Web developers - How much do you hate Internet Explorer?

Morlan

Morlan

Morlan

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
melbourne
From one to ten? It´s a Ten from me. I HATE Internet Explorer.

This is the most important piece of code you will need right now.
Code: 
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />
I started making web sites in 1996, and even back then, I would spend days trying to get around IE´s bugs. Netscape wasn´t perfect, but it always seemed, to me, to render what I wanted.

12 years on and IE still causes me massive headache.

I use FF as my main browser and have SF, OP and Chrome installed for testing. I have IE6, IE7 and IE8 on three seperate virtual machines.

IE has cost me months in man hours. I always have to write hacks for IE for every site I make.

Just when I thought I had IE7 down, MS released IE8, probably the worst browser in the world.

Unfortunately for me, I simply do not have the time to write hacks for the 40 or so web sites I´ve uploaded.

I tried out IE8 last week and it´s the same old, sluggish piece of crap that it has always been. IE is, has, and will always be the worst browser ever.

And now IE8 has the most hilarious ´feature´

Compatability View
Websites designed for older browsers will often look better, and problem such as out-of-place menus, text, or images will be corrected.
Click to expand...

Luckily for us developers, you can force IE8 to render pages using IE7´s engine.

It has taken me a whole week to add this header to all of my client´s sites.

Here it is

Code: 
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

I pitty all of you who have to go through the same crap.

IE sucks :rolleyes::p
 
I dont hate it, once you've got used to coding for both browsers its pretty straight forward to knock something up which has no/very few issues.

However, you're right that meta tag is invaluable unless everyone feels like going back and rebuilding every website they've made.
 
Spunkey said:
I dont hate it, once you've got used to coding for both browsers its pretty straight forward to knock something up which has no/very few issues.
Click to expand...

Bingo! It's very rare these days where I have any issues on any browser. When you spend 8-12 hours a day, 5 days a week doing it, it doesn't take long before you code around the bugs without even thinking about it.

Anyone who is pro (does it for a living) and is still having to spend a great deal of time with hacks, just isn't very good at their job. (IMO)


I only have two real annoyances these days and one of which has been an annoyance for a very long time.

1. IE6's lack of native support for png transparency. The png hacks are an annoyance and none of them support everything (ie. css backgrounds and inline images, background-position, repeat, etc.)

2. The spotty support of CSS3 across all the browsers. How nice will it be when we can specify rounded borders, multiple backgrounds, background resizing, etc.)
 
Y'know, it's not just about specific browsers being pains to work with; clients need to be educated that sites don't need to look identical in every single browser/OS permutation.

Sure, the natural expectation of the average person is that it should look identical in each browser, but it is the designer's responsibility to point out that (a) this isn't the case, and more importantly (b) it doesn't matter as long as the usability of the site isn't compromised in any way.

You can have an easier time of it as a designer/developer if you simply take steps to educate a client, and by this I don't mean start whinging, preach or lob technical terms at them until they surrender. The more comfortable the client with the concept of their site not being cross-browser-identical, the fewer hacks you'll need to implement.

http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/five_css_design_browser_differences_i_can_live_with/

Incidentally, I've found IE7 renders pretty similarly to Firefox in most instances. I don't feel anywhere near the same level of frustration towards IE7 than IE6, that's for sure! And with IE8 around the corner, the end of realistically needing to code for IE6 is nigh :)


Oh yeah, and Morlan: You think you hate IE more than anything? Try designing HTML emails for a living. IE will seem like your best friend compared to Outlook2007 and Lotus Notes ;) :D :(
 
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simisker said:
Try designing HTML emails for a living. IE will seem like your best friend compared to Outlook2007 and Lotus Notes ;) :D :(
Click to expand...

I make websites and have to build emails as well. I agree totally with the above statements.

As for coding websites in IE, I just throw in an IE stylesheet to sort out any problems I get.
 
I hate IE.. from both a developers/designers POV and a users POV. It's utterly pants in just about every regard.
 
simisker said:
Try designing HTML emails for a living. IE will seem like your best friend compared to Outlook2007 and Lotus Notes ;) :D :(
Click to expand...

And gmail, "Whaddya mean it's completely ignored the stylesheet and will need inline styling to get round it thus making the email much larger in file size that it really needs to be?"
 
