IE8 Is Among Us And So Is The Meta Tag

May 24, 2008 at 9:55 am · Filed under Broken on IE8, CSS Disasters, Frustrations

Yesterday Microsoft posted on it’s support page a solution for the following problem: “Your Web site may not display correctly in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1,” which has the following symptoms:

• Misaligned Web page layout
• Overlapping text or images
• JavaScript functionality issues and errors

There solution is simple. First, you need to verify that this is a IE8 specific problem by:

1. Opening IE8
2. Clicking the emulate IE7 button (which is not that great of an IE7 emulator)
3. Close IE8
4. Open IE8 back up.
5. Verify that the emulate IE7 button is checked
6. Navigate to the Website in question
7. Check to see if the problems are gone.
8. Click the emulate IE7 button
9. Close IE8
10. Open IE8
11. Verify that the emulate IE7 button is not checked
12. Navigate to the Website in question
13. Check to see if the problems are there again

In as little as 13 easy steps you can be certain that IE8 sucks and is the cause of your Websites not displaying correctly.

I know Microsoft only posts 6 steps but if you read carefully they cram two, three or four in one line to make it seem as 6 when it is really 13.

But, that’s ok. The steps are simple enough and at least they offer us a way to test in two of their browsers with out the need of different computers or the Multiple IE program. The problem is the solution they give for this issue: “To resolve these issues, Web site owners and administrators can add a meta-tag that tells Internet Explorer 8 to display an entire site or a specific page like Internet Explorer 7.” In other words: “Call your Web Developer and ask for a quote for adding a Meta Tag to all the pages in your Website. Please remember that your Web Developer may be going insane with several similar requests by all his clients who are experiencing the same problem.”

Some may say that I shouldn’t be complaining since this may result in more money thrown my way just to add a simple meta tag in a bunch of pages. Although I won’t argue that some more money may come my way, I already made clear the scenario most likely to happen on this post: More on the Meta Nightmare. So you don’t have to click on the link I’ll summarize it here for you: Some clients might understand and be ok with paying to get their websites updated for IE8 although they might not understand why a newer browser doesn’t work with their current website. Others, may need a little bit more time (time = money) for us to explain why this needs to happen and why they need to pay us and may decide to do it, keep the website as it is or, the one I’m scared about, go somewhere else thinking that their web developer doesn’t know what he’s doing since Microsoft is a Multi Billion dollar company and they must know what they are doing.

But let’s end the post in an optimistic mode. If this happens, if I loose a client because of this meta tag I’m pretty sure I could sue Microsoft for damages and then a lot of money may be thrown my way. Maybe I should revise my posts and praise the meta tag. Who knows, right?

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I Wouldn’t Go As Far As Shooting, But He Makes A Point

May 22, 2008 at 9:54 pm · Filed under Broken on IE7, Broken on IE8, CSS Disasters

I think I finally found a Website that expresses as much hatred for Microsoft and their IE browsers as we do here at Stupid IE.

Andrew at Floor44.co.uk have written a very interesting post giving even more reasons to shot kill throw pies in the faces of all Microsoft developers for the rest of their existence.

In the post, Andrew has an image of the compatibility table for CSS3 and folks, let me tell you something: It i not looking good. I really don’t get all the hype of some people about IE8 when it is actually worse, at least as far as css selectors go, than IE7. I mean, and I said this more than twice before, shouldn’t an update or a new version be better than the previous one?

Oh Microsoft, really I don’t condone shooting people or killing them by any other means. But seriously Microsoft, you are pushing a lot of people. Maybe is just time to sue.

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Update on IE7 Emulate button

May 5, 2008 at 7:09 am · Filed under Broken on IE8, CSS Disasters

Update: It still doesn’t work correctly so god knows what we are going to expect with IE8 multi running mode that is supposed to not break websites that where previously working with IE7.

Since I hadn’t tested this myself I couldn’t assure the button was not working correctly. But today I ran into this post which has a nice screen shot of the problem. You can see for yourself how the IE7 emulate button is pressed.

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Fun With IE8 & Maps

March 7, 2008 at 2:38 pm · Filed under Broken on IE8, CSS Disasters, Frustrations, Scripts, ie8

After posting about IE8 breaking suckerfish, I kept trying some of my sites and luckily one of them had a Google Map. I don’t know what this is, css, javascript or god knows what, but I decided to take a screen shot of the actual Google Maps page for everyone to enjoy IE8 at it’s best:

I then decided to search and found that some people had alreqdy realized this nightmare and was actually pointed to some other issues like MSN own Live Search Maps:

& Mapquest:

And I didn’t even get to the Ask.com map since the Ask.com website displays like this:

and the map link doesn’t work. Can anyone smell a lawsuit coming?

Ps: I know this is still a Beta Version, but if they already passed the Acid2 Test, then why is everything else so screwed up? And, once everything else is fixed, will they still pass the Acid2 Test?

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Web Developer Time Breakdown

February 10, 2008 at 10:08 am · Filed under CSS Disasters, Frustrations, Plain Evil

Yes, there some other quirks to web development but as you can see, IE takes more than half of a web developers time, if you include the swearing against Bill Gates (look here for a quick solution). Shouldn’t we stand together and sue Microsoft for all the time and money it makes us waste? We should give it a thought.

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