IE7 Compatibility a Developer Nightmare

yavori writes "Internet Explorer 7 has kicked in at last on all MS Windows OS running PCs because of the fact M$ decided to force it's users to migrate through update. In fact this has started a IE7 Web Developers Nightmare. The article actually explains that most of the small company B2C sites may just fall from grace because of IE7 incompatibility. One of the coolest thing IE7 is unable to do is actually processing form data when clicked on an INPUT field of TYPE IMG... which is pretty uncool for those using entire payment processes with such INPUT fields."

Comments

Just in case it *is* broken

[Oddscurity]

The developer could use a bit of javascript to hide the submit button, show the wanted image. Then an OnClick event on the image submits the form as per usual. This way it'll also degrade properly when javascript is disabled, seeing as the non-image submit is defaulted to.

Re:Just in case it *is* broken

[The Anomalyzer]

Using JS for something like this is a bad idea. Thanks to CNet's JavaScript hysteria (see below), more and more people seem to be turning JS off these days.

Better solution: use the IE-only conditional comments feature to show one type of input element to IE, but the image input to everyone else. Done properly, your markup will even still validate despite the proprietary cruft. (because the cruft just looks like comments to the validator and every sane browser on the planet)

That's if this is actually an issue.

References

CNet tells how JavaScript will eat your babies: http://snipurl.com/16u4z

Conditional comments: http://snipurl.com/16u5j

Complex selections with conditional comments: This is totally cool and absolutely invaluable. Look toward the bottom of this article -- http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/multi IE.html

Re:Just in case it *is* broken

[syousef]

robably stems from the IE workarounds that were poorly done falling apart under IE7, or something similar. In other words, it's partly the fault of the developers

Just what were the developers suppose to do? *NOT* work around the bugs and non-compliance??? Or keep web sites so basic they didn't fulfil their business function???

Re:Just in case it *is* broken

[delinear]

That's the whole point the GP was making - you insert a standard submit button in the page, then you use javascript to replace that button with your fancy image. If some visitors then have javascript disabled, they will still see the standard submit button and hopefully be able to use the site. Everyone else will get the prettified version.

In this case, conditional comments aren't the way to go if you need to maintain a particular design - javascript will serve the design as its meant to look to the most number of users while allowing the site to gracefully degrade for users savvy enough to disable scripting. Using conditional comments to hide the image submit from IE (and I don't believe for a second that image submits don't work in IE7, I mean FTW?) would just deny the site design to the vast majority of your audience. In terms of most styling issues though, you are 100% correct, conditional comments beat hacks every time because they are future-proof in a way hacks were never guaranteed to be.

Remember, there's nothing wrong with using javascript so long as your site works just as well with scripting disabled.

Completely and 100% untrue

[NineNine]

This is just fucking ridiculous. This little rant is not only incoherent, but it's 100% wrong. See for yourself.

Jesus, do Slashdot editors actually *do* anything? Seriously. Do any of them actually *read* the articles they're posting, or is it all about pageviews and keywords?

Affects Apps, too, not just web sites

[transporter_ii]

I sold a bunch of ebooks created with ebook software that used IE, and has worked with every version of IE since Internet Explorer 4+. The first book I sold after the IE 7 update, wouldn't work. Which means that every person who upgrades to IE 7 that I have sold an ebook too, will not be able to read their books.

Yes, I know the dangers of going with a proprietary solution, and I would love a cross-platform solution that "just worked," but I chose the software because it not only did everything I needed security wise, but was incredibly easy for the end user (e.g. just download it and double-click it).

Emails to the creator of the program have gone unanswered, too. So chalk this up for one more reason to use open source!

On the bright side, I did sell enough ebooks to just about break even on the cost of the software...and it really was an excellent program while it lasted. ;)

Transporter_ii

Re:Microsoft does suck

[rfunk]

I'm a professional web developer, and I stopped worrying about IE 5 about a year ago. None of my clients seem to have noticed or cared. They're happy as long as IE 6 works (and Firefox if I'm lucky, and soon IE7, though they're generally not there yet).

My web stats aren't showing much if any IE 5 traffic either.

Re:Not a useful article, really

[cdwiegand]

Sure, try using a variable named status or error. In IE7, MS silently makes those reserved words. How do I know? I used them in my AJAX library at my old job. Weirdly, IE7 would break, with IE6/FF wouldn't. After doing some testing, I eventually found out that you can't have a variable named either of those two in IE7's JS. And I found NOTHING on the web anywhere where they (or anyone) said that that wasn't allowed....

News?

[eldepeche]

This is just a fucking whiny blog post. Give me a break.

