of arrogance to be perfectly honest.
- TheHim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'd love to get rid of hacks all together, i recently managed to build a single CSS design that works on most recent browsers including IE6, but i have no idea if IE5 and comparable competitors butcher it or not. Afaik IE7 will not be available for XP as Gnascher suggested so IE6 might be around for even longer. If you design websites for common local-town audience (and i believe such make up a big part of the web) you have to expect a Win9x environment, that's what visitor stats remind me of all the time.
- c0uchm0nster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7you underestimate peoples deliberate non-understandng of outdated software. I'm upgrading two small networks (20-30 machines & 1-2 servers) from windows 98 at the moment. Among the demands of two of the offices (even after explaining the amazing stupidity of them), I have to deal with such things as WinXP running on 533mhz machines with 96mb ram, and no policy to prevent users from installing whatever crap software they want. The new domain system & active directory and the security there is null because "in Windows 98 we didn't have to use any passwords" so now they refuse to do anything except use their phone extension as their passwords. People do not care or care to know if something's a good idea when it comes to computers - they seem to have the mentality that computers can be worked harder than a car and yet be more reliable than one at the same time.
The OP of this thread is right, the big worry is older versions of IE. Because who cares if we now have a new and "improved" IE7 - what it really means is we now have yet another browser we have to find and create hacks for to make the same user experience no matter what browser they're using. And don't kid yourself for a moment, even if IE7 does most things right today, you can be sure that "tomorrow" it will be in the same situation that ie6 is in now. - Calimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Hey, what are conditional comments if not hacks ? Ridiculous!
If they were doing good browsers with good css2 support, there wouldn't be any need for hack, as I don't need hacks for Firefox, Opera or KHTML. Now I must do a separate CSS file just for IE7 ? And what after ? Imagine if I had to design a CSS file for each browser ? Are they believing IE deserves a specific design ? Are they going crazy ?
We're back to the good old time where we had to have 2 separate HTML page, one for IE and one for Netscape. This is definitely not a progress, but a terrible regression. And I'm not going back to the last century by doing such things. That's what MS want indeed: they fear of the web.
If IE7 is good at CSS, it will render my pages correctly, as do Fx, Opera and Konqueror. If it is bad, it will break them, too bad for users, but they can just switch to a better browser. I won't do any css for a specific bad browser before it has a sufficient marketshare.
Hope (for them) it will be good. - G00mper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6>"Mac OS X is better for things like graphics applications, photo and video editing, rendering, etc."
I'm primarily a Mac user/graphic designer. I use a Mac because I like it, I could do all the same work just as well on a PC if I had to. A computer is a computer, the Mac is not "better". - GrinningFool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"But people DO have incentive to move away from Win 9x and even Win 2000. If you're still running Win 9x, we can safely say that you've got a dreadfully old machine that is not capable of running new software, at least in anything resembling a pleasant way."
That's not incentive. A large portion of the population surfs the web, reads e-mails, and writes some simple documents with Word 97. They're perfectly happy to continue doing this because it meets their needs. Why would they want to spend money to upgrade to a new computer they don't need, in order to run a new operating system they don't want (XP or Vista), and load applications they'll never use?
"Also, I believe (please correct me if I am) that Windows 2000 reached its end of mainstream support June 30, 2005. That's nearly a year ago. There are still some fixes produced for the product, but right now, mainline fixes are produced for XP and 2003. For corporate types (90 % of Win2k installs) that fact alone is enough to make them upgrade."
We still have 10,000 workstations on Win2K. We might upgrade, but in a company this size it ain't gonna happen quickly.
"Where I work, we all had Win2k on our systems until about 6 months ago. Today, we're all XP, and the servers are still being migrated from Win2k to Win2k3. I don't work at a small company either (60k people world-wide)."
It might behoove you to realize that your experiences aren't trend-setting standards.
"You're going to see a couple of things happen with those Win 9x folks. Either they'll upgrade to new hardware running XP or Vista, or they'll be forced to move to Linux, say Ubuntu, or some similarly user-focused distribution."
