So I'm nearly finished with the website I had to make for my school's prom. Now, I just checked it in Internet Explorer and, well, it's hopeless. Elements aren't where they're supposed to be, most of the JavaScript/jQuery doesn't work at all. I am clueless where to start to make my site compatible with Internet Explorer. Whats the best way to make your site compatible with IE?
The main cross browser step is DOCTYPE Declaration. It is an instruction to the web browser about what version of HTML the page is written in.
It's going to be murder to fix what's already broken... you really needed to start off on the right foot, as it is you may need to re-write large chunks of your site in order to get things working again.
Going back? Well the easiest thing is going to be to start a fresh layout (using the following pointers) and then move your site into the new framework. Depending on the scale of your site this is no small task. Your alternative is one-by-one code debugging, with maybe firebug light
Going forward, how do you build a site that works more evenly across the board?
1 Use a reset CSS boilerplate
I like the html5 one at http://html5reset.org/. These apply layers of CSS to get each browser looking the same to start with (your CSS then gives it the style you want). Note they DON'T address the variety of ways browsers calculate things - borders being part of the width or not (firefox/ie difference)
2 Use a JS library
Or write your own, but be aware of all the differences between the browsers don't just code for the one you're using. Build some JS tests for the library that you can run in any browser to make sure that the library performs as expected, then deal with any site oddities after that. There's too many JS libraries to make a recommend but Prototype.js and jQuery are a popular two.
well it's known that there are differences between browsers. The way browsers render CSS code is also different. You should check parts and see how or if it works as you want. :) There is no one-to-all solution. The experience will let you know what works and what not. But to start you could isolate what is not working in IE (javascript code) and then see what alternatives you have. As for the appearance, there is the option of having separate CSS files especially for IE. However, often there is a technique(a different way to implement the same appearance) that lets you create the appearance you want without multiple versions of code.
I've created a website with horizontal navigation and one level of dropdown menu on each. It works great in all browsers except IE7 (dropdowns don't work) and IE6 (each <li> and <a> is 100% body width). I'm loathed to go through another 10 tutorials on the web and test each one in all browsers. Debugging my current one will probably take even longer.
I wondered if anyone has a concrete solution that works in all browsers? It's such a common design element. I'm happy to rely on CSS, Javascript, browser hacks, etc - whatever produces a consistent usable nav in all browsers.
tl;dr What code do you use for horizontal nav with drop-down menus, to work in IE6 and IE7?
"Suckerfish Dropdowns" is what springs into my mind.
Here's an updated version: http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/
Note that the required JavaScript code to make it work in IE6 is included.
Almost in all of my designs, I had to add conditional styles for the stinky browsers IE6, IE7 and IE8. And to share with you, IE9 is not better, as it doesn't support CSS3 Transitions. Anyway, I strongly suggest that you stop searching an all-encompassing solution and try to create conditional styles and if necessary, even conditional scripts for IE, due to these reasons:
We developers almost always need to support IE as it has a considerable browser market share.
IE has many known problems which are never solved by Microsoft, and community found tricks and workarounds for it.
Addressing IE separately is known to cost less, than trying to address IE and other browsers in a package (experience)
I'm just starting to use HTML5 and CSS3 in my documents.
I understand the need for JavaScript to bring Internet Explorer up to speed with these new tags and styles, but I don't know which to use and when!
My plan was to use html5shiv and IE9.js to look after the HTML5 tags as well as the transparent pngs (and whatever other pesky errors they fix) but then Modernizr and CSS3 Pie were brought to my attention.
My question is, if I use Modernizr, does it look after my need for html5shiv as well as IE9.js? Or should I include these as well? What is the overlap, if any?
And what does CSS3 Pie do that Modernizr or the others doesn't? Or vice versa?
I appreciate your guys help. Let me know what you do!?
I've got extensive experience with all of these, having used them for a few years each.
Modernizr
Includes HTML5shiv functionality
Also does a lot more – if you don't use the other features, then don't use it, it does slow down page loads, but is worth it if you need it!
HTML5shiv
Very small, just fixes html5 elements in IE, nothing else.
CSS3PIE
Lets you use border-radius, gradients and box shadow in older versions of IE. Also can allow PNGs in IE 6. Adds a noticeable delay to page load.
ie7.js (and ie9.js)
Gives you many CSS3 selectors, min and max width, multiple classes and fixed positioning. Also can have a png fix if you like. Doesn't seem to slow things down much.
Conclusion
My advice would fall into two categories:
If you are just using the new (is 2 years new on the internet?!) elements, and CSS3 selectors, then use ie9.js + the html5shiv. This is lightweight, and just lets you get on with things without having to remember that IE6 doesn't support anything.
