Anyone still using IE6?

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-31 02:47pm

Darth Wong wrote:Naturally, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added something else to the page that promptly caused more problems in IE6 ...

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=112869

The pop-up menus are working fine since you added the javascript. However your topics list has run afoul of another idiotic bug in IE6; failure to redo layout after content has finnished loading. Here's what it looks like on loading;

and here's what it looks like after I've resized the window by one pixel;

I've run into this myself; the simple solution is to have the script set the component size (forcing a relayout operation) after it has finnished modifying the document. The hard solution would be to make the topic list generation script a server side operation rather than a client-side one.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-08-31 02:49pm

Not to be totally dense, but could you clarify what you mean by "set the component size"?

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-31 02:57pm

Darth Wong wrote:Not to be totally dense, but could you clarify what you mean by "set the component size"?

This fixes the problem in IE6:

Code: Select all

replace

<body>

with

<body onload="document.getElementById('topics').style.width='100%'">

replace

<iframe src="ForumTopics.html" width="100%" height="200"

with

<iframe id="topics" src="ForumTopics.html" width="100%" height="200"

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-05 12:20am

Thanks, but I actually went back to the OBJECT tag when I discovered that the IFRAME tag breaks XHTML validation. IE6 users will just have to see those ugly borders.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-05 12:40am

Darth Wong wrote:Thanks, but I actually went back to the OBJECT tag when I discovered that the IFRAME tag breaks XHTML validation.

Pandering to the (many) flaws of IE is a pain in the ass anyway, but I am curious why you're keen on XHTML strict validation. AFAIK you're not doing any machine processing of the XML files that would actually require it. I just use the validator as a HTML check, there isn't really any penalty with non-compliance as long as it works in all current and future browsers.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-05 12:42am

Starglider wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Thanks, but I actually went back to the OBJECT tag when I discovered that the IFRAME tag breaks XHTML validation.
Pandering to the (many) flaws of IE is a pain in the ass anyway, but I am curious why you're keen on XHTML strict validation. AFAIK you're not doing any machine processing of the XML files that would actually require it. I just use the validator as a HTML check, there isn't really any penalty with non-compliance as long as it works in all current and future browsers.

It doesn't really cost me anything (except for this IFRAME vs OBJECT tag thing), and if it validates Strict, then I know I didn't leave any tags dangling. The loose formulations allow you to make some pretty badly messed-up HTML and not realize it.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-05 12:45am

Darth Wong wrote:It doesn't really cost me anything (except for this IFRAME vs OBJECT tag thing), and if it validates Strict, then I know I didn't leave any tags dangling. The loose formulations allow you to make some pretty badly messed-up HTML and not realize it.

This is one reason why I use XHTML 1.0 Transitional a lot of the time instead of Strict - it allows some old tags I still like to use and still does all the other helpful structure/sanity checking. Not that I write a lot of HTML these days, though I've just had a little burst of it (enough to make me hope we get the budget to hire a proper web designer soon

).

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-05 05:27pm

BTW, do you know how to force a refresh of the stylesheet? I discovered to my chagrin that the updated site is virtually unusable if you load it on a computer that has a cached version of the old stylesheet. I have to force browsers to reload the stylesheet, at least temporarily.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-05 06:00pm

Darth Wong wrote:BTW, do you know how to force a refresh of the stylesheet?

Disabling caching on the current stylesheet wouldn't help, because the browser already has a copy that it thinks is good for a while before needing to check if the server has an updated version. You can either change the stylesheet filename name and thus force a fresh load, or you can just wait for the old stylesheet to time out (in the meantime, you can hold down shift and click reload to force a reload of all page elements). I'm not aware of any javascript way to bypass browser caching, but I imagine you wouldn't want to leave that in your page code anyway, because it would force a stylesheet load every single time a page on your site is accessed.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-07 01:45pm

Question: does IE5 render CSS the same way IE6 does? Or is IE5 so ancient that people just ignore it, the way the Web pretty much left NS4 and IE4 behind years ago?

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-09-07 01:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:Question: does IE5 render CSS the same way IE6 does? Or is IE5 so ancient that people just ignore it, the way the Web pretty much left NS4 and IE4 behind years ago?

I have Mac IE5 if you want me to test something.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-07 02:23pm

Xisiqomelir wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Question: does IE5 render CSS the same way IE6 does? Or is IE5 so ancient that people just ignore it, the way the Web pretty much left NS4 and IE4 behind years ago?
I have Mac IE5 if you want me to test something.

Well, I guess I just want to know that the www.creationtheory.org site looks pretty much the same on IE5 as it does on IE6. I downloaded a copy of NS4 to try and it looks like absolute shit, but I think NS4 is so old now that I can just ignore it.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2007-09-07 02:26pm

Mac IE5 has a few different quirks from the Windows version, though.

Darth Wong wrote:Question: does IE5 render CSS the same way IE6 does? Or is IE5 so ancient that people just ignore it, the way the Web pretty much left NS4 and IE4 behind years ago?

It's basically the same, but has support for less features. The really nice web developers make their sites work acceptably with IE5.5, but below that it's not much point. I think most would tell people who use anything less than IE6 to get a better browser or fuck off (my bank does, for instance, though not in so many words). Besides, who uses that thing? IE5 is over eight years old...

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-09-18 02:45pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Xisiqomelir wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Question: does IE5 render CSS the same way IE6 does? Or is IE5 so ancient that people just ignore it, the way the Web pretty much left NS4 and IE4 behind years ago?
I have Mac IE5 if you want me to test something.
Well, I guess I just want to know that the www.creationtheory.org site looks pretty much the same on IE5 as it does on IE6. I downloaded a copy of NS4 to try and it looks like absolute shit, but I think NS4 is so old now that I can just ignore it.

Sorry, just remembered I promised to do this. The page looks okay, but IE5 says I don't have the plugin for text/html, so the sidebars are invisible (but still clickable).

Screenshot

I tried to download the plugin on my G4, but couldn't install it. I'll have access to an iBook sometime next week.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-18 04:03pm

Thanks. It's not perfect, but I guess it'll have to do. I suppose an alternate possibility is to try and turn off the stylesheet entirely for IE5 and older, but I'd hate to get false positives and turn off CSS for a modern browser.