IE6 is a nightmare for web designers. The lack of standards compliance is a real problem. Usually Often we have to include conditional comments and hacks to fix all the bugs that crop up. Fortunately a solution has finally been found.
The holy grail
Recently a programmer called Dean Edwards has created something special for us in the form of his new ‘IE7’ Javascript library.
The new javascript library causes IE6 to function much like a standards browser. It fixes a whole range of CSS issues that commonly crop up to haunt web designers.
Where can I download it from it?
To download this you should visit Dean’s web site.
Installation is fairly straight forward . You simply have to carry out the following steps:
1. Create the folder ‘IE7′ in your web site root directory.
2. Upload all the files into that directory.
3. Insert a short code snippet at the end of your head section.
Not the whole story
IE6 also has default CSS settings that can vary from other browsers. This can cause display inconsistencies for users using different browsers. The best way to get over all these default settings is start your list of cascading style sheets with a style sheet that resets your browser styling and levels the playing field. You can find
New toys
IE6 supports what is actually very basic CSS. Firefox and other standards compliant browsers have much better support for CSS. CSS2 isn’t supported by IE6.
Dean’s javascript libraries support a number of CSS2 selectors and other features for IE6. This makes his Javascripts a real breakthrough because they allow us to use these selectors many years before they become the industry standard.
Not a subsitute
A poorly designed, poorly coded tableless design will cause just as many problems with or without these plugins. These javascripts come into their own when used to supplement an already good design. As always javascript should be used in a way that degrades gracefully when, for instance, a user has their javascript disabled.
