IE8 Compatibility View

IE8 Compatibility View how to stop this appearing

[scotland]

I recently upgrade from IE7 to IE8 and now I notice that my website (except a subdomain running a a Wordpress blog) appears with the IE8 Compatibility View icon showing.

I did a little experiment and created a couple of pages with no content - except one paragraph (single word on the page) using Dreamweaver CS3 default page settings - and IE8 still shows the Compatibility View icon in the address bar.

It also appears when I view Webmasterworld

Any suggestions on how to get a site so that IE8 sees it as fully compatible?

Richard

[penders]

The 'IE8 Compatibility View icon' appears for most sites, but that doesn't necessarily mean the site is in 'Compatibility View' - it gives you the option to switch 'Compatibility View' on, by clicking the icon. Sites that you activate compat view are saved, so that compat view will be reactivated the next time you visit - the list of saved sites can be viewed/edited under Tools > Compatibility View Settings.

However, some sites do not show the 'Compatibility View icon' at all and compat view is disabled from the Tools menu. I think this is because the website appears on an official list of 'Compatibility View' websites from Microsoft and 'Compatibility View' is in fact already enabled! (Could someone confirm this?) If for these websites you go into Tools > Compatibility View Settings and untick the "Include updated website lists from Microsoft" then the 'Compatibility View icon' reappears.

[scotland]

Hi penders

Thanks for that, I was concerned that Microsoft IE8 was telling me that my site was not designed correctly as it suggests that Compatibility view was showing on sites designed for older browsers. A bit confusing!

[Trace]

Adding

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">

or similar to your page will remove the button.

[swa66]

Trace, adding that meta tag will force IE8 into emulating IE7, adding back in all the bugs.

[penders]

Just to add, from IEBlog [blogs.msdn.com]:

IE only displays this button when toggling into Compatibility View makes sense, such as when viewing Standards mode pages. In all other cases, such as when viewing Quirks mode pages or viewing intranet sites (they’re already being displayed in Compatibility View ...), IE hides the button.

[penders]

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">

Emulating IE7 standards mode is what Compatibility View actually is.

You could use

content="IE=EmulateIE8"

to force IE8 standards mode (non compatibility view) - IE8's default - overriding whatever 'Compatibility View' setting has been set in the clients browser (and I believe will remove the button/icon).

[swa66]

Yes, having the button is kinda of an honor badge that your site is standards minded. Not at all hard to achieve for us, but rendering standards properly is a major achievement for any version of IE.

[mattur]

See also the IE8 mode-switching flowchart [hsivonen.iki.fi] (!)

More info about X-UA-Compatible [hsivonen.iki.fi]

[Trace]

Adding

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">

or similar to your page will remove the button.

Trace, adding that meta tag will force IE8 into emulating IE7, adding back in all the bugs.

swa66, I understand that. I was simply saying that's one way of removing the button which is what I understood the initial question to be.