CSS Compatibility IE7 - IE8 problem - css

Problem:
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'm having a problem which I need to solve as simple as possible. There's a website I'm re-developing, but since I updated to IE8, I've totaly forgotten about IE7, but ofcourse, there are still people using it.
I need to know what specific things I should change for this site to display the same way as it does in IE8. But I don't know where to start. Is there anyone with experience in this, who can give me a guideline? Are there scripts for doing so?
URL: http://www.testsite.c-tz.nl/
If you view this with IE8 it looks perfect.
But if you view it with IE7, things are not where they supposed to be, very ugly.

As the other said, your question is to broad. You'll need to break it down in smaller problems - which will possibly help you solve it yourself along the way.
One thing I did notice: IE has problems with display: inline-block on elements, which were orignally block elements. Either use span (only possible if it doesn't contain block elements), or use another method to places blocks side by side such as float.
BTW, you have far too many divs in your HTML. It's not necessary to wrap every img, every ul, etc. in it's own div. Usually any styles you apply to the div can just as well be applied you the "wrapped" element directly.

This is not a cool idea... But you can try when you are sick with very old browsers like ie6 or ie5 ...
1.use javascript to detect the browser and version..
2.later use the similar way to redirect the visitor to download the IE 8..
<script>
if(''+browserName+''+fullVersion+'' == "Microsoft Internet Explorer6.0" )
{
alert("You're using an Old Browser.Update the browser to view the website.(or) Try Latest Google Chrome , Firefox , Safari, Opera")
window.location = "http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=43"
}
//document.write(''+browserName+''+fullVersion+'');
</script>

Related

Firefox is not rendering CSS background (Firefox error/bug?)

After spending a while creating an online portfolio, then uploading it, I noticed an issue with one of my sections. On the "Advertisement" section, I noticed it was not displaying the information, just the title. So, I kept on re-pushing the stylesheet.css, even editing it, and it would still look the same. The HTML, CSS, and JS is working how I wrote it. But it is just the section that is not showing. After browsing online and on stackoverflow for an answer, I believe it has to do with Firefox. When using Firebug, I noticed the section's background has been removed, causing the entire section to "disappear." It works just fine on Chrome. I'm not worried about IE, I know that browser has some issues in itself. Anyway, would anyone on here have an idea to resolve this issue, if I can? Or even, what could be causing this issue?
Here is my website to see for yourselves. www.voelkerdesigner.com
Cheers!
It is the opposite for me your entire site works in firefox for me but not in chrome, looking through your code, its being caused by your naming conventions. Namely #advertise
I use the adguard extension in chrome and below is the css it plugs into my html pages to hide ads, so im guessing your using an adblocker in firefox
#adsense_top, #adsensewide, #adspace, #adspace_top, #adspot-300x250-pos-1, #adspot-300x250-pos-2, #adswidget1-quick-adsense, #adswidget2-quick-adsense, #adtext, #adtop, #adv-masthead, #adv-top, #advert1, #advert2, #advertbox3, #advertise, #advertisement1, #advertisetop, #advertising-container, #advertising_wrapper {
display: none!important;
}
Might as well post a random answer on this... As i wont visit posted links by new users.. i'm just gonna guess that your background image might not be 100%...
In general i use background-image instead of background.. Short hand can be a little pain and breaks in some browsers if not perfect.
so i would compare against the following example
background-image:url('images/mybg.jpg');
background-image:url('http://somesite.com/images/mybg.jpg');
Basically alot of people do not use the url and just go straight for a file name or dont quote it.. And have seen that be the problem in the past, so do use the url('') method.
Otherwise if it still fails to work and you know the image is absolute, you would then have some other css that is either over riding your elements background or is preventing it from loading.
Another trick is using your console / inspect element to manually inject the background-image and see if that works... So once the page has loaded in chrome, inspect the element as normal.. And double click on your css property listing as you can add your own styles this way and if it fails, then its not the markup but something else.

Form CSS not working on IE9 only?