If you are using a lot of CSS3 stuff, then CSS3PIE will sort out border-radius and box-shadow. The gradient support seems a little flaky, so I've always used a fallback image instead. Modernizr lets you easily deliver different properties to browsers with different support. I've mainly used this for determining whether a browser has CSS transitions and transforms, as they are useful for any image sliders or content carousels. It's worth using the customisation tool to only include the functionality that you want – the webforms stuff shows a textbox with 50 in it for a couple of milliseconds, so it's worth disabling if you don't want it.
Hope that's helpful!
I would recommend you use only what you need. Build your app in a browser that supports the features you are using, and periodically test in other browsers that you support. If something isn't working correctly, find the appropriate fix, whether it be html5shiv, IE9.js, Modernizr, or CSS3 Pie. You are not going to use all of the new features in HTML5 and CSS3 all in one page, so you don't need to include every polyfill library in existence. Wait until you find problems with the features you're trying to use, then try and find the library necessary to do that.
I've used mainly CSS3Pie...it works great. But this afternoon i tested it on my laptop with I.E8 and there was an problem with it...it was disabling some css lines...when i removed the css3pie code my site gained twice the speed...then i came accross the posts with people arguing about the css3 slowdown...So at the moment i'm busy to find another way for IE7 & IE8 to have border-radius and shades.
If you want to use it...please test alot as it is NON-official fixes
Normally I love to keep my HTML code clean, semantic and free from either Javascript or CSS. I include my .JS and .CSS files at the top, and layer functionality on top of the DOM elements.
The positives of this are:
Architectural separation of concerns
Graceful degradation where Javascript or CSS isn't supported
Search-engine friendliness
There is one major negative:
Performance problems in IE 6
Because all the events are attached to the elements through Javascript code, which accesses the DOM, performance in IE suffers.
This is especially so when using jQuery (which happens to be my favorite Javascript framework).
So it seems like I have two choices: either keep the code nice and neat, and have IE 6 users (around 20% of the user-base) complain, or "de-normalize" the code to improve IE 6 performance.
Is there a "middle way" in this situation? Or am I doomed?
Note: I'm not saying that my performance problems are caused by having Javascript in a separate file.
I can achieve wonderful performance in IE while keeping it in a separate file.
The problem is, I still have to put the actual event handlers into 'onclick' attributes in the HTML. For example:
<span onclick="doSomething()">More...</span>
It would be much nicer if I could just write:
<span id="more-button">More...</span>
And then assign it separately, in Javascript, with the following:
$("#more-button").click(doSomething);
Unfortunately, it seems this is bad for IE6 performance.
In a talk available at YUI Theater, Joseph Smarr talks about performance and states the opinion that it is ok to have onmousedown handlers and the like in your code for performance reasons instead of finding the DOM element and then attaching the event handler. However, I do not know any measures by which that speeds up things. Other techniques for unobtrusive performance boosts are (EIDT: note that they are browser independent, hence not restricted to IE):
Use onmousedown instead of onclick. Smarr says there is a 100ms or so period between the firing of the two events.
For perceived performance: Give instant visual feedback by using window.setTimeout(visualFeedback, 0). That lets the browser draw some graphical change instantly, letting the user know that something is happening.
When you have to traverse the DOM, cache intermediate results in a variable to reuse them (guess you know that one).
There is also a demo that shows the benefit of the first two points. The button at the top uses onclick and normal execution, the one below uses onmousedown and setTimeout(func, 0).
You should actually put your JavaScript at the bottom of the page. As far as performance issues around attaching events, make sure to measure carefully before optimizing. Dynatrace AJAX edition is a great tool for measuring and understanding IE performane.
I don't think your performance problems are because you put your javascript code into separate files. I do that... a lot of people do that... It's considered best practice to do that.
JQuery has some performance issues. That may be one place to look. The other place you need to look is at your javascript code itself. Without seeing that, I wouldn't be able to help you make your application perform better.
If your code runs on browsers, and just performans bad on IE6, then just feel lucky!
Really, ignore this old beast!
If your code runs perfect on most browsers, and you have to make it slow because IE6 can not run it, then you should display a message to those IE6 users (or just live with bad performance on every browser).
But your situation seems simple and straightforward to me. Do not matter! IE6 is and should be dead!!! Even some big websites have begun to display update notices to IE6 users. Instead of their usual content, they do not support it anymore, because it is crap!
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Closed 10 years ago.
