IE7 and the use of CSS Hacks

When I first read of Microsoft's call to remove CSS hacks, I wasn't too concerned. As Eric Meyer mentions, if they've fixed the rendering bugs and they've fixed the CSS parsing bugs then the hacks will continue to work on their own.

The point that a lot of people seem to have missed, and what really seemed to be the point of the IEBlog post, is that gray area where Internet Explorer will render something differently than other browsers but still meets the W3C spec. The problem with using parsing bugs to fix rendering differences is that once the parsing bug is fixed, your rendering difference will reappear.

Browsers will naturally have subtle differences in how it renders default behaviour. We should therefore look to CSS styles that, when applied, render consistently across the board. Like the Global White Space Reset. If there are still rendering issues then research to see if it's due to a browser bug and apply a CSS hack only in this circumstance.

In the end, no matter which company comes out with a new browser, the only thing you can do is wait until it's released and deal with it then. No use crying over milk that hasn't been spilled yet.

Published October 19, 2005 · Updated September 14, 2006

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5 Comments · RSS feed
1
tk said on October 27, 2005

i agree

2
Ira Burton said on October 28, 2005

Great article. I have had this concern for years.

3
Jason Cramer said on November 04, 2005

From my perspective, the fact that browsers render things differently is the most annoying thing of all. I've tried a lot of browsers out there, but I stick with IE because its easier to deal with it than any other browser thats trying to "compete". Why should I pay for another browser that has a few more features, but renders things entirely different? What's the point? So I can go mad before I'm 30? A free browser is a good browser...the competitors should figure that out.

Besides that, what other browser can be incorporated into any other application? Its so easy to create a custom browser simply by implementing IE into your application such as SlimBrowser...a great free alternative to those paid browsers out there that just "render" things useless.

Although, I bet when the GoogleBrowser comes out, it shall dominate the world for ages to come. Ok...I like googleware a little bit. :)

4
Nick Gagne said on February 01, 2006

There is a css hack that works for all versions of internet explorer, including ie7. You can read about it here:
http://www.ibloomstudios.com/article7/

5
tomas said on August 10, 2006

you can also use the conditional commnets

<!--[if IE]>
<style src="iehacks.css">
<![endif]-->

Sorry, comments are closed for this post. If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to send them to me directly.