Or... they'll continue to use the system that meets their needs and not deal with the headache of changing a thing. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Arrogance has been the defining word for Microsoft's policy regarding the browser.
For a while they had earned the right to be arrogant ... IE actually *was* the best browser going after IE 4. Netscape (the only other game in town) began getting bogged down in bugs and a broken DOM. For some time, IE really did push the envelope for browser functionality.
Unfortunately, when IE abandoned development after releasing IE6 ... the fell behind the times. Firefox, Safari, and (to a lesser extent) Opera took the torch and eclipsed IE.
The sad fact is that despite the fact that IE6 is now the inferior browser, it is still the market dominator simply for the fact that it is pre-installed. Most folks are plenty happy to hit the big blue E because it requires no effort on thier part, and it just works. In fact ... IE is STILL required by some websites like banks and such because they utilize some ActiveX control or other for thier login security.
Microsoft really did become a roadblock to advancing browser technology when they quit production on browsers. - zeeneo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7(the [if IE] mashed up my digg comment)
Is this another none-standard thing MS thought they'd throw in (the if IE)? Does any other browser have this kind of condition? If not then boo to MS.
I've not been bothered to install IE7 yet but i bet it's wank and will outdate quickly while other browsers steam forward to web 3.0.
I'm interested to see how fast XUL renderers - if it renders at all :)
I might give IE7 a short chance though. - kewlceo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Our clients and 85% of their users do. That's why it can't be ignored.
- Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Javascript browser detection is completely unreliable ... especially now that many browsers allow you to spoof your user-agent string.
There are only two reliable ways of delivering IE specific styles.
The first (and officially supported) way of doing this is conditional comments. The second method is CSS hacks. The * html hack reliably targets IE and is ignored by the better browsers. Additinally, it's a relatively safe hack where IE7 is concerned, because they've fixed many of the rendering bugs that the * html hack is often used to address. Namely, thier broken box model.
If you're using hacks to hide more advanced CSS features that IE simply hasn't bothered to implement, however ... you'll be boned when IE7 hits production. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Try telling a client who's spending tens of thousands of dollars on thier new e-commerce site that it won't render properly in the browser currently enjoying 85% market share.
I still code to standards ... all my sites validate, but I am forced to use CSS hacks like the Tan hack and Holly hack for browser compatibility. It is still technically valid CSS, but a "commercial" site MUST render as intended in all browsers. (I'm finally getting my clients to agree to stop supporting IE on the Mac though ... that's a step in the right directions). - jswensson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yet another reason to run Firefox.
- Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is possible to do a table-less design that is cross-browser compatible. You just can't get too complicated with it, or you have to start rolling out the hacks.
Mostly you can use the * html hack (the Tan hack) and be pretty safe when fixing for IE6. IE7 won't see the * html hack, however my testing has shown that most of the bugs I use * html to address have been fixed in IE7.
This is why I'm saying that a lot of what we're reading is a bit of fear mongering. When I tested my sites in IE7, all but one of them rendered fine.
The sad thing, however is that IE7's release only concentrates on fixing some of the worst bugs ... not on bringing CSS2.0 support up to the standard currently in the wild with the other browsers. So you still have to be somewhat conservative in how you implement your CSS designs.
In "hobby" sites ... go ahead and use all the whiz-bang features available to your better browsers, but you'll still have to take the conservative approach for 100% cross-browser compatibility for a while. - GrinningFool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Javascript browser detection is completely unreliable ... especially now that many browsers allow you to spoof your user-agent string."
The people spoofing their user-agent string are generally not the ones you need to concern yourself with when designing a page/site. - DDRSkata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@snooo: Yeah, you're definitely right about the lack of games, but that's no fault of the OS itself. Gamers seem to prefer Linux, so it makes little sense why developers (other than id) would develop strictly for Windows (or occasionally Mac).
