i have built a beautiful website that works very fast in all of the latest browsers but many of the users are forced to use ie6. If i can't get around this problem. Is there anything to do to optimize some of the inefficiencies of ie6 when building my site to lessen the pain.? its an asp.net mvc site with heavy use of jquery.
+8
A:
Retroactively, i don't know if there's an exact answer other than troubleshooting the problems one at a time. The correct way would be to code proactively for all browsers until IE6 is finally put to rest as it should be :)
jaywon
2009-12-17 21:11:55
Absolutely. If that is who your target audience is, you can't avoid it. +1
Kevin Peno
2009-12-17 21:14:23
+11
A:
You don't mention any specific issues with the site, but you can pass scripts, styles, even content just to IE6 by using conditional comments.
<!--[if IE 6]>
IE6 only stuff goes here
<![endif]-->
Apart from that, learn the many, many quirks of IE6 and the fixes for these problems. There is certainly plenty of resources on this out there, we've had to deal with it for quite some time!
If you need help with something specific, perhaps edit your question with further details.
akamike
2009-12-17 21:13:51
thanks . . i found this . .http://www.virtuosimedia.com/tutorials/ultimate-ie6-cheatsheet-how-to-fix-25-internet-explorer-6-bugs
ooo
2009-12-18 14:14:05
A:
First of all, it should be considered in the beginning of a project whether IE6 needs to be supported or not. Designing for it requires a bit different approach - some things just tend to break down. My advice is you should probably make the experience on IE6 only "sufficient" and just make sure the site can be used as intended. Making it look flashy is just not going to work with any reasonable amount of effort.
tehmou
2009-12-17 21:16:23
That is terrible advice if the target audience uses IE6. You would be destroying the experience for the majority of your clients/users. I agree that you should make that determination BEFORE writing any code, but don't be a lazy ass in the implementation.
Kevin Peno
2009-12-17 21:19:55
-1. It's not that hard to make it work with a reasonable amount of effort.
Jonas
2009-12-17 21:21:56
Seriously, if you haven't considered ie6 at all and are doing a lot of JavaScript, the chances to get the exact same experience than on modern browsers are generally not that good. Even transparent png's require some effort to get to work. I'm not telling to half-ass the whole site for ie6, but trying to make it perfect is going to take time.
tehmou
2009-12-17 21:39:53
Time that should be taken if the his focus group uses IE6. As far as the js issue, this is why god created jQuery. :P
Kevin Peno
2009-12-17 21:51:29
Should, I suppose, but as you and I both know this is not always possible... making the UI as good on IE6 as on newer browsers would most easily be done by taking out any fancy things that don't work on it from the whole site. I mean, even with jQuery it is going to be slow. I've also witnessed some extremely strange IE6 issues with jQuery, such as IE thinking that a hyphen in an identifier is actually a minus sign and making the subtraction (on strings!) Taken that the poster has no experience with IE6 it is going to be hell :P
tehmou
2009-12-17 21:59:11
It really depends a lot on the situation. How many users are on IE6? Does the site use certain design elements that are very difficult to fit into IE? Like anything else how much behavior you want in IE comes down to cost/benefit analysis.
Annabelle
2009-12-17 22:01:30
Oh I agree, but I'm a fighter for "noobs" to learn. The only way to learn is to do it and stop whining/fighting that IE is the bane of all existence when they have little to no experience on wtf is actually going on in CSS/DOM/HTML space in the first place, why IE<7/8 has the issues it has, or where the web even came from. So don't get me wrong, I agree with your retorts and defense (especially on the slowness of the IE<7 js processing, but I don't agree with the advice being so blatent. As Douglas said above, you need to evaluate the need, and it sounds like the need is great enough. :P
Kevin Peno
2009-12-17 22:03:46
Well, I guess we do agree after all... I apologize for taking such a defensive position, but I've just had to endure a lot of fighting with the aforementioned browser in the past. Nowadays, every time I hear "IE6 support" or "just a little bug on IE6" my alarm bells start to ring. You're right in that I was at the very least discouraging, but my intention was just to inform him of the magnitude of the probable cost :P
tehmou
2009-12-17 22:24:00
+4
A:
jQuery works pretty well with IE6, so you should be ok on that front. You will most likely run into some CSS quirks, but once you learn what to avoid it's really not bad coding for IE6. The main thing I keep running into is when you float something, you always need to put a display type of relative or absolute on it otherwise it will just disappear from the screen in many cases.
Shawn Steward
2009-12-17 21:17:00
A:
Is Chrome frame an option? It could be positioned as a something similar to java which less people have a problem with.
jms
2009-12-17 22:34:29
If he could ask any of his users to install Chrome frame, couldn't he just ask them to upgrade their browser instead?
Tchalvak
2009-12-18 02:31:07
Then what makes you think he could ask them to install any program or plugin...period? The reason most corp users stay behind is because they are disallowed install and upgrade access to everything. If they can install this plugin, they can install IE8, FF3, or anything else.
Kevin Peno
2009-12-21 18:33:16