Results tagged “Internet Explorer” from Interface_

The fabled, IE8 is here ushering in a new era of compatibility, Web standards and fewer browser bugs. There will be much rejoicing by Web developers whose jobs will suddenly become easier and they can spend more of their time creating great Web sites that make the world a better place.

Not quite.

Compatibility in IE8

In a post on the IEBlog, Just The Facts: Recap of Compatibility View, IE8’s compatibility is explained. Be sure to take some notes because simple it ain’t. Yes, IE8 runs in standards mode by default, but the new “Compatibility View” feature and IE8 site blacklist start making things difficult.

Since the IEBlog is about as clear as mud, I found an alternative explanation on the topic, The IE8 Blacklist minefield. I suggest giving it a read. It clearly explains the situation and what Web developers have to do about it.

What are the issues with IE8?

To sum it up quickly, here are the things you should know about IE8 and compatibility:

• IE8 renders in standards mode by default unless
  • Your site is on the IE8 blacklist
  • A user opts to run your site in Compatibly View
• Compatibly View does not render the same as IE7, so you have a new browser to test in (yay!)
• You can select which mode the browser renders in by using a versioning meta tag or HTTP header
• If you use select a rendering mode, your site visitor will not have the option to use Compatibly View

So basically, I have to opt-in to standards mode?

Yup. The IE8 blacklist basically forces you to pick a rendering mode or else Microsoft or your users will pick for you. That’s the only way a developer will have control over how their content is rendered.

Start learning those meta tags and start testing.

Testing your web pages/sites in multiple versions of IE has always been a pain. Mostly because you can only have one version of IE installed on your computer at a time (yes, I know there are some hacks you can use to have more than one installed, but they are buggy, prone to crashing and dont give you accurate results). And, if you upgrade your XP installation to SP3, it comes with IE7 with no ability to downgrade back to version 6.

I have long been a proponent of using Microsoft’s Virtual PC and their free Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images. These allow you to run virtual machines with XP and a specific version of IE (6, 7 or 8; no version of 5.5 available). While this works and is certainly handy, it means that if you want to see how your site looks on all the versions simultaneously, you will have to load up at least two VM’s. Depending on how much system memory your computer has, this can bog things down quite a bit. There’s also the annoying fact that these VM’s expire every 3 months.

So the method works, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Looks like someone felt the same way, but actually had the know-how and motivation to do something about it!

Released earlier this year, IETester allows you to view your site in IE version 5.5, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 beta1 all within a single “window” in different tabs. You can now quickly tab through all 4 versions of IE to see how they compare!

Note that this is alpha software, so don’t be surprised if you experience some bugginess. For example, when I switched from tabs to a side-by-side comparison (similar to the image above) and tried to scroll horizontally, the screen for that IE version went blank and took about 10 seconds to come back. But once they can get these minor annoyances worked out, I can see IETester easily becoming a top-10 indispensable WebDev tool.