@kday: I use Premiere on a daily basis. It's a wonderful piece of software. I use it on Windows because that's what we have at school. From what I've seen of it on Mac, it runs a lot better. That's, of course, not comparing the latest version. I'm curious to see how the latest version stacks up on each platform. When it comes out for Mac, I guess we'll see what's best. - AustMac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree, if you are using the * html hack for fixing issues that have been fixed in IE 7 you'll be fine. Be careful using conditional comments, if you pull in the fixes for IE 6 that are no longer required for IE 7 your site might break in IE7, it's worth looking at only targetting the older versions for these fixes.
Use "if lt IE 7" as the condition in the comment. - effen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Microsoft's main focus for IE7 is on fixing security bugs, not making it standards compliant. So while they're going to fix a lot of bugs that are currently in IE6, it will leave quite a few bugs in the IE code and probably even introduce brand new ones as well. So while we'll probably need to stop using the current IE6 hacks, anyone who thinks we won't have to use hacks to make pages render properly on IE7 is dreaming.
- aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3we'll be using ffx. i don't see how this will affect us.
- Calimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"do you consider the 87-90% share that Internet Explorer has a "sufficient marketshare"?"
I meant the marketshare of IE7, which will certainly not be 87-90% the day it is launched ;-)
Furthermore, it is not out yet, and I think we still have a lot of time left. And I don't think people will switch rapidly, especially if it break a lot of sites.
So, at least in the beginning, it will be a "minor" browser with a small marketshare, and I'm not going to design a specific css for a specific bad browser with small marketshare. (Obviously, if it has good CSS2 support, it won't break my pages, and everything will be fine.)
If it grows rapidly, it will probably mean that it is not so bad, and my pages will be fine.
If it is bad, it won't grow in marketshare, and I can continue to ignore it.
That's what I meant. - gol706, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Does anyone else miss the table layout days? Thinks we so much simpler back then. What it lacked in elegance, it made up for in reliability. I'm just so sick of spending forever hacking things till they look ok in more than one browser. CSS hasn't been worth the trouble, and that's sad.
- shabos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4why are we again letting M$ dictate to everyone else how css will have to be handled in IE? they should simply follow the standards the wc3 has established, it is fine for css to progress, but it shouldn't be M$ doing the progression
- DDRSkata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@G00mper: The photo editing and graphic designing part was based on what I've heard from other people, but rendering and video editing are way better on Mac from both what I've seen with my own eyes and what I've experienced.
- nlogax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No, that's not really how CSS-hacks work. You use stuff like the aforementioned * html #thing { ..styles.. }, that all good browsers ignore, since <html> is the root element and there is nothing above it. So when they fix IE, it should no longer apply those rules, and should no longer NEED them. If they really fixed all their bugs, that is.
- gsnedders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3pkulak:
If you'd watched the IE blog, or tried either IE 7 Beta 2 Preview 2 (or IE 7 Beta 2), you'd know that min/max-width/height is supported. - ghostaliaz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9Look if you are still using IE or plan to use it in the future for any other thing besides updating windows then you get what you deserve because the only fools left using IE are lost anyway. Shoot everyone knows that have any sense know that Firefox is the king of browsers. Shoot I hope Microsoft does this in IE7, then it will surely be nailing the last few nails in it's own browser's death. Well to me IE has been dead for some time now anyway because I am sorry Firefox does everything that IE does not & that is a good thing in my eyes. Microsoft I think will never get us the users. Bye IE see ya at your funeral(HaHa).
- robvdl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This problem is easily solved using IE's conditional comments, which it has had since IE5. Just load one CSS file for all browsers (including IE7), then one CSS file for IE6 bug fixes:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" title="Ynui" href="/themes/ynui/main.css" />
<!--[if IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/themes/ynui/ie6.css" />
<![endif]-->
Just replace the LT's and GT's, I couldn't enter them as HTML seems to be blocked - gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Microsoft has Beta 2 (not a Preview this time) up and ready, and a release is expected (after a third Beta) in the second half of the year.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/ and several digg stories have more info on that.
