Andy Mosmiller wrote:
> I don't know anything about the issues with IE7. My health is poor,
> so my research on such issues is extremely limited. I'd love any
> help you could offer, both for fixing the site above and for handling
> IE7 generally. Is there a comprehensive site dedicated to hacking
> IE7 and explaining when such hacking is needed? Is it possible to
> run IE7 with older versions as well? I have been very hesitant to
> upgrade because I want to be able to test in 6.
Andy,
I'm glad to help.
___ IE stylesheets ___
I see that you started off on the right foot, using conditional comments to
relegate IE fixes to their own stylesheets:
<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="kipkeIE.css" />
<![endif]-->
Below that, you can add additional stylesheet calls for problems limited to
specific version(s) of IE. For example:
<!--[if IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="kipkeIE_7.css" />
<![endif]-->
kipkeIE_7.css would only contain the *very few* fixes needed to make IE7
behave.
Don't worry about too many stylesheets; it's actually better to have several
IE stylesheets, each tailored to a specific version (or a group of versions,
e.g. "IE before 6") than to use various IE hacks all mixed together. In my
latest project, below the main stylesheet I find four conditional comments
calling these optional stylesheets:
IE.css
IE_5.5._and_below.css
IE_6_and_below.css
IE_7.css
(for IE 5.5 and below, I use <!--[if IE lt 6]> rather than <!--if IE lte
5.5]> due to some version weirdness)
As I reload pages in various versions of IE from oldest to latest (5.0, 5.5,
6, 7), I can see where a bug stops happening, which tells me which
stylesheet should contain the fix. It's educational, well-organized, and
time-effective.
___ Multiple IEs ___
Normally, you can't run different versions of IE on a single Windows
environment -- each new install clobbers the others. These days, we have
access to "standalone versions" of IE that coexist peacefully alongside each
other.
Let Windows install IE7 as your official browser, then go to
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE and download a single file that will
install any old version of IE you choose as standalones. You then have
access to any and all versions on your PC for side-by-side testing as
described above. IE is still a bear to work against, but these will help
tremendously.
___ Web Developer toolbar ___
In Firefox, I use its excellent DOM Inspector to debug my CSS. (The optimal
workflow is to code for standard-compliant browsers first, then go back and
fix whatever's wrong with IE.) In IE, you can install the Web Developer
toolbar from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en
-
it's not as good as Firefox's DOMi, but it's still quite useful. (Especially
when checking whether a troublesome element or its container shows
"hasLayout" = true ("-1"), the magic bullet for *tons* of IE problems.)
By coding for Firefox and debugging with its DOMi first, then using IE's Web
Developer toolbar and adding IE version-specific fixes in separate
stylesheets using conditional comments, you have a great workflow guaranteed
to help maintain your sanity.
Charles
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