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Adding CSS3 Support To IE 6, 7 and 8 With CSS3 Pie
rsk writes "Internet Explorer 6, 7 and to some extent 8 have been the bane of every CSS-loving web developer for years. With the spreading adoption of CSS3's fancier rendering effects, like rounded edges, drop shadows and linear gradients, the frustration of needing to deal with IE compatibility is growing. 327 Creative's Jason Johnston has created the CSS3 Pie library to address this. CSS3 Pie adds support for CSS3's most popular rendering techniques to Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 by way of the IE-only CSS property 'behavior.' CSS3 Pie is open sourced under the Apache 2 license and can be accessed from its github repository."
Honestly, while I realize that there are some people out there using IE, I almost never make it a priority in development. "Oh, it doesn't work? What browser are you using? Internet explorer? Oh, that's the issue then." Why are we trying to fix something that is broken by design and is about as closed as a nun's c**t?
If by "some people" you mean a majority.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Me either. But on those rare occasions when I'm not developing for unicorns, I have to consider the real world.
This isn't pointless - do you understand what this is? This isn't for people that use IE, it's for people that develop websites for IE. This is a Godsend for me.
Developing nice-looking websites in Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera is easy as PIE (pun intended), but when you want that same site to look good in IE it's a fucking nightmare. This provides some easy ways of making a site look nice in all the major browsers without a huge coding headache.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
If CSS3 Pie can gain traction among developers this will push the benefits of a unified Code Standard massively.
A site can be written in CSS3 now and work almost everywhere. If IE9 can get it all right the transition to an open
playing field for any group creating a browser will make life easier for developers and i hate to say it but users too.
newtown, I think that's probably a fair statement... but the library is intended for developers that have to target a luddite crowd that either cannot change or doesn't know any better.
Imagine, for example, the requirements BofA.com or Wellsfargo.com has... they probably have to target IE 6 for another 5 years given their user base and that rules out a lot of nice looking CSS... this library addresses that for those devs that have to target crowds that aren't up to date.
It's pretty damn slick actually... technologically speaking, that it can even *do* this stuff in the first place.
I didn't even know IE 6 could render text correctly let alone run JavaScript effectively enough to mock this stuff up in it.
If you were intelligent enough to know how to install CSS3 Pie*, you wouldn't even use IE.
*not exactly "install" per se seeing as it's a library, not an application but you know what I mean. Hopefully.
You seem to have misunderstood what this is about... The end-user doesn't install anything. The .htc resides on the server and it's the developer who includes the library and makes it work.
To be fair, however, CSS3 Pie isn't something that you should actually use, considering that it slows down the browser massively and it just adds the ability to display useless visual cruft.
This library, on the other hand, is several orders of magnitude more useful (and I'm dead serious about it): http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/
tehn the morons wont show up as much as they do
I know CSS3 Pie basically only lets you display eye candy, but you have to understand some web developers' clients WANT this shit. They don't understand good minimalist design, they want things to be shiny and flashy.
That JS library looks pretty awesome. The PNG transparency in IE6 is nice, but it also says it fixes CSS issues - does it just fix bugs in the way IE renders CSS, or does it implement JS equivalents of modern CSS eye candy like CSS3 Pie too? If so, I'd use it.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
the last thing we need is more people coming up with hacks to give PHBs another excuse not to leave the dark ages.
If anything, we need more of the web dev tools to make pages that are outright guaranteed not to work with IE6-7.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Exactly. This is awesome!
Totally agree. It's for us developers. I'm going to use just about everything it supports, maybe even later today. My buttons are gonna look SO GOOD.
A lot of CSS2 features don't even work correctly in IE6 and IE7: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_(Cascading_Style_Sheets)
A lot of the really useful selectors, for instance, aren't available in IE6. Not to mention min-width/max-width, and white-space:pre. And using left and right in the same rule makes IE6/IE7 ignore right. In IE6/IE7, there's plenty that goes unimplemented, like :active and :before and outline and display:table; and border-style:dotted; and vertical-align:middle; and background-position:fixed;.
These aren't obscure features no one uses, these are all features I've wanted to use while designing my webpages that are supported by every other browser that IE6 and IE7 don't support.
We should really be looking to fix those, first.
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
"CSS has been the bane of every information-loving web user for years."
Just give us the content! You're not an 'artist' and you're certainly not a 'programmer.'
That JS library looks pretty awesome. The PNG transparency in IE6 is nice, but it also says it fixes CSS issues - does it just fix bugs in the way IE renders CSS, or does it implement JS equivalents of modern CSS eye candy like CSS3 Pie too? If so, I'd use it.
Look here:
http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/test/index.html
No, it doesn't include the fancy shadows and rounded borders, but you get extremely helpful CSS selectors and even some really basic HTML5 functionality when it comes to IE7/8. The fixes for IE6 are incredible if you are unfortunate enough to be forced to develop for it; this makes things a lot better.
It so just happens that people develop for platform X because of reasons Y. In this case, there is one reason: popularity and third-party support / enforcing. So, a logical diagram shows that for one to stop having to develop for platform X, then reason Y has to stop existing. This means that for us to stop developing for IE, it has to stop being supported, used and enforced.
