Internet Explorer Gets The Boot
Those of us who design and develop on the web typically have a deep hatred for browsers that don’t follow or respect web standards. For many of us today, the most common culprit is Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 and even version 7. Many discussions have been had over this very topic, and how we as web professionals work with or against such issues that plague our work.
Dennis Sheridan did the initial build of the Refresh Louisville website. It is a masterpiece of XHTML, CSS and DOM Scripting, as all of his work is. Dennis applied the proper CSS techniques and tricks to tackle non-standards compliant browsers to ensure that the design I created was intact on those browsers that were inferior as well, as is common practice. Thanks for all the hard work Dennis.
Now comes the exciting but painful low blow where I say that I have ignored all the work that Dennis put into these tasks and completely removed styling for Internet Explorer, versions 6 & 7 on refreshlouisville.org. At this point, I’m giving IE8 the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately, I just haven’t done enough research on the state of IE8 and compliance to make a call. Although, development efforts like this don’t leave me hopeful.
It is likely hard if not impossible for most of us in our work lives, personal sites or anywhere else to make such a shift, however Refresh aims to educate and deliver on our promises and goals, so I’ve made this small step in an effort to back that up. For those of you not in the previous discussion, it’s worth mentioning the idea came from a blog post from Dan Cederholm a few months ago.
For those interested, here is the code used to achieve the stylesheet switch:
<!--[if gte IE 8]><!-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<!--<![endif]-->
For those folks visiting the site with one of the offending browsers, they get a polite but direct message about our position:
<?php
if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE 6.0') || strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE 7.0')!== FALSE) {
echo '<div id="notice"><br />We at Refresh ♥ Standards-Compliant Web Browsers like <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/">Firefox</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/safari/">Safari</a>, <a href="http://caminobrowser.org/">Camino</a> and <a href="http://www.opera.com/">Opera</a>. To view this site as the designer intended, please upgrade your web browser won't you?</div>';
}
?>
So here’s to small steps and the ability to educate those around us.
*Raises glass*
Update: In response to Andy Clarke’s solution to this “problem”, I’ve implemented the Universal IE6 CSS found at Google Code. I think this is a great enhancement of the previous solution.
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April 22nd, 2009 @ 4:23 am Topics about Microsoft » Internet Explorer Gets The Boot | Refresh Louisville Hollered:[...] Todd Budnikas added an interesting post on Internet Explorer Gets The Boot | Refresh LouisvilleHere’s a small excerptThose of us who design and develop on the web typically have a deep hatred for browsers that don’t follow or respect web standards. For many of us today, the. [...]
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What is more important, web standards that the average person doesn’t care about at all, or having a site that looks broken to 75% of your visitors?
I understand you’re trying to make a point, but a huge part of designing for the web is making things work for as many people as possible.
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Might be worth mentioning that our traffic here breaks out as follows:
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I still think this only serves to potentially alienate users. Despite the traffic on this site (very few technical users and likely a lot of mac users) that does not represent the reality of the web.
The professional part of Refresh Louisville is lost if the business reality is ignored.
If traffic numbers (for only this site) drive the browser support that means your list of browsers is incorrect since Chrome has more support than Camino.
But it isn’t about this site is about what Drew said “a huge part of designing for the web is making things work for as many people as possible.”
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Sorry guys, I don’t exactly see how what we’ve done makes the website and it’s content not work. The content is readable, navigation is accessible, and a quick explanation of why the page is the way it is can be easily found. The argument here seems to be that we’re making this website less usable, where we’ve only altered the experience on the presentation level. I’m not a proponent of saying a user has to use a browser I specify to experience this site, just to “see it as the designer intended.”
I don’t see it as alienation, I see it as a way to promote web standards, which I’m sorry to say Kevin, even if people don’t care about, is important to the world we work in, wouldn’t you agree? It’s what this entire website and community is about if nothing else, which is why I chose to do this here, not on a client website.
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I gotta say that I think this reeks of arrogance. I hate the way IE and FF render differently sometimes, but the fact is that IE has a large market share. Taking a stand against IE is like shooting yourself in the foot.
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Ehh… Is this a joke?