My testing link is jcleung.com/m2g-test/
For some reason, the styling I have on my form is working on every browser (inclduing lower versions of IE) except for IE9!
Anybody else have this issue of know a fix?
Firstly, you have some validation errors that may be worth fixing.
Secondly, for some reason the element (on which you target your CSS) doesn't contain all the fields in ie9:
You have your <form> wrapped with <p> tag and I wonder if that makes it go crazy? Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's a html bug and I'll keep you updated if I find the problem.
EDIT:
Ok, I did some tests and I'm 99.9% sure it's because the form is wrapped with p

Why won't IE7 recognize class calls to an external stylesheet, but will recognize inline styling?

When using IE8 to view IE7 through the developer tool's browser mode feature, I am having an odd recurring problem with CSS. When I make changes to an external stylesheet and then reference that class in the HTML, it's like IE7 won't recognize it at all. If, however, I put that same styling inline, IE7 will obey it. Has anyone heard of this before? Here's a simple example to help illustrate what I'm saying:
External stylesheet:
.bold {
font-weight:bold;
}
Call in HTML:
<p class="bold">My paragraph here</p>
No changes will be effective in IE7, although all other browsers are fine.
If however, I do this:
<p style="font-weight:bold;">My paragraph here</p>
IE7 seems happy. What's the difference? Do I really have to make CSS changes this way, or is there another workaround?
I'm baffled as to what the issue could be. I don't know if the developer tool's browser mode has a quirk and doesn't quite work as a real-life version of IE7 would, or if this is something completely different. I am using IE8 (I can't upgrade to IE9 at this government computer), but I've heard the problem persists with my changes in IE9's browser mode of IE7 too.
We're using ColdFusion to generate the HTML, using an HTML5 doctype (), and I've added a timestamp parameter to the 2 external stylesheet references so the browser is forced to grab a new copy every time.
Any help with this mystery would be hugely appreciated - thank you!
======
For #Stano or anyone else who is interested in recreating the exact problem, here is a stripped down version of it: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B02DZPpIlMwGSk1VZHRDUHNCTkU (Can click File > Download to get the zip). Notice in IE7, "Photographer" is fine because it has inline styling, but the others aren't picking up anything.
With regards to your comments, you're right in saying that it could be a caching issue, but it could also be an issue with that stylesheet (though it doesn't look like that's the case), another stylesheet, or invalid HTML.
One of the things that I want to correct you on, because I think it may influence your understanding of how CSS and HTML interact, is that class attributes in HTML elements do not call CSS. Rather, CSS rules tell the browser agent how to render things with certain attributes. This is why we are able to use the elements ID, name, groupname, class, and other values to identify which elements to apply which class to.
I mention this because if you have invalid HTML (a missing end tag, a missing arrow, etc.) it can do all sorts of weird things. A few days ago it helped me solve an issue where a misplaced tag was actually causing a script of mine to loop on one of my pages.
Take a quick second and validate your HTML using the W3C Markup Validator.

Which browsers support page break manipulation using CSS and the page-break-inside element?

