Forgive me whilst I play devil's advocate here, but is it really worth ensuring that your code is compatible with IE6 now?

If it works in all other browsers (incl IE7), then is it classed as a viable option - especially when IE8 is being developed?

Two thirds of IE users/visitors to our site use IE7, however I don't want to alienate the remaining third of IE users.

I realise that it probably is worth bothering about - before anyone shouts! I'm just curious to see what anyone else thinks.

Yes it still is IMO anyways ... there's still a fair % of people using it I'm afraid.

At my work for example! Beurk!

If a third of your IE users use IE6 the i would make an effort for it.

Depending on the overall percentage, i would not "kill yourself" getting it pixel perfect, but I would make an effort all the same.

Yes, it's worth fixing your site for IE6, because IE6 still accounts for about 36% of browser share (source).

But you don't need to make it perfect. Just hack it enough so that the site is usable and presentable; if some little embellishment is broken in IE6, I will often simply remove it from the IE6 display (square corners instead of rounded, no drop shadows -- that sort of thing).

As well as that, using conditional comments, maybe put a bit of text at the bottom of your site stating that it is best view in FF

http://www.thewebsqueeze.com/articles/cond...t-are-they.html

I guessed it would be pretty darn important, but I'm current;y thinking along the lines of chuckin' m'self off of the roof because I'm having probs (no surprise there) with another menu. Perfect in all browsers but IE6. I wanna scream and cry - I'm just losing the will to live now.

Popje, joining all the people standing on the ledge of the tallest IE6 building?

If others are "having probs!! " it fills me with a little encouragement that it's not just me being extraordinarily thick! How has Microsoft got away with it? The links that Mike & James gave me to different places explaining why things aren't working just go to show that IE6 is allegedly ( <- don't feel like being sued, can't afford it!) - one of the worst things/browsers ever developed. Jason also gave me a link to the IE8 development site and some of the comments that people left were quite cutting. Why didn't they (MS) stick to the standards to begin with??

This post has been edited by Popje: Aug 12 2008, 07:59 PM

I think that there's going to be a ticket dispenser like the ones you see at the Deli counter there!! I wonder what my number would be??

HAHA!!! IE6 is a biTch (pardon my german) to deal with! I would gladly ditch however, I have one client that's still holding onto it.

Yup... I can see her from where I'm standing!

Unfortunately, IE6 still makes up anywhere from 20% to 40% of the browser market share depending on your sources, so it's imperative that you spend some time on it. IE7 has been catching up, but I have a feeling it will be a long time before we will be able to ignore it. Hopefully not too long though!

Rich

I think that there are two schools of thought.

1) You should design for the two previous versions of the browser. General theory being that people are slow to change and to catch all users you need to support older browsers. With a browser like firefox this is valid, Firefox is updated frequently but it doesn't update between versions. The chances are that there are still a percentage of people using FF1 and 2.

The expection with this is IE. IE6 had such massive penetration that almost no one uses IE5.5. According to this school of thought you should be designing for FF1-3, IE5.5-7 as well as safari/opera etc. This certainly would cover almost everyone.

2) The second idea is if you are running an e-commerce shop and you want to increase your sales by 5 per cent. You should be looking at what browsers can provide this 5 per cent. If 5% of the sites users are using IE6 then you should be designing for this browser as well.

Currently I design for IE6, however a growing number of my sites has a little bar at the top of the web page which says 'You are running IE6, a new version of your browser is availible' as well as a link to the IE7 site.

The Sun is allegedly larger than the Earth.

Don't diss IE6 too much. It was good when it first came out. A much needed step forward. If anything the problem is with its dubiously long lifespan. It should have been pulled of the shelves several years ago.

MSIE Browsers also inhibit serving fully functional XHTML 1.0 documents, the great majority of which are currently being served as Content (MIME) Type text/html which is just really HTML using XHTML syntax.

Current XHTML with XML compliant browsers such as Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, et al. will retrieve and render XHTML documents served as Content (MIME) Type application/xhtml+xml with full XML functionality as intended. MSIE Browsers will not retrieve and render XHTML served as Content (MIME) Type application/xhtml+xml correctly. MSIE 6.0 release 2900 and 7.0 will display such pages alright but will not render XML content. MSIE 6.0 release 2800 and earlier Browsers present a download screen -- selecting OPEN displays a plain, text only page (sans style sheet) and again will not render XML.

Microsoft's stated rationale for not recognizing XHTML documents served as Content (MIME) Type application/xhtml+xml is set forth in the Microsoft MSIE 7.0 Blog -- this is also the MS stance for MSIE 8.0.

This is a dilemma for web authors and the W3C which has attempted to resolve this situation by embracing Content Negotiation -- usually via PHP on the server side -- as has been done with this page -- in order to offer a choice of Content (MIME) Type text/html or application/xhtml+xml XHTML documents to browsers so that they can render them according to their capabilities -- thus only XML compliant browsers will be served fully functional XHTML documents.

The trouble with IE6-users is often their illegal version of windows. That's why they can't upgrade to IE7 or Media player 10...

So they're going to have the same problems when IE8 finally comes out? Isn't there a way around it? Can't IE be installed as a 'stand-alone' sort of thing? I've got Safari installed on Windows and that's a primarily Mac browser, or so I've been led to believe.

There is an easy solution here:

Design for IE6, if it works in 6 then you're covered.



Jasontor

Nope. For browsers IE7 and up, like Media Player 10+ you need Genuine Microsoft software. I know, 'cause I know someone who has this problem and is not willing to pay for a new license. She had an XP license, some "computer expert" re-installed windows with an illegal key, and she can't find her own Windows key anymore. She's looking into getting a new pc, so she's not buying another license..