@whoiskevin and Drew -
This is a community designed to refresh the collective wisdom of web professionals in our city. You don’t need a membership card, but asking that you at least care enough about advancing technology to upgrade to a modern web browser is not an unreasonable point of entry.
I believe stagnatelouisville.org may be available
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I think if you were redirecting people using IE6 to something with a humorous tone about using a real browser, and then didn’t announce it, that would be cool. Like an easter egg.
But since you announced it, I opened up the site in IEtester to see what it looked like, and it just struck me as a little snotty having the page look like that. I get the intent, standards are important and we all wish people would stop using old browsers. It’s just that the execution comes off as hollier than thou.
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In all seriousness, I think one of the most important considerations when building a website is your audience.
I don’t understand why the audience for this site would care about IE6, other than having it irritate them in the development process.
Regarding the snotty thing. I hope no one really feels that way. Being a New Yorker, Todd may not always give you the warm fuzzies …jk
But I did watch him give up at least a dozen lunch breaks and several nights to finish this site, only to hand it over to the community to be led by whoever wants to step up. Sounds more like philanthropy than anything, though there is much to gain.
I think you’re a swell guy too, Drew. You should come out for the May event.
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So is using browser specific css settings like -mozand -webkit borders applying standards? I know these are for “new” features of css but it looks more like it was coded for these browsers than for standards or saving time.
Maybe snottylouisville.org is available.
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hmm, is using -moz and -webkit applying standards… Good question I suppose. Is it going against standards? It’s a temporary solution while the W3C works through the CSS3 spec to implement the border-radius properties, etc. If you feel really strongly about it Kevin, I might consider removing the advanced CSS features.
These choices, just like the choices made and referenced in this post, are not harming anyone’s experience, no more than my choice of blue and orange is for palette. These few advanced effects don’t move us further away from or close to standards, they are merely experiments in modern technology. Worth mentioning that those effects were not added by Dennis, but by myself as I’m using this site as a tiny playground to expand my understanding of CSS, PHP and other things, so please know that I’ve made these terrible decisions that make your experience here unpleasant. Might I suggest browsing the site using Internet Explorer 6 if you don’t like them Kevin? I’m not sure how else I can help you. Seems like you’ve landed in the wrong place my friend.
How’s that for warm and fuzzy?
/*edit*/
Damn, i knew that the comment numbering would fail when we reached double digits. Bah! Also, more edits to what I wrote just above for those keeping track…
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I think that the points in this discussion have changed. Maybe I missed it but initially I was told of dead browsers and the extra work to implement features. My experience being unpleasant was never an issue. I simply pointed out you might alienate some users. I’d say I’m correct in that assumption from the comments.
Now it seems this is more about “playground” than about any extra work or dead browsers. That is fine and not an issue and a different approach than what was communicated to me when I simply commented that I didn’t think this change was a reason to “raise glasses” in celebration.
As for landing in the wrong place well I guess that is all about alienation as well because comments like using IE6 are just dumb since I never said anything about IE6. You deny IE7 which I think is a premature for any site besides your own personal space but ultimately I don’t really care.
Perhaps back to the subject. Do I support dead browsers? No.
Now the follow up. Do you and the users of this site believe IE7 is a dead browser and do you think that would alienate some users?
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IE7 is not a dead browser, it is just not standards compliant, so I’ve alienated it here. In the real world, where businesses are trying to succeed, and Internet Explorer is likely 60-70% of traffic, of course I and we can’t alienate such a browser. I would also say that doing what I’ve done here on any site but your own is dangerous. I never suggested that people do this in the business world, I actually mentioned that this was a reason for raising glasses because most of us can’t do this kind of thing in our daily lives, so I was excited about my ability to do that here.
Might suggest we carry this conversation over in the forums as comments on blog posts can be make it hard to have a real dialogue. There is a link in the blog post to the forum post.
So, my glass is still raised, although my arm is getting tired.
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I’m clapping for this development. I think it goes back to the question I was asking when the forums were first put up – at what point do the designers/developers step in and help push the market into a direction?
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Cheers and congratulations. It’s about time we stop pandering to the lowest common denominator.
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firefox is much better than IE anyway