Webstylist.dk

07/09 2009: Updatet with IE NetRender url

Internet Explorer 6 is a browser that is from the year 2001. That is very old in a business moving as fast as the web.

Many users are stil using this old browser, even though 2 newer versions are available (IE7 & IE8). And most companies chose to support IE6 still, because of this.

I believe is like a catch-22, users don't upgrade cause "it works", and companies don't stop supporting it because users use it.

The bad thing about IE6, is that it don't support the newer web standards like css2 and png images. So developers have to use hacks and timeconsuming development to make webpages look nice on IE6.

The good part is, that many big webpages have stoppet support for IE6. Like youtube.

So what is holding us back?

Many companies are still holding on to Windows 2000, and it don't have support for IE above 6. Some companies have webbased programs that can only run on IE6. And upgrading a browser in a big company can be very time consuming.

What can we do?

There are a bunch of campaigns you can join, to let others know of this problem.

• hey-it.com
• Bring down IE 6
• IE6 update
• Stop IE6
• I dropped IE6

If you still need to develop to IE6, you will probably face the challenge of viewing your website in IE6. As default, you can't have IE6 installed together with IE 7 or IE 8.

To overcome the problem, there are some tools you can use.

Online tools:

Cross browser compatability testing
Lets you chose an OS and a browser, and opens them with vpn.

Browsershots
Submit an url, and the site takes screenshot of the webpage in different browsers.

Other Tools:

Superpreview
Great tool from Microsoft. Lets you see a webpage in IE6 and IE7/IE8 next to each other.

Virtual PC
Lets you install a virtual pc on your computer with an image. So you can have an image with IE6 and an Image with IE7. Get images here.

IE NetRenderer
A great quick online tool, to get a screenshot of an url in IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7 or IE 8.

Firefox with Firebug, yslow and Webdeveloper addon

Filezilla for my ftp usage

7-zip for those rar files i get from time to time

Notepad++ for quick html, css and javascript editing

Virtual PC with images to test webpages in IE6, IE7 and IE8

Just saw Microsoft new misguided browser comparison chart.

I'm speechless. I know they call it browser war. And in war, one of the best weapon is misinformation. But this is a very low blow, and from a company like Microsoft. It seems very desperate.

I use all 3 browsers on a daily basic. Chrome for surfing, and yeah it is the fastest. Firefox for webdevelopment (firebug, webdeveloper tools ect.). And IE for.. well for seeing if my webpages looks nice in IE.

I still believe IE is holding back the evolution of the web. There are so many things they could have added to IE8 (canvas, css3 etc.), but didn't.

I want to finish this rant with a humor link on how the chart should have looked:

Browser comparison chart

In the stylesheet, use the font-style to make a text italic style:

font-style:italic;

Italic is also know as cursive.

Adding custom fonts to website have been a big wish for many webdevelopers and webdesigners for a long time.

Today we have a range of about 10 websafe fonts to chose from. Thats not enough by far. We wan't more!

Read the rest of this entry »

Google is about to launch a new browser to the marked.

As a webdeveloper i don't like new browsers in general. Because it means more browser optimizing.

But after reading the Google Chrome cartoon, i'm actually quite excited. And yes, they made a cartoon explaining the features of Chrome. Really nice done.

Read the cartoon here

Google brought us gmail, which really pushed the browsers to their limit. So they should know what to do with a browser, to make it even better with web applications.

I will watch it closely when it becomes available.

3. September 2008

Chrome is now available for download

You can love or hate iframes, but they have their uses.
I have to use them from time to time, as a last resort. And when i use them, i want the user experience to be the same, as if there were no iframe.

There is a couple of problems with using iframe.
1. Iframe isn't a legal tag in xhtml strict.
2. Iframe height/width doesn't resize to match its content.
3. While navigating inside an iframe, you can't use the browsers back, forward or refresh buttons.
Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody on the web agree, that dynamic and scalable font size are the way to go. And this is where the .em unit is perfect.

The em unit is recommended by the W3C

Read the rest of this entry »

This might be a rant Its a enoying behavour IE have.

On input boxes, IE 6 makes some hidden border/margin or something on the top and bottom. I will show you:

In IE:

In Firefox:

I made this example with the following HTML:
<div style="width:200px;border:1px solid #000;"><input style="height:10px;"></div>
You would think the input would be 10 pixel high and the div 12 pixel. But in IE the div is 14 pixel high.

Its a good thingy to know, when designing around an input box. This has mostly been a problem when designing cool search boxes.

I can only ask one thing, why oh why?

Styling scrollbars on the web, is a request I often get from designers.

I recently had a task, where I needed some stylish scrollbars. The CSS for styling scrollbars in IE wasn't good enough. So the hunt was on.

Read the rest of this entry »