Fixing CSS bugs in IE6
2008-03-28 
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All Internet Explorers are known to be buggy, those bugs are every where, in parsing HTML, executing JavaScript and of course in applying CSS Style Sheets to HTML elements.
These days Microsoft is introducing IE8, which will, as they say be standard complaint , but for now there is IE7 which is almost standard complaint and there is IE6 which is complaint to very small number of standards.
Problem with testing web site design in different Internet Explorers is that by default you can not install different versions on same Windows operating system. There are many solutions for that problem, for example you could install two Windows operating systems on you computer, or you could install virtual operating system, or you can find some sites that takes screen shots of your design from different browsers. All these approaches have their weaknesses and are complicated. There is one more solution and that is to install stand alone Internet Explorer, you can find many solutions on the internet, one of them is or are MultipleIEs by Tredosoft, you can download that program from here MultipleIEs page. That solution contains all Internet Explorers to the version 6.0. So it is possible to have installed IE 7.0 and with MultipleIEs you can test your web design with IE 6.0 and if you like with IE 5.5. Viewing your design in versions prior to IE 5.5 can show you what problems have designers encountered in past.
Now that you can view your design in all IEs, you can start debugging your design. Best way for design to be compatible with all used browsers is this. Start designing for Mozilla Firefox, and in the process of design check how your design looks in IE7. If you like you can look how it looks in Opera, but that is not necessary, because Opera is with Firefox and Safari most standard compliant. After you finished your design you take a look in IE6 and then fix bugs. But be careful not to mess up the design for Firefox or IE7. Best way to do this is to include separate CSS for fixing bugs, maybe you will need to do this for IE7 also.
Including separate CSS for IEs is done like this:
this code placed in <body> tag will include ieFix.css for all versions of IE browsers before version 7.0.
You can also target specific version by writing:
[if IE 6] this will target IE 6.0
or you can target versions of IE after specific version by writing:
[if gt IE 5.5] this will target IE6, IE7 and maybe IE8, I said maybe IE8 because it is possible that Microsoft not include recognizing of this browser targeting method in IE8, we will have to wait an see.
In that separate CSS Style Sheet you can modify previously defined styles to fix bugs in IE 6 for example, but don not forget to include this fixing CSS Style Sheet after your regular CSS Style Sheets, because that is how CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) work, last included CSS is applied.
Now I am going to fix IE 6 CSS bugs on this site.
These days Microsoft is introducing IE8, which will, as they say be standard complaint , but for now there is IE7 which is almost standard complaint and there is IE6 which is complaint to very small number of standards.
Problem with testing web site design in different Internet Explorers is that by default you can not install different versions on same Windows operating system. There are many solutions for that problem, for example you could install two Windows operating systems on you computer, or you could install virtual operating system, or you can find some sites that takes screen shots of your design from different browsers. All these approaches have their weaknesses and are complicated. There is one more solution and that is to install stand alone Internet Explorer, you can find many solutions on the internet, one of them is or are MultipleIEs by Tredosoft, you can download that program from here MultipleIEs page. That solution contains all Internet Explorers to the version 6.0. So it is possible to have installed IE 7.0 and with MultipleIEs you can test your web design with IE 6.0 and if you like with IE 5.5. Viewing your design in versions prior to IE 5.5 can show you what problems have designers encountered in past.
Now that you can view your design in all IEs, you can start debugging your design. Best way for design to be compatible with all used browsers is this. Start designing for Mozilla Firefox, and in the process of design check how your design looks in IE7. If you like you can look how it looks in Opera, but that is not necessary, because Opera is with Firefox and Safari most standard compliant. After you finished your design you take a look in IE6 and then fix bugs. But be careful not to mess up the design for Firefox or IE7. Best way to do this is to include separate CSS for fixing bugs, maybe you will need to do this for IE7 also.
Including separate CSS for IEs is done like this:
this code placed in <body> tag will include ieFix.css for all versions of IE browsers before version 7.0.
You can also target specific version by writing:
[if IE 6] this will target IE 6.0
or you can target versions of IE after specific version by writing:
[if gt IE 5.5] this will target IE6, IE7 and maybe IE8, I said maybe IE8 because it is possible that Microsoft not include recognizing of this browser targeting method in IE8, we will have to wait an see.
In that separate CSS Style Sheet you can modify previously defined styles to fix bugs in IE 6 for example, but don not forget to include this fixing CSS Style Sheet after your regular CSS Style Sheets, because that is how CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) work, last included CSS is applied.
Now I am going to fix IE 6 CSS bugs on this site.
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