HTML5 and IE 8- Compatibility thought.

Okay, my issue. Made my site HTML5 and CSS3, it looks great but...IE... When it comes to placement it really cannot do it IE 8 and below very well and it is driving me crazy.Earlier I signed on to this unique gmail through a virtual OS using IE (it was 8), it showed a pop up menu stating that the browser I was using was outdated and should update it by clicking the link below.I really liked this idea! What I want to know is if there is a way to add something like this to my site to resolve the IE users below.

 

Considering there are NO legitimate advantages to the steaming pile of horse manure known as HTML 5, your solution is obvious. Go back to a RECOMMENDATION doctype instead of using that asshattery... at least in terms of the markup.

In terms of CSS3, OH NOES, the old browsers don't get rounded corners and drop shadows. if that's somehow a deal-breaker, your entire philosophy of building a page may be in question.

Turning your site into nagware about it is just silly, a waste of code sent to everyone, and annoying as a LOT of people just don't have the option. There is no IE9 for XP/lower, and a lot of workplaces are tied to older versions of IE and as such won't go to alternative browsers either thanks to poorly written in-house crapplets. Much less that just three years ago IE6 was 'new' on Windows CE/mobile. What, you missed the 6 on 6 party? That's OK, so did everybody else.

Though people doing that just adds to what I've been saying about HTML 5 all along -- one of the reasons it exists is to set coding and development practices back to the worst of the browser wars circa 1998; see the "best viewed in" banner crap we had just finally gotten rid of.

As I've said many a times now, I cannot fathom how anyone could be duped into seeing any sort of merit to the use of HTML 5 for building their markup. At best it's nube predation, at worst it's just being used as a sick marketspeak buzzword akin to "Web 2.0".

See the link in my signature for more.

 

It is not about the rounded corners that I care about, my issue is object placement. I have an IMG icon link for my contacts page. It is supposed to be on the left and to the right it is a box that has the site's description. What happens only on IE 8 and below (Though 7 shows it right?), it takes the link and places it UNDER the box!?Issue is the float command I use in CSS and I am lost on how to make it placed like all the other browsers, I use,

float:left; 

Code (markup):

on my tags. I am not sure if this is proper either although it does work for me. I started years ago with HTML 1, stopped web design and did not start again until HTML 4 (half ass'd read) and now HTML 5.

 

Without seeing the page in question it's a bit hard to diagnose. I realize you're under the post-count to have links, but I believe you can PM it if need be.

Though when you say "on your tags" do you mean all of them? That can be as hard to make work in a layout as having no floats... since a img is a inline-level element you shouldn't even need to float it -- if it's dropping down, your content is too wide to fit it either due to mixing dynamic fonts with a image interaction, or not accounting for spacing differences... of course if the image in question is just a icon that's next to some text, it might not even be content -- at which point it should be in the CSS, not the markup.

BTW, HTML 1 was never really public use, so unless your name is Tim Berners-Lee, I suspect you actually started on HTML 2... which would still be 17 to 18 years ago. More likely you started on HTML 3.2 though circa 1997 -- the worst of all specifications there is. You've probably made all sorts of faux-pas like tables for layout, lack of labels, lack of fieldsets, nonsensical heading orders -- but without seeing the page we're all left guessing wildly.

If you skipped over 4 STRICT by just doing 3.2 with 4 tranny on it, it's possible your site building methodology is the core of your issues -- how well does your site handle the 4 most recent versions of the major engines? That would be Gecko (Firefox), Webkit (Safari and Chrome), Presto (Opera) and Trident (IE).

 

You need to create HTML5 elements manually by JS:

document.createElement("header");
document.createElement("footer");

 

do not use html5 if you have browser compatibility issues its much tough to resolve them using html5

 

Thanks for reminding me, I forgot to do this:

<!--[if lte IE 8]>
<p><a href="http://browsehappy.com" target="_blank">You should probably upgrade your browser.</a></p>
<![endif]-->

Example usage: http://www.alleypets.com

@deathshadow

I agree that HTML5 is over hyped for most types of websites. However, there are legitimate applications that require something more than XHTML 1.0 Strict.

 

Thank you for the suggestions, I switched back to HTML4 with a hint of HTML5, for one of my clients their site came out wonderful.
I was told that the "nav" tag is a big no no, however I cannot find any articles anywhere saying why?

Also, what is wrong with having Jquery on a site? Jquery done right It loads very fast.

 

I'd say 99% of HTML 5's new tags are pointless bloat -- see my So what's Wrong with HTML 5 article for why.

