I'm using the dropdown menu from http://www.wappler.eu/swdropdownmenu/ and it works fine in all browsers except IE.. the demo on the website works in IE, and the only thing i've changed is the styling.. mine is at http://www.futureworkinstitute.com/2010/ - at first i thought it might have been a conflict between scriptaculous/prototype/jquery, but even after removing other JS, it still doesnt work.
The problem is that you have not included a doctype on your website.
With few exceptions, the first line of every new page you create should be this, the HTML5 doctype:
<!DOCTYPE html>
Because you haven't included a doctype, your page is rendering in Quirks mode in IE8:
Quirks mode is a rendering mode used
by some web browsers for the sake of
maintaining backward compatibility
with web pages designed for older
browsers or coded without standards
conformance.
If you add in that magical doctype line, your drop down works in IE8 and IE7.
I did not notice any significant unpleasant side effects by adding in the doctype, but after adding it, you should test your entire site in every browser you care about to make sure your site still works properly.
Related
I've created a form that is dynamically created with JavaScript and is added in another website using the <script> tag.
The doctype used by this other website is <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> which uses the quirks mode.
I've built my form by taking this in consideration and everything is working as expected in Chrome, Firefox and IE 10. However, when I test it in IE 9 and earlier, the form is not displayed at all. When I open the developper tools, I can see that IE 10 uses the new quirks mode but IE 9 and earlier uses the IE5 Quirks mode.
I was wondering if the new quirks mode can be used to display this page when using IE 9 and earlier. If this is not possible, I would like to force standard mode but only when using IE 9 or earlier and keep using quirks for every other browser.
I can't use the html5 doctype since their website is built with quirks mode instead of standards and their design is all broken when I use this doctype.
You cannot change the mode once the page is loaded. And you cannot change it programmatically. The only way to force a page into quirks mode is to load it without a valid doctype or with serious bugs in the HTML.
If you have a doctype, but your page is still loading in quirks mode, then it means that you have serious bugs in your HTML. This will give you bigger problems than just being in quirks mode. You should definitely fix those bugs. If you really want to be in quirks mode, drop the doctype, but you should really try not to have HTML code that is so bad it triggers quirks mode even with a doctype!
You can validate your HTML to find those bugs by using the W3C validator.
In terms of switching your page at runtime between IE10's two different quirks modes, the simple answer is that you can't do that.
Sorry about that.
However, to be honest, it's probably for the best. Using quirks mode is be a complete disaster anyway. It doesn't just change the layout mode; it also switches off most of the browser's features (ie pretty much everything invented since 1998).
But now for the good news:
Luckily, switching away from Quirks mode is a lot easier than you think.
The main layout issue (the different box model) can be fixed by adding the following to the top of your CSS:
*{box-sizing:border-box;}
This is the standards-compliant way to set the box model to the quirks-mode style layout. Most of the broken layout problems cause by switching from quirks mode to standards mode can be resolved with this simple CSS style.
There are other quirks, but they're relatively minor and shouldn't be too hard to deal with once you've fixed the main issue. A lot of them are actually not quirks mode issues, but bugs in older IE versions that the original coder may have had to hack his way around. There's no guarantee that these will continue working the same in future versions anyway, even if you do stick to quirks mode, so you would be best off fixing them now anyway.
So, to summarise:
Fix your page so it loads in standards mode. Valid doctype and valid HTML.
Use box-sizing to mitigate the main layout gremlins caused by the switch.
Fix the remaining layout issues manually.
It's really a lot less work than it sounds. Honest.
I have just finished the layout for my website, and it is working perfectly fine in all browsers (Opera, Safari, Chrome, IE 7, 8, 9, 10 (both), and several others) - but this time around, the Compatibility View button in the address bar of IE 10 is appearing. This has not happened for a very long time and it's really annoying me.
I don't want the Compatibility View button to display at all. It sends a bad message to viewers/visitors. In this case, I have tested my whole site on different computers all running different browsers and different versions of browsers and I have not noticed a single problem.
Why is the Compatibility View button appearing if there are no issues?
Here's the problem, and like I said, everything works fine - except for when I turn ON Compatibility View in IE 10. When I turn it ON, the only things in my entire website I can see is my logo, and a little image in the top right corner of the page (but they're positioned exactly where I wanted them). What gives?
There's nothing wrong with the code - seriously. i've had it validated several times, all AJAX stuff works like a charm, and I really tried so hard to find a problem and I even intentionally tried to mess it up but it's working really well. The positioning of everything is spot on.
So what's the deal with this Compatibility View junk? Why is it there - on a website that does not have any issues? And, most importantly, is it important that I make sure my website works well while in Compatibility View even though it works perfectly when it's off and even though it works perfectly in all the major browsers - and then some?
First and foremost, you can force IE not to display the Compatibility View button simply by adding this to your page head:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
As for your other questions:
Why is the Compatibility View button appearing if there are no issues?
So what's the deal with this Compatibility View junk? Why is it there - on a website that does not have any issues?
It's there in case a site, typically one that was written many years ago, fails to work in a newer version of IE, to allow users to view or IE to display it in a legacy rendering mode where it will hopefully work better.
