Site Compatibility and IE8

The Internet Explorer team today posted details that IE8’s Compatibility Mode (replicating IE7) will not render sites exactly as IE7 does.

We strive to make Compatibility View behave as much like IE7 as possible, but we do make exceptions. Many of these exceptions enable improved security and accessibility features immediately, even for sites that have not yet migrated to IE8 Standards Mode.

Repeat the mantra and stay sane, web sites do not need to look exactly the same in every browser.

Andy Clarke 15/03/09 | Tweet this | Short URL: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/s/179

There have been 6 replies

  1. 1

    Judson Collier

    But they _do_ need to render near as expected. IE 8’s compatibility mode was created because websites don’t render right in IE 8—

    “Despite all the outreach to sites, we saw from the telemetry data that IE8 Beta 2 users still have to use Compatibility View a lot. Looking at our instrumentation, there were high-volume sites like facebook.com, myspace.com, bbc.co.uk, and cnn.com with pages that weren’t working for end-users with IE’s new standards compliant default.”

    I can’t imagine why the IE team feels that they get the right to give us a run for our money and screw with us. Don’t believe that sites like facebook and myspace (which is surprisingly standards complaint now)  is in the line of error. Most use <!—[if lte IE 6]> too.

    Just build a good browser, and get rid of all of the IE hacks. We should be holding the bar to you like we do Mozilla and Safari, which by the way, have 96% and 100% in the Acid 3 test while IE8 has a 16% and IE 7 has a 20%.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
  2. 2

    Steven Hambleton

    I wonder if they can remove all these headaches by allowing IE6/IE8 to run side by side and scrapping any legacy crap in the new browser?

    PS. ExpressionEngine is one word (Looking in your footer) :)

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
  3. 3

    Robert

    Do we have to support IE6, IE7, IE8’s IE7 Compatibility Mode, AND IE8? When is Microsoft going to give web developers a break?

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
  4. 4

    Ryan Williams

    I kind of suspect the compatibility mode will render pages pretty much on par with IE7, and that by “some things” they mean the way page zooming works, the way forms are posted, stuff like that — that’s how I read the quote, anyway.

    This is a good time for hard data, I think. We need to know what exactly is different.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
  5. 5

    Sam Hardacre

    @ Robert - They probably won’t because it makes them the centre of many worldwode discussions (even negative ones - “There is no such thing as bad publicity” and all that jazz) : D

    I agree though, I wish they would just make it easier for us all :)

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
  6. 6

    Brian Suda

    While I agree that not all websites need to look the same. When you design a small fix for layout or padding specifically for IE7. You can’t be sure that both the real IE7 and the faux IE7 read the hack in the same way.

    This also goes beyond layout. Some of the Javascript has been updated as well.

    By “fixing” some bugs for IE7 you are breaking other bugs in IE7. To me, that doesn’t make sense.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    15th Mar 2009
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