CSS Web Design

Let's start with the facts against Internet Explorer-

Since version 3 of IE it has been bundled into every pc operating system Microsoft has developed thus giving Microsoft an enormous advantage over other browsers - the problems with this is:

* IE could not be uninstalled from the system
* IE could only be upgraded to versions newer than the default version for an operating system
* Multiple versions of IE could not exist at the same time on a system

So What?

Well you may ask whats the problem with that - Microsoft aren't exactly selling this - it's free yes?

Let's put the first point to the test ie cannot be uninstalled - are you surprised by this? You should be - you are being forced to have this browser on your pc.

More importantly perhaps for Web Designers are the second two - firstly only being able to upgrade to newer versions of ie - well it's not a problem is it? It means I get a great new shiny web browser every so often free of charge?

Ok great - what if Microsoft get it wrong and ie1000 is uncompatible with your machine?

Well it might not be a problem for you but my god it's a problem for me. I can't test my new design so I send it to the client and it's broken and he has a fit and I lose his work - then I can't pay the mortgage - my house gets taken off me - the wife and kids leave me - I turn to drink - I end up homeless and take to drugs and end up dead in a puddle.

Jeez Bill thanks for that!

Now obviously I'm being a bit dramatic, however, let's take the last point - you cannot have multiple copies of Internet Explorer running on the same machine. Eh? Well I'd say if the browser was css standards compatible then no real problem - pretty much everything works the same in all versions of Firefox and people tend to WANT to upgrade this. Internet Explorer on the other hand has the unbelievably rubbish version 6 in it's arsenal which has css issues everywhere pretty much to a rule if it works in Firefox, Safari, Opera etc. your layout will be broken in Internet Explorer 6. So I have ie6 on my machine to test my layouts in, but how do I test ie7 without losing ie6? Now I know there are ways around this and things that run multiple copies of ie on your pc but why can't they just run multiple versions out of the box - it's just a pain like everything else to do with the browser.

So what can we do about ie 6 and it's issues as web designers - simple we educate people to get rid of it and upgrade immediatly.

Ok so this is going to take some time to get through to Bills empire so how can we fix ie's problems?

Firstly create an ie6 stylesheet then run an include at the top of your page as such:



SO I have in my site structure two css style sheets main.css and main_ie.css all main_ie.css has in it are the exceptions I have set in place for optimisation in ie6. This makes it realtively easy to add changes to the site specifically targeted at ie6.

Sometimes you may have to put the !Important tag at the end of your css statements but in general this technique will work immediatly and allow you to reposition your elements, padding etc. to force them to work in ie6.

How do I find the problems with Internet explorer 6?

Simple search the web - were a very strange bunch us web designers as we have the ability to create web pages that have content on them! When something gets on our nerves it can be very well documented in seconds!

Couple of links below:
Position is Everything- a nice list of pretty much all the bugs in ie6

Webincredible - nice solutions for some of the biggest issues in ie6

My Blog and always plenty going on here

Well thats it anyone need any advice please visit and get in touch! If you've got to here then I hope you found this useful!

Cheers,

Matt Burton

Hey let everyone know ie6 is killing web design (still)