Additionally, it's there by default because legacy sites will not even have the meta tag above to begin with. In order for the button to display when viewing existing sites without having to update their code, it's only logical to make it an opt-out feature instead, by having the developer add it to new code to tell newer versions of IE to hide the button when it's not needed.
And, most importantly, is it important that I make sure my website works well while in Compatibility View even though it works perfectly when it's off and even though it works perfectly in all the major browsers - and then some?
Compatibility View is meant for websites that were specifically designed for legacy browsers, and as such, depend on legacy rendering quirks not present in more recent browsers which may cause "problems" in those more recent browsers.
Without seeing your site, we won't be able to determine why it works in IE7 and IE10 in IE7 mode but not Compatibility View, but if it works well in newer versions of IE, you do not need to ensure that it works well in Compatibility View. Using the meta tag above to hide the button when it's not necessary will suffice.
Can you provide us a link to your site? I always use
<!DOCTYPE html>
on the first line of the HTML document. This is a universal switch to the latest rendering mode in all modern browsers. Use BoltClock's solution to hide a compatible view button in IE's address bar. I would prefer a HTTP header rather than HTML meta tag, because the meta tag causes parser switch and reset.
I've been working on a PHP project for University, and as I'm rubbish at PHP I've left the design very simple so I can concentrate on the programming side of things. Now the programming is working I'm working on the design. The site looks fine in Chrome and other webkit browsers but in IE9 it looks awful. The main problems are...
1 - Background image expands the div to the full image size, whereas in webkit is only fills the div size.
2 - Content is not centred, instead it is floated left.
Does anyone know any scripts/hacks I can use to get IE to perform like every other browser? The only thing I'm using at the minute is Modernizr.
You can have a look at the site here if it helps - http://newmedia.leeds.ac.uk/ug10/cs10cwh/pod/index.php.
Modernizr can help, especially if you're using newer things like html5 and css3. Another thing that can help is boilerplate code, I personally like the html5reset.
One particular thing from that is going to help you a lot: if I look at your site in IE it says it goes into Quirks mode, making IE7, 8, and 9 behave... well... quirky :) Place the following meta tag in your head section to improve things for IE:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
You can see what "Browser Mode" and "Document Mode" IE is running in by bringing up the developer toolbar (F12), you can tweak it temporarily for your browsing session to see what happens if document mode is "IE9 standards".
A short update. You may also want to try using w3 validator. One of the errors it gives me for your site:
Line 1, Column 15: Comments seen before doctype. Internet Explorer will
go into the quirks mode.
There are also a few errors on unclosed tags, which can throw off rendering.
What we do is using a seperate .css for the IE versions and in the root we determine the browser and include that .css
So include your normal css for all browsers and for the IE versions include the specific .css file which overwrites the necessary party of the main stylesheet.
Edit: And like Jeroen said, force the IE to render in it's real mode, not some compatible or quirks thing.
I have implemented a tagcloud onto my webpage, instead of words I am using images and I am calling colorbox to provide a nice styled overlay and a biography of that person.
All of this works correctly in EVERY browser except IE.
I am using another colorbox overlay that does work on that same page, it is not in the tagcanvas area.
I noticed the IE9 Console throwing this at me:
HTML1113: Document mode restart from IE9 Standards to Quirks
Has anyone seen this before? Is there a way to stop it from switching to Quirks mode? I have tried a few different doctypes, even some meta tags like:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=9">
Still, no dice! Ideas?
Your doctype is probably missing an FSI.
Doctype sniffing works by detecting which of these parts are present in the doctype declaration. If an FPI is present, but an FSI isn’t, browsers generally choose quirks mode, since this was the common way of writing doctype declarations in the old days. Browsers also choose quirks mode if the doctype declaration is missing altogether—which used to be very common—or is malformed.
See: http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/doctypesniffing
I got this page that works OK in Chrome, and it doesn't in IE9.
I tried making a new css for the IE9 page, using a conditional comment in the html code. That's okay.
But then I tried including a doctype statement... and the following happens:
when I include the doctype in the html file, everything is messed up
(even in Chrome) but once I deleted it, the page looks great in
Chrome and IE9.
If I restart IE9 (or remove temporary data) the page doesn't work
again.
I don't really know what's happening.
Any help would be really appreciated.
As has already been said, always use a doctype. Without one, IE renders in quirks mode, and what you get will be very different from what you get in other browsers.
If you code looks bad with a doctype, then I would suggest your code is bad to begin with. You've designed your site to quirksmode, which is going to give you results that seem random (they're not, but it will seem that way).
You're going to have to redesign your site to use standards mode. Then it will look the same (or similar) in all modern browsers.
First, you should always include a doctype. It tells the browser what set of rules you're going to be playing by.
If you omit a doctype, IE will assume your markup is ancient, and trigger Quirks Mode, which is essentially the rendering of IE 5.5. Side effects of this include the IE box model bug.
Without seeing any markup, I strongly recommend validating your markup and CSS using the W3C validators. Often times, Chrome and FireFox are "better" at guessing the meaning of questionable markup, IE not so much.
First of all, it's hard to find a solution without seeing your HTML/CSS. Generally, you shouldn't need a separate CSS file for IE...
Also I suggest you try using the HTML5 Boilerplate to help minimise browser inconsistencies. This should solve most problems unless it's an error in your CSS.