I'm trying to use the page-break-inside CSS directive, the class of which is to be attached to a div tag or a table tag (I think this may only work on block elements, in which case it would have to be the table).
I've tried all the tutorials that supposedly describe exactly how to do this, but nothing works. Is this an issue of browser support or has anyone actually gotten this working, the exact bit of CSS looks like this:
#media print {
.noPageBreak {
page-break-inside : avoid;
}
}
Safari 1.3 and later (don't know about 4) do not support page-break-inside (try it, or see here: http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/page-break-inside). Neither do Firefox 3 or IE7 (don't know about 8).
In a practical sense, support for this attribute is SO spotty, it doesn't make sense to use it at all at this point. You'd be lucky if even 10% of your visitors have browsers that can support this.
The solution I used was to add
page-break-after:always
to certain divs, or add a "page-breaker" div in where you want breaks. This is quite ham-handed, I know, because it doesn't do quite what you want, and causes content to not reach the bottom of the printed page, but unfortunately there isn't a better solution (prove me wrong!).
Another approach is to create a stylesheet that removes all extraneous elements (display:none) and causes the main content to flow in one main column. Basically, turn it into a single column, text-only document.
Finally, avoid floats and columns when styling for printers, it can make IE (and FF) act wacky.
Safari 1.3+, Opera 9.2+, Konquerer, and IE8 all support it, at least to some degree.
Firefox apparently still does not.
Firefox does not support this as of 2010-11-30, and thus won't in Firefox 4.
IE8 does support page-break-inside: avoid - but when I tried this on IE9, it's not very successful at avoiding page-breaks (this may be a regression, or perhaps IE8 is also only capable of avoiding page breaks in very simple cases).
AFAIK it doesn't work in any webkit browser; certainly not in chrome.
It actually works in Opera, even on real sites.
Safari 1.3 and later support page-break-inside.
So does Konqueror.
I'm trying to use the page-break-inside CSS directive, the class of which is to be attached to a div tag or a table tag (I think this may only work on block elements, in which case it would have to be the table).
Firstly, there's no need to guess. Just look at the specification, and you'll see that it does indeed only apply to block-level elements.
Secondly, <div> elements are usually block-level elements, so there's no problem applying page-break-inside to a <div> element.
Finally, you don't need to wrap it in #media. You only need #media if you want to apply media-independent rules to only one medium, for instance, if you want to use display: block only for one medium. In this case, you don't need to hide those rules from other media, because they'll only apply to paged media anyway.
From preliminary searches, it's hard to find up-to-date statistics on browser support for this, but it seems that Firefox 4beta6 supports it and Chrome 7 does not. Chrome also breaks pages halfway through a line of text, so that part of the text appears on one page and part appears on the next. Uncharacteristic lack of attention to detail, but I guess neither Google nor Apple care about printing things.
Firefox 4 also adds some nice headers and footers to your prints with url, page title, site title, number of pages, and time. Nice.
As a bit more information further to Eamon Nerbonne's answer on the IE rendering (IE8+), you need to make sure the browser is in standards mode. This article on MSDN shows what is necessary - including a meta tag in your html to force the issue:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
Feels kludgy, but there you have it... seems to work more consistently.

What is the best way to determine the source of a CSS issue

I have been working on a webpage. It is the first I have actually tried to design using an image and then use proper CSS layout rather than tables.
http://www.roccocammisola.com/proj/brunel/bgimage.html
I have been having issues with the shadows on either side of the main content area. Of course these are only an issue in IE. As you can see the shadow has been cut down to about 10% of its actual height.
With my relative inexperience how do I look for relevant fixes to this issue.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
FireBug, the most crucial tool for debugging CSS, amongst other things.
get it here
IE Web Developer Toolbar
It's not as good as firebug in general, but it helps when you have an IE-specific problem.
In addition to Firebug, making sure your HTML is valid is an invaluable tool and can minimize CSS headaches. Sometimes your CSS may not work right because there are mistakes in the HTML. The different browsers have different ways of dealing with improperly written HTML which can sometimes make it seem like there's a cross-browser CSS issue. The validator can help you find mistakes in your markup.
http://validator.w3.org/
+1 for FireBug
In this particular case, I'd just suggest a new approach for your shadows. Currently, you have them as items. You typically want to use CSS background images for things like this.
.mainShadowRight {
*/ your other stuff */
url('images/mainShadowRight.gif');
}
Your .mainShadowRight CSS class specifies a min-height (which IE6 doesn't understand, and IE7 doesn't always 100% get correctly)
and as DLarsen pointed out, it appears you are missing the background-image: url(); bit.
Thanks for all your answers, seems to have done the trick.
I think I spazzed out with the upload as I should definitley have had the bg-image stuff there.
That IE web developer toolbar looks pretty good too as I have firebug and web developer bar for FF.
Another hot recommendation for debugging CSS - CSS Viewer.
It's a Firefox add-on that allows you to hover over elements in a web page and see their exact style. Often you figure out that the final style was not what you meant, possibly due to some inheritance of styles.

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