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The layouts were still usable but IE6 has done some strange things to them. My dilemma is this: I don’t want to change the CSS files anymore. Every time I change one thing it has different effects on IE7 and or FF. I have been riding this see-saw for a while.
Basically, I am trying to decide if I should wait this thing out or not. My IE6 usage statistics from another site look like this:
SEP – 90%
OCT – 89%
NOV – 80%
DEC – 69%
JAN - 60% to date.
By the way, I noticed that IE5 and IE5.5 usage went from 2% in Sep to .3% so far this month.
With this trend IE6 will be gone in a couple of months.
I need advice:
Should I publish the sites with substandard layouts for IE6 and start the process of getting into the search engines? (I won’t get many visitors for a few months anyway)
Should I Spend the weekend reading my CSS books again and try to balance all three browsers?
Or should I do nothing and publish the sites later?
Most of your tools, how-tos and techniques deal with IE6.
Thankfully, Microsoft hasn't actually done a whole lot more than paint some lipstick on IE6, pat it on the butt, and send it out the door.
The main way that IE7 has affected me is Xparent PNG files and animated background-image.
Whoopee.
I design sites that generally support to IE5/Win98 or IE5.1/Mac, so it makes almost zilch difference to me.
Keep testing on IE6, it won't hurt.
That is the single biggest issue with IE.
I know that a couple of those fixes mention the word "box model" in their text, but they didn't fix this [en.wikipedia.org].
They do, however, finally, honor the XML preamble. Problem is, we can't count on it for at least a couple of years.
To be fair, they couldn't be expected to make such a fundamental change without causing havoc in all those "Optimized for IE" Web sites.
However, anyone who stops testing against IE6 is beggin' for misery.
As I said, I design sites that need to support legacy browsers, so I've gotten pretty used to having to clean up my CSS and keep it kindergarten simple. None of my sites have had any issue whatsoever with IE7.
I expect that IE6 hangs on for quite awhile.
I'll agree. But, it won't hang on as long as other versions have in history. I've seen a significant increase in the number of IE7 users over the past 60-90 days and I expect that number to keep growing quickly. This will probably be the quickest rise in users changing versions of a browser.
bbd2000: Have you seen FF numbers continue to increase or does it appear as though IE7 is gaining not only IE6 share but also some of FF coverage?
Have you seen FF numbers continue to increase or does it appear as though IE7 is gaining not only IE6 share but also some of FF coverage?
I don't have final numbers for December but up until 2006 November, Mozilla based browsers were on a continual rise in marketshare. I believe Moz now accounts for about 30% of the browser market. IE accounts for 65% and the rest is divided amongst the others like Opera. ;)
Mozilla has almost doubled it's marketshare in two years. IE has lost a fairly big chunk of marketshare during those same two years. Based on numbers I'm looking at now, it doesn't appear that IE7 has affected the share of Moz based browsers. But, IE6 usage is dropping quickly!
For me this means that it is very hard to measure AdSense clickthroughs accurately now using the famous WW script [webmasterworld.com...] (I'm missing maybe 50% up from maybe 20% a couple of months ago) as per my thread [webmasterworld.com...] before.
Rgds
Damon
[edited by: DamonHD at 8:37 pm (utc) on Jan. 5, 2007]
Development for IE6 may have reached a point of diminishing returns, at least for my sites.
FF usage is pretty steady for my sites.
SEP – 10%
OCT – 11%
NOV – 11%
DEC – 12%
JAN – 12%
The sites are content based and target a non “techie” audience.
However now, in IE7, they've fixed the xml prolog - it no longer triggers quirks mode (though a comment will still trigger it), so some pages are now rendering in strict mode, and I don't think all authors are aware of this yet - in strict rendering mode IE's box model is compliant - this I think is the biggest confusion of all.
What you want to do is get your pages into strict rendering mode for all IE browsers then box model workarounds will only be needed for IE5.5 and below, then tell me IE7 is not better than 6 ;)
If you are working with IE7 in Quirks mode you can expect it will more or less behave as IE6 did, except some of the rendering bugs are "fixed"
As to the OP's question, I would keep IE6 around for a while yet, especially if you're learning the differences, there was a big change between IE5.5 and 6 and if you can get to grips with 6 then 7 will be a breeze.
Suzy
I stand corrected.
text/htmlTo answer the initial question, keep the CSS files as they are for the latest browsers, and add a corrective stylesheet for IE6 only, introduced via a conditional comment.
IE6 is certainly not dead, and it is likely to hang around for a considerable time yet. Realistically, a browser has to drop below 10% before you can even consider dropping support.
One thing is abundantly clear, however, when analyzing browser statistics from many different sources is that IE5 and IE 5.5 (Win) are both officially dead. Time to dump all those Tan hacks and other box-model workarounds which catered to those browsers, the only versions of IE which need to be tested are IE7 and IE6, and maybe IE 5.1/5.2 Mac in certain very limited circumstances. Browser testing and site development is a whole lot easier when IE6 is the baseline rather than IE5.
Okay, so what the experts are saying, is that my initial statement was not so bad, because there ain't been a whole lot of improvement between IE6 and IE7.
I always write CSS to support IE5 and up, so most of the box model stuff hasn't meant much to me. I guess I've become a creature of habit.
<burps up some crow>
In my defense, my sites tend to look almost exactly the same when viewed by Win98/IE5 or MacOSX/Safari2.
now that MS has started replacing IE6 by 7 thought automatic update.
This may explain the rapid rise in IE7 switches.
"now that MS has started replacing IE6 by 7 thought automatic update."This may explain the rapid rise in IE7 switches.
Yeah, if they have their machines to download and install automatically, some are getting 'upgraded' and they don't even realise it! Several machines in the office where I was based before Xmas started downloading/installing their 'updates' before someone realised what was going on - the look of horror on their faces! "Ctrl Alt Delete! Ctrl Alt Delete! Uninstall it! UNINSTALL IT!", came the cry! lol! (They have several sites designed for closed company intranets, that don't yet have IE7 and, surprise surprise, don't yet work on IE7!)
and, surprise surprise, don't yet work on IE7
Like ours. Our IT people are NOT happy.
(They have several sites designed for closed company intranets, that don't yet have IE7 and, surprise surprise, don't yet work on IE7!)
As we are a modern company with a long term vison, we do go with IE7. By the way, you don't have to wait for the automatic update, you can also download it yourself...
As we are a modern company with a long term vison
I know there are a few of these. I've heard of them.
Our IT Dept., on the other hand, ran NetWare until the 21st Century.
I decided it was time to redesign the whole site (over 1000 pages). There were other things I wanted to incorporate on each page, so this was an opportunity to implement everything. Instead of a fluid width, everything is now fixed width, and each page looks identical in FF1.5, FF2, IE6, and IE7.