Re:Vague FUD

[ctstone]

IE does not submit the value attribute of an image input. This makes it a bit difficult to have multiple buttons in the same form with the same name attribute. This means that each image input must have a unique name in order to tell them apart on the server.

Further reading at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/imagebutton.h tml
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.ww w.authoring.cgi/browse_thread/thread/aca99089127ac f0f?rnum=1

Re:Vague FUD

[Mr. Slippery]

Make that "Lynx" ..... (www.lynx.org) which is a 'command line only' browser.

No, I think he meant Links, which is a more advanced text based browser.

Re:This is so True

[NickFitz]

The textContent property is defined in DOM Level 3. Microsoft has never claimed to support that recommendation, and neither Apple nor Opera claim support for it either. Gecko supports it, although the documentation doesn't make it clear that it's from DOM Level 3. If you write code using features supported by only one browser, then you can hardly complain if it doesn't work on other browsers. What you've done is no different from a developer who codes only for IE-specific features, and then whines when they don't work on Firefox.

Coding to standards is important, but you're better off coding to the standards that have been implemented. Otherwise you're just playing with the cool new stuff that you like, and that's not how work gets done in the real world.

Re:Vague FUD

[Juggle]

Except that that's an issue IE has had for a long time. At least it exists in IE6.

So I'd have to assume it's not what the "article" (I have a hard time calling a rant on a blog an actual article) was talking about. If it is then the problem would have been present with IE6 as well.

Then again as poorly written as that blog was maybe they had never tested in IE6 and assumed this was a new problem.

Understand on what you are commenting!

[LuckyStarr]

Damn the modpoints...

IE has a problem with: <input type="img" name="button" value="hitme">

I don't understand how this is a problem NOW, as IE has had this problem for a long time. What the above snippet gets you is not "button=hitme", but instead "button.x=15, button.y=10" or something similar. IE returns you the coordinates where you clicked on the image, but not the value!!! Right. There is no value. Who would need that anyway? Doh.

Don't remember exactly when I ran into this bug, a few years ago at least. One fix at that time involved creating names of a certain structure which could then be matched by regexes so you can extract the value from the name(!). If there is a most ugly hack I ever made, this has to be it. Luckily my memory regarding this topic is blurry as I do not do webdesign anymore.

For further insight see this more recent blogpost.

The modern solution to this is obvious:

1. Don't use type="img"
   
2. Style your buttons with CSS instead
   

Thanks for reading and understanding.

Re:Microsoft does suck

[FinestLittleSpace]

Yes:
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
(link on that page for standalone IE7, too)

All our developers at work have this installed, plus all the other windows browsers, plus a Mac with a few relevant browsers. In fact if they weren't devout Windows/Linux developers I'm sure they could do the whole thing on a mac using parallels.

Web developer here...

[adamjaskie]

As an anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux, Mac-using, pro-Firefox web developer that works for a University and thus has to cater to IE users, this writer was pleasantly surprised when he experienced very few issues even during his first IE7 compatibility tests. As none of the issues he did encounter were show-stoppers, he has been forced to conclude that IE7 is a huge leap forward, and the rapid replacement of IE6 with just about anything, Microsoft or otherwise, can only mean good things for the web as a whole.

Who's making our sites?

[suv4x4]

FTFA:

IE 7 has kicked in at last on all MS Windows OS ... IE7 was supposed to comply more with the standards what in fact isn't true ... IE7 is a night mare ... standards for crossbrowsing ... many things does not function as expected and "not function as expected" isn't the right word for it ... I found that submiting through JavaScript has some pretty uncool things which I don't actually blame IE but some functions did not work when not passing all the parameters and so on ... And the MOST killer thing was the DISability of IE ... the whole sites data... I don't actually blame the programmers that they did it so but IE for not keeping with standards again ... and this with crush some of the small companies business

Jar Jar Binks, you're in big doo-doo this time. How many times have we told you: web development is not for Gungans!

Notice he had the task of making a IE-only site work in Firefox. You can imagine the kind of code he was working with, no wonder it was breaking in IE7.

And this is just brilliance:

And a final TIP from me! Try avoiding writing JavaScript without testing it 100% on all of the major used web browsers like FireFox, IE7, Opera and Safari!

As a professional web developer this is completely new to me. I mean, actually test in the browsers we deploy?! It's all Microsoft's fault, I tell you!

Re:unprofessional

[Macthorpe]

I know that answers coming from ACs don't usually help so allow me:

Yes, it does.

You have to not only agree to download and install the update (either automatically or by notification), and then you get a SECOND window asking you whether you want to install it, which pops up regardless of whether you have automatic set or not.

The only time it won't pop up is if your network administrator decides to install it across all computers on the network. THEN you don't get a choice, but then it was hardly your choice to begin with anyway, hmm?