That includes NAV. The alleged purpose of NAV is to indicate "this isn't content, it's navigation" -- allowing people on things like screen readers to skip past it. The thing is if you have logical heading orders and use HR's when a heading would be inappropriate (at least indicating a change in topic) you should be able to skip around with heading navigation (if browser makers other than Opera would get off their asses and implement it -- but they'd rather implement and entire specification for nothing). It's redundant pointless code bloat if you have proper document structure! The same goes for SECTION. The only reason I can figure for tags like that to even exist is the people who wrap extra DIV around the existing semantic tags for no good reason... see the folks who insist on putting an extra DIV around every UL or OL when lists are perfectly good block level containers unto themselves!

As to the fat bloated steaming pile of manure known as jQuery, like most every javascript framework I've ever seen it makes the code needlessly cryptic, by itself COMPRESSED is half the ideal target size I allow for an uncompressed page template of HTML+CSS+SCRIPTING+IMAGES -- and for what? A bunch of goofy animated crap that has no business on websites in the first place, and code "shortcuts" that aren't shortcuts at all since they tend to either be using scripting to do CSS' job, or make the scripts larger and more complex than they would be without jQuery. (look at most lightbox implementations). Most everything done with it pisses away accessibility and makes the site slower loading, harder to use, and detracts from the most important part of any website: THE CONTENT.

Just as people don't visit websites for the goofy graphics designers spank it all over the screen stroking their own... egos... Most of the garbage people add to websites for javascript is the same type of halfwit annoying garbage that makes users like myself go running for the script blocker... and if the page doesn't work with scripting off, consider me and the half billion people using script blocking to be bounces unless it's an ACTUAL application. As opposed to the idiocy I've been seeing the past two to four years of trying to make EVERYTHING an application... Which like trying to make everything an object or trying to make everything have a megabyte of graphics for nothing, is a waste of time, effort, and pisses away anything remotely resembling accessibility -- which is the ENTIRE reason HTML exists. (Device neutral accessible delivery of content)

Besides, frameworks in an interpreted language is ALWAYS lame duck code bloat. It was stupid 30 years ago with COBOL developers, I've seen NO indications that has changed.

99% of the time some 'expert' Yank-hole says use jQuery -- DON'T!!! You're just destroying your site and losing sight of the reason to have a website in the first place.

 

Okay that does make sense, did not think about that. Curious though. Say jquery was used in a sense that showed results of a product (like a slideshow of finished work)? That sort of has a purpose to me unless there is something more simple and less complex.

 

I'm not entirely certain I follow what you mean by the 'results of a product' -- that sounds like content that shouldn't even have javascript involved in it's generation... or should be handled server-side so it works for everybody. Even if it is scripting generated, I'm not sure what throwing jquery bloat at it would accomplish that normal javascript without it couldn't... and most likely would be able to do with LESS code.

But again, if you practice minimalist semantic markup with separation of presentation from content, going to the server for a page-load should be a non-issue -- no matter what the "AJAX as framesets" nutters will try to tell you.

 

Well say like a jquery slideshow for some artist that does murels (paintings) for clients and he or she wants the finished paintings to be the first thing to see when visiting the site, of course many people are prone to look at animation before still art, something that flips through and has click able links to see the painting image more close. Also saving each image with an image extention that takes up hardly any bits of memory.


What of jquery cdn minified? (just trying to cover all aspects)

 

pick one, make rest thumbnails and organize them sensibly -- look at sites like Deviantart to see that all that fancy garbage really isn't needed... a website FAR more useful at showing images than any of the goofy animated garbage, lightbox effects, or dozen other bits of oddball bloat that populates a lot of 'artists' websites.

It's still COMPRESSED half my ideal target for an entire page template of HTML+CSS+SCRIPTING+IMAGES... and adding a second domain isn't always a faster choice and can quite often be overworking the plumbing - what with the extra DNS lookup, extra handshake, etc, etc...

Though with tools like ySlow and Google page speed the people selling CDN space have done an excellent job of tainting the kool aid many developers drink so deeply of.

 

Web Designing and Development - Webspidy

HTML5 new labels, web designers have inquired its use because of interface problems. I've already described that with new components you might always have problems. Individually, what creates me really mad is not understanding exactly what will occur when I use HTML5.

IE8 try out 2 does not apply the HTML5 parsing criteria or the new components (no <canvas> or <video> support).
There are also bug repairs that position IE8 better with HTML5.

 

I've met a similar problem. My HTML5 slideshows created by HTML5 Slideshow Maker cannot display in IE7 and 8. