Browsers & Hacks

Browser testing in Windows Vista - trouble with Internet Explorer

April 25, 2007 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , , 8

Internet ExplorerAfter my recent 'upgrade' to Windows Vista I came across a little snag in regards to site testing; the Internet Explorer standalones I had come to love no longer functioned.

This became a very annoying issue for me, as I frequently require easy access to old Internet explorer versions for site testing/bug fixing. But at last I have found a solution; although its slightly more awkward than a nice standalone version of the browsers.

Continue reading "Browser testing in Windows Vista - trouble with Internet Explorer" »

Better Browsers on the block

October 21, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , 4

IE7Following the recent release of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), I thought now would be a good idea to scope the competition, and see what the main browsers have to offer. Will Microsoft dominate the browser market with IE7, or can Mozilla steal the show with firefox 2? Read more to see what I think and what I have found.

Continue reading "Better Browsers on the block" »

Experiments with floats: whats the best method of clearance?

October 4, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , 16

Clearing FloatsWhen developing websites there is one thing I have never kept consistent; the method of clearing floats. It seems every project I take, I seem to do it a different way, well Its about time I sorted it all out in my mind.

For those with no clue about what I'm rambling on about, with CSS layouts, when you have a float inside an block-level element, it will collapse in most browsers, since floats have no dimensions. So for instance, if I had a div container with a blue background, and a float inside it, the blue background would not surround the float (and the floats contents), due to the div ignoring the height of the float.

To fix this you need to 'clear' the float, so the container recognises the fact the float is there, and adjusts its height accordingly.

There are many methods of doing this, personally in the past Ive used most of them, so in this article I will compare the main ones and rate them in terms of:

  • The extra markup
  • The Amount of CSS
  • Cross Browser compatibility (I'm limited to IE5-7, Opera 9, Firefox)
  • Ease to implement

Continue reading "Experiments with floats: whats the best method of clearance?" »

How to…use conditional comments

August 5, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , , 5

Conditional comments have been part of internet explorer since version 5, but a lot of programmers ignore them.

This article teaches the basics of using conditional comments, and shows some examples of their uses.

Continue reading "How to…use conditional comments" »

My day of buggy hell with IE - a css story

July 30, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , , 7

As you may well be aware, this has been a pretty hectic week for me, trying to finish all my projects before I leave to go on a well earned holiday.

The main thing on my agenda was the blue anvil redesign I’ve been working on. It all went pretty smoothly, excluding the few set-backs I encountered (see my last blog entry), but all in all it went well and the website was looking fairly nice…in firefox.

Yes, I left the cross browser stuff until last, it would only take an hour or two, right? How wrong was I. This was my day from hell and I have the coffee breath and bad temperament to prove it. With any luck the problems and solutions I used may be
helpful, and save others from a hellish day that I experienced.

Continue reading "My day of buggy hell with IE - a css story" »

IE7 is coming…

May 17, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks, Personal | Tags: , , 0

IE 7 is on the way, mircrosoft has released a public beta, but is this browser going to be less naff (my opinion) than the current offering?

Continue reading "IE7 is coming…" »

Cross browser compatibility checking

May 15, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , 4

When creating web sites you should always check it works in the most popular browser, if not you are going to reduce the number of poeple visiting your site.

Continue reading "Cross browser compatibility checking" »