Sorry if this gets modded down. People like Firefox too much to let an IE link survive. I personally go with IE and Opera. - snooo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Quote: Linux is just as usable as Windows unless you're doing complex tasks that would be complex under Windows anyway. Its graphics are only subpar because of sparing releases of graphics card drivers. If companies were to release drivers as often as they do for Windows, there wouldn't be a problem. Plus, haven't you heard about XGL yet?
To be fair to the guy, support for games in Linux /is/ abysmal. WIth the exception of id software's excellent ports, few new PC games are released on Linux at the same time as the Windows versions, and don't tell me that carpet-bagging Cedega crap is some kind of solution.
Don't get me wrong - linux is a wonderful system in many ways, I rarely boot out of my Ubuntu system these days. Maybe if the market grew, then more developers would head our way. But anyone who pretends that Linux is awash with simple to boot, playable games is lying to themselves. - crnbrdeater, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3We can only wish. I don't hold your confidence that Microsoft's browser is dying. Poor application or not it is the default browser on most computres and most users don't know enouch to care.
- Elixon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm a web developer so I care. I care now. Better now then late. My customers pay me to gain any e-advantage possible ;-)
My half a year solution to that is:
http://demo.webdevelopers.cz/documents/screenshots/defaultskin800x600.png - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Trutn to my point above is that IE7 willl be available for XP and above. The problem is that IE6 will be available only on Win2k and down ... which will be around for a long time to come ... a few more years anyway.
Until we start seeing IE6 penetration dropping to low numbers on our server logs, we have to support it.
In fact .. we still see enough hits from IE5.5 and lower on the server logs that it can't be ignored. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Unfortunately, in every browser log I review ... IE ias 85% or better of the hits.
It'd be nice if we could get all those folks to abandon it ... but unfortnuately, you can't ignore writing code that works perfectly in IE until they drop below Opera's numbers. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree ... however, we're still in the minority. We've still got to get the other 85% of internet users to see the light.
Firefox penetration is growing by leaps and bounds ... but IE isn't going away any time soon, I promise. - krux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes. I'm quite happy with my Firefox. I love that there is a ton of support for user created extensions to make the browser even better.
As for IE7, I just hope microsoft gets closer to following CSS correctly and doesn't have as much proprietary crap. I hate having to code two different versions of my page.. one that is standards compliant, and one that fixes the bugs in IE. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"The people spoofing their user-agent string are generally not the ones you need to concern yourself with when designing a page/site."
Oh? Has Opera stopped self-identifying itself as IE as a default setting? - kday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@DDRSkata
Video is better on Mac's because Final Cut Pro is only available on Mac's. However, Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 is catching up to Final Cut Pro like a bullet train. Some that are familiar with both sets of software will even argue that Premiere Pro is even better. Premiere is getting 1000x better with each release.
Unfortunately, Premiere Pro is only available on PC at the moment. I have a feeling they will create a Mac version again within the next couple releases. - jon1012, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hehe, the browser log for websites shows 67% of firefox and 15% of Internet Explorer ;-)
- comiccoffee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Amen, soul brother.
- surfing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1when will IE 7 be release anyway?
- riczho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If IE7 fixes both the bugs that allow hacks and the bugs that make hacks necessary, the overall effect should be minimal. Although I still advocate the use of conditional comments first, people are making too big a deal over these supposed bugfixes (now, if the IE developers left some bugs that are hacked, THEN there would be problems).
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Nice little techie-utopian world you live in there, buddy. Gimme some a what yer smokin' there lad.
The reality is the unwashed masses of Windows users don't even know about browser wars, and a good subset of them don't even know that IE is a "browser". In short, they are not, and they will not be switching to Firefox. So, unless you want to limit your audience to about 15% of the 'net, you'll be learning how to code to all the IEs except IE for Mac. -
Show 51 - 76 of 76 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 