IE rendering differences between win versions

Tripnologist · 24 Nov 2009 at 10:14

Anyone noticed this?

IE will often ignore bottom margin, we all know this. FF, Opera, etc, they handle it how they should.

However, I've just come across an actual browser variation depending on OS.
on Win7 with IE8, bottom margin is applied but with IE8 on XP or Vista, it's not applied.

As far as I knew, IE always rendered the page the same regardless of what version of windows you had. It was only the version of IE which mattered. Apparently not anymore.

Draeger · 24 Nov 2009 at 11:10

Hmmm. Didn't know that. Don't expect there would be much we could do about it?.

Tripnologist · 24 Nov 2009 at 12:55

No, nothing at all.

I usually always use bottom padding where I can, or alternatively use top margin on the lower element as I'm not sure what causes IE to ignore bottom margin as it doesn't always.

Just thought I would ask to see if this was a commonly known thing (which I doubted), and to warn anyone else who might run into it.

gord · 24 Nov 2009 at 13:06

You couldn't elaborate a bit further please?

What is the margin applied to?
Has the element been altered in any way from its default style? Display? Float?

I am curious as I would have come across this with a recent project, which I developed on XP and and looked at on Win 7 and it was fine.

Tripnologist · 24 Nov 2009 at 14:02

It's just margin collapsing.

http://www.brunildo.org/test/IEMargCollLay.html

In my case, it was floated elements with bottom margin, inside of a cleared container, so the container should have included the margin in its dimensions.

gord · 24 Nov 2009 at 14:14

Isn't hasLayout deprecated yet? I never usually specify it.

Still, that links shows No to hasLayout is fine across the board.

I get the feeling we are missing something and that its not as simple as the OS making the difference. Or at least, something a web developer could set to make it cross compatible.

jake_ie8team · 24 Nov 2009 at 22:22

IE 8's Compatibility View mode may be activated in one instance and not in the other, depending on which OS you're running it on. Compatibility View forces IE 8 to render and display web pages as IE 7 would have. It's activated by clicking the icon to the right of the address bar that looks like a broken piece of paper. It may be turned on on one of the OS's you're trying it on and turned off on the other.

- Jake

MSFT Internet Explorer Outreach Team