Site not working in IE6

Get Started
1

I’m working on a site (still in progress) and have spent lots of time getting it to where I want it. It works in IE7 and up as well as Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but when I tried it in IE6, it really fell apart.

I have two questions:

1- As a novice designer am I making some basic mistakes in my coding that, if corrected, would eliminate most of the IE6 problem? The problems mainly seem to be with floats. Things are getting pushed out of order or way down the page.

2- If I can’t get the site to work in IE6 without a lot of fuss, is it okay to put a notice on the site explaining it doesn’t work in IE6 or should I creating a simpler style sheet or alternate IE6 site? If someone has a very old computer/OS are they even able to upgrade to modern browsers?

Here’s my site.
www.laurafigdesign.com/nbcaf/index.html

Thanks for any suggestions or comments.

Laura Fig

2

I may be shot down here - but I wouldn’t bother with IE6 - it’s an old browser and only a very small percentage of internet users actually use it. IE6 is notorious for CSS bugsand has given me headaches for years!!

3

No, I understand. New as I am to web design, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it! Part of my concern is that, although my HTML and CSS validate, I may be over complicating the way I use the CSS and therefore running into problems. I don’t want to accidentally fall into bad habits.

Laura

4

If you want u can use the some comment syntax which IE6 will run but other browsers will see as comments. That way - u can mess around with the CSS for your site without ruining the CSS you want to keep. Have a look at http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html. :slight_smile:

5

Thanks, this is a useful link. I guess this would let me add a different style sheet for IE6.

6

So long as it is functional it isn’t a big deal it looks like crap – do your really think people using IE6 care what a website looks like… I mean if they did they wouldn’t be using IE6.

7

You may be right, but I think some people just don’t realize there’s a difference and assume the we site’s at fault, not the browser.

8

If you use updated syntax in your webpage then IE6 will not support that.

9

Thanks–I’ll keep that in mind.

10

I think you’re probably right there, unfortunately. On the other hand, the small percentage of your visitors using IE6 must be used to weird-looking sites by now, as many developers no longer cater for it, so at least they won’t think it’s just yours. :slight_smile:

You’ve built a site using valid XHTML and valid CSS, which is a good start (and a lot better than many sites out there), so most browsers should be able to display it in a usable - if not entirely pretty - manner. Yes, there are ways to make IE6 behave, but unless you have reason to believe that a large percentage of your visitors will be using IE6, you can probably find better ways to use your time. :slight_smile: If you really feel you want to try and fix it, then you might find these two links helpful:
http://positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html
http://positioniseverything.net/explorer/floatIndent.html

Just one wee question: why do you have a height of 3000px on .wrapper? It’s creating a long, scrolling blank space at the bottom on your page.

11

Thanks for your advice on the IE6. As for the 3000px on wrapper, I’m not sure. It must have fixed something at the time, but I’ll have to revisit.

12

As a web developer so often we are Forced to Design based on folder browser technologies. The reason for this is there are many users to have not upgraded there Web browsers. There are also situations where users have to use What is provided by their company. In some cases there It budget has not Been sufficiently funded, and therefore they have older operating systems. I do hope that 1 day we will not even have to discuss ie6.