IE6 out of beta

is it a worthwhile download?

[bill]

Looks like IE6 is ready for download. I know I'm going to have to get it eventually for testing. Has anybody who's taken the plunge got any words of advice for those of us about to download? It is worth it?

[msr986]

I just downloaded it. It seems to pretty much the same as IE5.5 except the cookie handling.

Oh yes and by the way, for some reason it centers all of the text on this entire site! (This is very annoying!)

I've been searching for another site that produces this same behavior, but I haven't found one yet! Just WmW.

Maybe this is a secret Microsoft plot against WmW!

MSR

[Brett_Tabke]

There are many sites that are centered in IE6. It is pretty common and one of the largest bug reports Microsoft has ever received according to official beta testers. MS's handling of centered tables is wrong according to the w3c boys.

[rcjordan]

The cookie alert is going to be hard on publishers. I checked one of my pages that serves a rotating mix of Engage, CJ, and ClickXchange banners and buttons and the default-level security setting launched an alert box that would scare JohnQ.

There's also a different "feel" when you click a link or form button. I can't tell if I've made the click. Annoying.

The centering bug really stinks.

[rcjordan]

IE6 also wipes out all of your favicons in bookmarks and replaces them with that blue "e" -imagine that.

I'm still unhappy with the feel of the click, and it may be my imagination but I think it's worse on links that have a mouseover effect like those here at WmW. Straight text links seem to launch OK.

[Brett_Tabke]

Dl'd it.
I always get nervous when a program has it's own "downloader". Man how much info did they just send back to ms.com? grrr.

Install was ok, except for the forced reboot that gave me no option to "later" it. Promptly losing my spot on 30 open Opera pages.

Then I was informed it replaced 3 dll's on my system with out of date ones.

I'd roll back, but I trust the roll back even less.

Speed - seems a bit zippier than 5 to me. I still don't care for progressive rendering.

[rcjordan]

>Speed - seems a bit zipper than 5 to me

I thought so too, at first. It must not be much of an improvement because I don't notice it now.

[rcjordan]

<added>

Leave your cookie security setting at the default and try not to kill the alert box forever via the "Don't show this again" checkbox when it pops up. It appears banners are triggering it bigtime.

[msr986]

>IE6 also wipes out all of your favicons

All my favicons stayed in place!

[rcjordan]

Hmmmm... I'm on ver 6.0.2600.0000 Win98. I did select the "custom" download.

[lawman]

I've been running the beta for awhile with absolutely no problems. Just downloaded 6.0.2600.0000 - so far the only page at WMW that looks a little different is the "Post a Reply" page - nothing serious. My own website looks normal. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Lawman

[msr986]

>so far the only page at WMW that looks a little different is the "Post a Reply" page - nothing serious.

That's because Brett's been running around all day implementing IE6.0 bug fixes!

Thanks Brett!

<added>
Getting back to topic...
This is a download you cannot miss. The "center" rendering bugs are so bad that you *must* download IE6.0 to make sure your websites are rendering properly!
</added>

[rcjordan]

>*must* download IE6.0 to make sure your websites are rendering properly!
>
Exactly! Netscape, I can afford to ignore, but JohnQ will get his hands on IE6 soon enough.

[msr986]

It took all day but I figured out what was causing the IE6.0 centering bug. It is caused by certain <!DOCTYPE> declarations.

Delete your <!DOCTYPE> declaration.....
Delete the bug!

Although the <!DOCTYPE> is a required element, most people don't use it.

MSR

[lawman]

I installed the IE6 release. Tried to update McAfee Clinic virus signatures online. During the requirements test, it came back with the message that I needed to upgrade to a newer version of IE. I guess I need to go back to Beta IE6.

Sometimes it's hard to get happy.

Lawman

[Macguru]

>Delete your <!DOCTYPE> declaration.....
Delete the bug!

I am not about to delete doctypes on megazillion pages, because m$ can't render them.

[Brett_Tabke]

Drop into some of the comp.infosystem* groups. The w3c supporters are screaming about ms's twidling with doctype sniffing.

[msr986]

Macguru,

The reality is that in a few months, IE6.0 will probably be the browser of choice. All new PC's will have this installed as the default browser.

Evidently, you do not have to delete the entire DOCTYPE, just the URL segment.

MSR

[mivox]

::shudder::

I'm in the middle of uploading 150+ pages I had to update because of an NN6.1 rendering problem (I just HAD to embed those TWO css declarations into the page code...). I suppose when I'm done with this, I'll download IE6 and find out what else needs "fixing"...

::urg::

[bill]

Evidently, you do not have to delete the entire DOCTYPE, just the URL segment.

So, if we have something like this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
we should change it to something like this:?
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

[Brett_Tabke]

If you don't specify the DTD, it will kick validators into yet another mode and may cause your code to fail in other ways.

[msr986]

>So, if we have something Like this:
>we should change it to something like this:?

Yes. I ran some pages through the W3C validator and they validated the same with and without the URL.

The pages without the URL in the DOCTYPE render fine in IE6.0.

MSR

[Brett_Tabke]

Depends on the dtd you are trying to validate against. html 3.2/4 is a compat (by removing the specific url), but if you get into the XML dtd's at all, that's a different story.

[Key_Master]

I just downloaded version 6.0.2600.0000CO and noticed that JavaScript prompts (e.g. prompt("Hello");) are showing up in the upper left hand corner of the screen instead of in the middle center of the screen. Anyone know how to reposition the prompt box?