IE on the Mac positioning issues

IE on the Mac positioning issues - forcing text to offset

[sunsterv]

Hi everyone,

I have an issue with IE5 for the mac which is confusing the heck outta me.

here are the links...

the page here is a simplified version to attempt to isolate the issue. On all other browsers and on mac or pc the layout should look the same. On the mac IE browser however, the second bit of header text (displayed as lorem ipsum etc.) is offset to the right by around 500 px (not measured exactly). I've experimented with other type styles for p, body and h1 to h6 and no matter what this text is offset. The real page I am working on can be found at

in this case the box entitled the archive should be aligned to the left but as above it appears 2/3 of the width along - again this is only on IE 5 for Mac.

any ideas? I know that IE mac is used in the minority, but I need to get this right for those that do use it.

Checked the css and it has been validated in dreamweaver 8

sunsterv

[edited by: SuzyUK at 7:01 am (utc) on Oct. 11, 2006]
[edit reason] Please no URLs : see TOS #13 [WebmasterWorld.com] [/edit]

[swa66]

I think you'll see some remarks/enforcement regarding no links to your sites being allowed.

MSIE5 for Mac, I think it below minority to be honest, even Microsoft recommends their users to skip to something different. Worse, you can't even download IE for Mac anymore.
As obnoxious as those "need to upgrade your browser to access this site" roadblocks are, I think MSIE5 for MAC really deserves one.

I checked my logs as well as those I happen to have access of a much bigger site than mine; In januari there was stilll about double of the visits (google analytics definition of visits) to what it is now. I'm currently at 0.08% of the visits using IE for MAC . I really do not care anymore at a given point I loose more money even trying to check how it looks in their browser than they ever can bring in.

Validation; I'd suggest to use:
[jigsaw.w3.org...] and [validator.w3.org...] instead of a check built by a code generator vendor.

Why trust a vendor that is involved in generating code over those who manage the standard?

But they do check out according to the validators at W3C.

While I don't have MISE 5.5 for my Mac anymore, the error you point to didn't show up in Safari nor Firefox.

Try simplifying the CSS and HMTL further till the problem goes away, once it does, big chance you figure out what makes it be like that.

[sunsterv]

thanks for the advice - will try and simplify the css to crack it.

oh, and for any administrator out there, my big apologies, I honestly didn't realise about not posting links to test sites - sorry!

[bluesmandeluxe]

I was always searching for the MOST stable solution cross browsers/platforms. It just bothered me knowing that my site was blowing up out there, for somebody.

We have a few PCs with various IE versions and a Mac with IE 5.23 (I've spent countless extra time forcing that ... thing ... to behave).

But I am ready to give up on the Mac IE myself, as well. There are a few good in depth solutions to the IE issues at positioniseverything, but I do think it is time we all just let it go.

To answer your question, though, the reason it is blowing up is because IE mac does not handle floats, positioning, blocks, widths and heights, margins and paddings well - it causes the div to bloat which knocks the next div's content to drop away as if it was relative to the bottom of the previous div.

[sunsterv]

Thanks mate,

I'm still having problems now with a slightly more bewildering issue (its in another post).

I'm glad it's not just me who seems to have constand problems with IE. I'd be even more glad if IE functioned like all other browsers mind you!