While developing for multiple sets of browsers, what issues have you faced while development due to differences in browser implementation?
To start with I am listing some of those which i faced:
A text node in Firefox allows only 4K data. So an XML Ajax response gets split up into multiple text child nodes instead of only one node. Its fine in Internet Explorer. For Firefox, to get the full data you either need to use node.normalize before you call node.firstChild or use node.textContent, both of which are Mozilla specific methods
Internet Explorer does not replace or HTML char code 160, you need to replace its Unicode equivalent \u00a0
In Firefox a dynamically created input field inside a form (created using document.createElement) does not pass its value on form submit.
document.getElementById in Internet Explorer will return an element even if the element name matches. Mozilla only returns element if id matches.
In Internet Explorer if a select box has a value not represented by any of the options, it will display blank, Firefox displays the first option.
The only one that really gets to me:
IE6 is still used by ~18% of the web -- that's nearly 1 in 5 -- and addressing its issues is time consuming, hackish, and frustrating. ;) The issues are really too numerous to list here.
If you're interested in the issues themselves, QuirksMode.org is an amazing resource I used every day before making the leap to client-side libraries. Also check out John Resig's The DOM is a Mess presentation at yahoo, which gives a lot of theory about how to deal with cross-browser topics efficiently.
However, if you're interested in simply having them solved, your question is an excellent example of why many consider using client-side libraries like jQuery, YahooUI, MooTools, Dojo, etc. With a thriving community, talented people and corporate backing projects like those allow you to focus on your app rather than these issues.
Here are some jQuery examples that avoid much of the cross-browser frustration and can really make all of this.. fun.
Cross-browser mouse click binding
$('#select anything + you[want=using] ~ css:selectors').click(
function(){
alert('hi');
}
);
Cross-browser HTML Injection
$('#anElementWithThisId').html('<span>anything you want</span>');
Cross-browser Ajax (all request objects are still made available to you)
$('p.message').load('/folder/file.html');
And what really blows me away, load a data subset with selectors (see manual for details)
$('p.message').load('/folder/file.html body p:first-child');
Now, how all this really starts to get fun: chaining methods together
$('ul.menu a').click( // bind click event to all matched objects
function(evt){ // stnd event object is the first parameter
evt.preventDefault(); // method is cross-browser thx to jquery
$(this) // this = the clicked 'a' tag, like raw js
.addClass('selected') // add a 'selected' css class to it
.closest('ul.menu') // climb the dom tree back up to the ul
.find('a.selected') // find any existing selected dom children
.not(this) // filter out this element from matches
.removeClass('selected'); // remove 'selected' css class
}
)
Reminds me of Joel's Can Your Programming Language Do This? article.
Taking all this to a theoretical level, true advancement doesn't come from what you can do with conscious thought and effort, but rather what you can do automatically (without thought or effort). Joel has a segment on this in Smart And Gets Things Done regarding interviewing questions and smart developers, completely changed my approach to programming.
Similar to a pianist who can just 'play' the music because she knows all the keys, your advancement comes not from doing more things that require thought but rather more things that require no thought. The goal then becomes making all the basics easy.. natural.. subconscious.. so we can all geek out on our higher level goals.
Client side libraries, in a way, help us do just that. ;)
Most of the problems I have are with IE, specifically IE6. Problems I personally deal with that have left a memorable impression (in no particular order):
Having to use frameworks to do basic things because each browser implements the DOM a little differently. This is especially heinous with IE and AJAX, which necessitates multiple if-blocks just to get the call started. In an ideal world I'd be able to work in JavaScript without the framework to do basic things.
onChange on selects in IE are implemented wrong, and fire before the select loses focus (which is incorrect). This means you can never use onChange with selects due to IE, since keyboard-only users will be crippled by this implementation issue.
You mentioned it in your post, but it's a huge pain when IE grabs an element by name when using getElementById().
When in an RTL locale (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.), Firefox implements "text-align: right;" incorrectly. If the container overflows for some reason, the text aligns to the right side of the viewable container, rather than the right side of the container itself (even if it makes part of it invisible).
Different browsers have differing levels of pickiness with regards to how you end arrays and objects. For example, Firefox is more than okay with an array looking like this: [ item0, item1, ]". However, this same code will make Opera barf because it hates the trailing comma. IE will make the array a three-item array, with the third item undefined! This is bad code for sure, but there's been dynamically generated javascript I've worked on that was a huge pain to rewrite - would've been nice if this just worked.
Everything having to do with IE's hasLayout. So much awful pain has revolved around this attribute, especially when I didn't know it existed. So many problems fixed by using hacks to add hasLayout. So many more problems created as a result of the hacks.