PMWD said:
And gmail, "Whaddya mean it's completely ignored the stylesheet and will need inline styling to get round it thus making the email much larger in file size that it really needs to be?"
Click to expand...
Always, always use inline styling. Sadly, it's the only way to maintain consistency [as relative as that word is in the world of HTML emails]. Heck, I've even been known to use FONT tags on occasion, as backup to the inline styling. Graceful degradation, and all that. Apologies for the abuse of the word 'graceful' in this context, as really it's anything but. You know what I mean, however.

I'm not sure that I'd say an extra 1 or 2k is "much larger"... though of course I'm not the one that has to pay our bandwidth costs for our regular six-figure audience broadcasts :D
 
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HTML emails are the only place in the known universe where code generated by Frontpage's WYSIWYG editor actually works.

Code: 
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
  <tr>
    <td>
      <font face="arial" color="#333333" size="2" style="font: 10pt arial; color: #333333;">
        Dear {{firstname}},<br><br>

        ....
        
        <a href="http://www.somewhere.com/linky" style="font: bold 10pt arial; color: #333333;"><font face="arial" color="#333333" size="2" style="font: bold 10pt arial; color: #333333;"><b>Click here</b></font></a> for more info.
      </font>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
*shudders*
 
I don't really hate IE, I mean, I can work within the constraints it puts on to me.
display:inline; is a real blessing >D as is !important, successful web-dev of that on IE relies on these two things a lot.
There are times it really gets up my nose and slows me down, but if the clientèle want it, so be it.
It's slow and buggy and rubbish, but it does require very tight web design, no lax shortcuts, and having that flexibility and adaptability is what makes a good web-dev, I think. :)

I'd rate it a 5/10.
 
I dont hate IE, just IE6 lol. Its garanteed to make you redo the whole site 3-4 times to make it compatable.

Main problem seems to be XP comes with IE6, and a lot of people will never upgrade the pre-installed browser. They also wont change from XP to something with a more modern pre-installed browser, as they hate vista. So we stuck with a large group of people still suing IE6, and might well be for the next 5-10 years.

Untill this group of people shrinks to a minority, every single web develepor will be spending wasted hours/days making sites compatable with a 7 year old program. Which is just plain crazy !!!
 
Tripnologist said:
1. IE6's lack of native support for png transparency. The png hacks are an annoyance and none of them support everything (ie. css backgrounds and inline images, background-position, repeat, etc.)
Click to expand...
just a quick heads up people, the latest beta of the iepngfix behavior file now supports positioning etc :)

its a real breath of fresh air being able to use pngs to their full effect across all browsers :)

http://www.twinhelix.com/css/iepngfix/

but yes, i do wish the whole world would just use firefox!
 
Why do you want to force sites to render using IE7? The whole point of IE8 is that it renders better than IE7. If you built your sites to look right in Firefox/Opera etc then it should be good on IE8.

I never use IE but the reason IE8 is slow is because it still has all the debug code running....it's not been released yet so don't treat it as a final release.

HTML emails are a completely different area to browsers now...HTML email is pure evil anyways, do you think any of those spam/scan emails would work if email had to be text? No because everyone would see the real URLs of links :)
 
probedb said:
Why do you want to force sites to render using IE7? The whole point of IE8 is that it renders better than IE7. If you built your sites to look right in Firefox/Opera etc then it should be good on IE8.
Click to expand...

Do you realise how long it would take me to re-code 40 web sites, 15 of which are large-scale CMS? I hear what you´re saying, and for new projects I will code for IE8, but you can´t honestly expect me to go back to the drawing board for all those sites.

My heart sank when I tested my sites in IE8 - all were mis-aligned is some way or another.

For a quick fix, that piece of code is a ****** blessing. Well done IE! I still hate you, though!
 
Morlan said:
Do you realise how long it would take me to re-code 40 web sites, 15 of which are large-scale CMS? I hear what you´re saying, and for new projects I will code for IE8, but you can´t honestly expect me to go back to the drawing board for all those sites.

My heart sank when I tested my sites in IE8 - all were mis-aligned is some way or another.

For a quick fix, that piece of code is a ****** blessing. Well done IE! I still hate you, though!
Click to expand...
Would you attitude be different if Firefox 4 had the same effect?
 
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