So, the next question is: How do we do it? One of the possible (and probably *smartest*) answers is: let it die, or don't allow your websites to use it.
Nevertheless, saying that "This isn't for people that use IE, it's for people that develop websites for I" ends up being redundant and, IMO, silly, as I just logically demonstrated.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
"Good minimalist design" and "shiny and flashy" aren't in any way mutually exclusive.
Azural - instrumentals
Designers win, because they use one design (compliant, too!), for all browsers. Users win, because everyone sees the same design/version/look.
Best yet, when you pile on a library that fixes CSS3 (this article), and one to fix the CSS box model ( http://webdesign.about.com/od/css/a/aaboxmodelhack.htm ), and then another to fix the png transparency issue ( http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/ ), and another to add canvas support ( http://excanvas.sourceforge.net/ ), and another ...
Then you explain that everyone will see the same design (yay!), and people using older browsers will experience a VERY SLOW page load. That is why they should upgrade to a more up to date browser.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Launched IE-8 on my laptop for the first time in months and pointed it at the site's homepage.
While it displays fine, you can feel the lag when scrolling/resizing the window. I cannot imagine what it would be like on an older machine running IE-6.
That said.... the library is unique, inventive, and solves a serious issue with cross-browser compatibility... kudos for thinking outside the box!
Doing the silly thing of answering to myself, I should add that I get what you said (parent misunderstood the library), but I still disagree with it being an atomsend.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Won't be a better solution to use instead Google Chrome Frame? (IF you still have to run IE, at least)
95% of my clients want their shit to work well in IE because, unfortunately, most people still use it.
First make your clients' shit look good in Google Chrome and IE 8, which is far less broken than 6 or 7. Then set your site to use Chrome Frame, a plug-in that uses Chrome's engine on pages that opt in.
Testing in Lynx is fairly important if your client is subject to section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act (or foreign counterparts) because a lot of web browsers designed for blind people act like Lynx.
Can one install Google Chrome Frame without being a member of the Administrators group? A lot of people who need to visit web sites and cannot use anything but IE 6 or 7 are limited users who do not know the password to any administrative account on the computer. This is the case in the office (where the web sites are those of suppliers or clients), in the break room at work, at school, and at the public library. Because this workaround is CSS and JavaScript, it will work without administrative privileges.
This isn't new... see also: http://fetchak.com/ie-css3
Then you explain that everyone will see the same design (yay!), and people using older browsers will experience a VERY SLOW page load. That is why they should upgrade to a more up to date browser.
Users are impatient.
Users don't give a damn why your page loads slowly and they won't take the time to hear you out. They will be gone before you can put up your Chrome or Firefox logo.
The one website that has defeated every browser I've tried is Slashdot. There is no more quirky and unresponsive a front page on the web.
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Well obviously letting IE die is the way to fix the REAL problem. This isn't about the real problem - this is about a really nice bandaid.
I'm not so idealistic that I'm going to refuse to make sites work in IE and thus put myself starving on the streets - because I don't write sites for myself. I write them for clients who have ignorant customers, who are probably using IE.
It may not seem like a big deal, but these CSS3 properties can instantly make a site look nicer to a client that doesn't know much about design. These are things they demand anyway. Now it's a lot easier to do them.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
argh, /. removed the html.. that was meant to say "using [div style="clear:both"] is layout not content".
... and vertical-align:middle. The float hacks that people have to use to simulate display:table are truly awful, quite probably the very worst thing about CSS nowadays.
I suppose that you're no worse off it they don't. Folks who turn JavaScript off are used to pages looking awful.
This library, on the other hand, is several orders of magnitude more useful (and I'm dead serious about it): http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/
I have tried this library recently (IE9.js specifically). It worked as advertised in many situations. However I also ran into a case where it broke a layout in IE6 that was previously working ok. It's a great library, but not a drop-in solution for all the IE5/6 problems it claims to fix. Like many IE hacks, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
For those of us who operate in the real world.
Are you *really* going to say no when a you can get $0000's (yes that's 4 zeros) from a big company by developing a web app/site for them because they require it to work in IE6/7? There are lots of reason's why this might be the case, not just slow/lazy/non-existent IT department. Some dept's have to audit and justify all software upgrades to some kind of higher tier of management, even "free" ones, some have backwards compatibility issues with their existing internal applications, or require an ActiveX/COM plugin.
If you don't want to take the job because it seems like too much effort or hard work, then fine, someone else will, and they'll take the money too. But don't get all preachy round here because of your supposed purity, some of us have bills to pay and mouths to feed and a job is a job and if you do the job well and it comes out Shiney on their crappy old IE6 Pentium 2's then they're also likely to recommend you to the next firm. Queue up those digits.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
The way you've put it, 4 zeroes are no better than one.
If you meant, say, $10000 that's still not all that much. Sure for a one-time, one-developer project it might be okay. But that's nothing if you're developing a site for a big company.
He can do it, but MS can't?