Floats in IE rarely work the way you hope they do. They also tend to be annoying in other browsers, but they at least conform to a particular behavior. ;)
IE adding extra white space between list items has caused me no end of pain, since YUI uses lists to make their menus. (To fully grasp the issue, you have to view that link in IE and another browser side by side.)
I have lots of issues getting text not to wrap in containers in IE. Other browsers listen to "white-space: nowrap" a lot better. This has been a problem with a UI I worked on that has a resizable sidebar; in IE, the sidebar items will start to wrap if you resize it too much.
The lack of many CSS selector types in IE6 means you have to class-up your DOM more than necessary. For example, the lack of +, :hover, :first-child.
Different browsers treat empty text nodes differently. Specifically, when traversing the DOM with Opera, I have to worry about empty text nodes when browsing a node's children. This isn't a problem if you're looking for a particular item, but it is if you're writing code that expects a particular input and the way the browser views that input differs.
In IE6, when you dynamically generate an iframe via javascript, the iframe sometimes doesn't fill its container automatically (even with width and height set to max). I still don't know how to solve this issue, and have been thinking of posting a question about it.
In IE, you can't set overflow CSS on the <tbody> element. This means that scrollable tables (with a concrete <thead> and <tfoot>) are impossible to make in a simple manner.
I will probably add more to this list later, since (to me) the worst part of web development are cross-browser issues. Also, I doubt I'll ever edit out the "I will probably add more to this list later", since these problems are endless. :)
IE6? Meh. You guys have got it easy! You've never had to make CSS layout work in Netscape 4 (without crashing the entire browser)? You've never had to write for appliance browsers that don't support tables? You've never had to write for IE Mobile?
there is no support for JavaScript-assigned event handlers; you can only write an event handler through setting “onclick="somestring"” in innerHTML;
most basic DOM Level 1 properties (eg. nodeName, nodeType, nodeValue, firstChild, lastChild, nextSibling, previousSibling, data, value, HTMLElement.getElementsByTagName, all HTMLTableElement members, most CSSStyleDeclaration members) simply do not exist;
most CSS layout properties do not work; many simply CSS properties like ‘width’ don't work on some elements such as form fields;
setting many other CSS properties on elements like tables and form fields causes an instant browser hang, which, since Windows Mobile has no built-in task manager, means you have to soft-reset the device;
oh, and putting anything but text inside a <button> is insta-crash too;
huge chunks of basic JavaScript methods and “DOM Level 0” methods going back as far as Netscape 2 (!) are missing.
And this is the most up-to-date release of Microsoft's flagship Windows Mobile browser in 2009.
Sure, it supports XMLHttpRequest, but writing AJAX code on a browser whose CSS and script support is less than IE3 (!) is bizarrely schizophrenic, like you're working with a weird amalgam of 21st-century and 19th-century technologies.
I wouldn't recommend it.
Been doing this too long to have many problems, but it still drives me nuts that I have to hack around IE's non-support for CSS things like display:table, :last-child, and :hover outside of anchors.
All the IE stuff is still insane, but it's just background insanity now :)
Biggest Cross-Browser Issue? - Internet Explorer!
<start_grumpy>
IE is solely responsible for "holding back the web" - us developers can't create amazing sites using HTML5, or SVG, or XFORMS, or CANVAS... not because of Firefox,Safari or Chrome, but because 2/3s of the Internet is still stuck on IE. Not to mention that ~20% of the web is still stuck on IE6! IE8 is the first version of IE to at least try to be standards compatible (2001's standards that is), which means it will be at least 2018 before we can finally start dropping all support for IE7.
</start_grumpy>
Otherwise name a DOM method that IE fully supports... the fact that this is a hard question to answer is my biggest CrossBrowser issue.
getElementById() - badly broken
getElementsByName() - buggy
getElementsByTagName() - buggy
getAttribute() - buggy
setAttribute() - majorly broken
createElement() - buggy
appendChild() - buggy
even things IE invented are messed up...
innerHTML (getting) - returns the worst markup possible
innerHTML (setting) - doesn't work on the elements you'd want to dump a bunch of data into (e.g. Tables and Selects)
While developing a system tests framework for a web app we had to simulate various events such as clicks. I remember that we couldn't find any normal way to do it in IE and FF and had to implement it in two different ways with a lot of voodoo around.
I don't remember the specifics, but I remember that it was really annoying.
This, basically.
Modern javascript frameworks (jQuery, prototype, etc) have done wonders for getting code working in lots of browsers at once.
The biggest problem I have now is the fact that any sort of rich UI behaviour runs amazingly slowly. IE7 is bad. IE6 is worse. IE8 is buggy, half finished, and really no better than IE7.
The worst thing is that I don't think we'll ever be free of IE6. It was so ubiquitous, and so damn quirky. Loads of 'enterprise' (and by that I mean big web apps made by one big company for another big company) applications used highly specific IE6 javascript that doesn't even work in IE7, never mind anything else.
Companies can't afford to completely replace these apps - we're trying to sell them new ones and that means IE6 support is mandatory. The way it is right now, with credit-crunched companies cutting costs, I reckon we'll still be supporting IE6 in 2015 :-(
In internet explorer (note: older versions of IE, not necessarily versions 9/10+), if you create form elements using document.createElement, the field won't be submitted with the form. The only workaround is to use
element.innerHTML = "<input type='text' value="+val+" name="+name+">";
In IE, you can not hide select option elements, only the select element itself. This makes it difficult to dynamically change the contents of select options using Javascript.
This problem also exists in Safari and Chrome.
There are many other issues with IE, but this one has caused me the most frustration recently.
IE's restrictions on using DOM manipulations on tables forced me to take a completely different approach to something. Very frustrating at the start, but the positive out of it was that the second approach was ultimately better, so I suppose I should be grateful to IE. ;)
For Firefox, to get the full data you either need to use node.normalize before you call node.firstChild or use node.textContent, both of which are Mozilla specific methods
Actually all of those are W3C DOM methods supported by the vast majority of browsers. I think you'll find they also work in IE.
My biggest cross-browser issue is that there are people out there still using IE.
Second biggest is that even in standards-following browsers, doing some things in CSS is still impossible; for instance tbody {overflow:auto} does nothing useful in anything but Gecko, and even there it has bugs.
Firefox and IE ahve different table setups in the DOM, in one, all siblings of a cell are the other cells, whilst the other has elements between the cells. I can't remember which way around it is, but it gave me a real headache in one application.
My biggest problem are browser makers. Arrogant little *^&%s. I mean, you can't sell a browser to anybody, yet everyone is in their little corner trying to out do each other, only creating division. Oh and Chrome. Chrome still doesn't know what it wants to be, Safari or Firefox. Aside from its one parlor trick, its practically useless. I blame all you guys who kept googling just because you hate monopolies. Guess what, they're the monopoly now. Now we can all enjoy second rate, prematurely launched software.
This mostly stems from a bug* I had in Chrome today, it never dawned on me to query the browser. Both Safari and Chrome were failing so I figured hey, once I fixed the Safari problem Chrome would be fixed automatically, but oh no no. Mr."I run tabs in seperate processes" AKA "Sr. No full screen" just had to hold me in the lizard lock with its mind boggling implementation.
I also detest Firefox. I can't tell whether I have a virus infestation or Firebug running. Now until Adobe decides to release a browser that makes Flash practical for things other than movie clips I'm pretty much going to have something to bitch about for a long time. And we all know that's what life is all about.
Also, I only enjoy programming when I encounter ridiculous bugs that make my brain juices run.
Inconsistencies in the CSS box model when dealing with forms. In particular it's irritating how each browser handles the <select> Box
my only nightmare is IE6 you should always look for hacks but everytime you face a problem with it there is someone who ran into it before you and blogged about it (and we will never get away from it )
I was working on CSS layout written by someone who thought that the size given to an element is size+padding+border like in IE5 and not only the content box as explained in official specification. It was written only a few month ago so he did dirty hacks to make it look well in IE7. It took me several hours with FireBug to track down the source of the problem and by the time I realized it I was really annoyed.
If you open site with "floating" CSS written for IE5 in Firefox the boxes just do not have enough space to fit and fall down the page. If you open it in IE7 it looks nice as IE7 lets the borders overlap so it looks almost correct. For someone as inexperienced as me it was hard to note.
To remove iframe borders in Internet Explorer you have to specify the frameborder attribute as camelCase format, which is non xhtml compliant.
<iframe frameBorder="0"/>
An easy way to help with the pesky IE display issues is to use firebug, Yep enen in IE 6/7/8 Just use Firebug Lite
If you add the following as a bookmark and stick it on your tool bar it will enable firebug lite off any webpage with a single click. (only check this in IE and it works fine.)
javascript:var%20firebug=document.createElement('script');firebug.setAttribute('src','http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js');document.body.appendChild(firebug);(function(){if(window.firebug.version){firebug.init();}else{setTimeout(arguments.callee);}})();void(firebug);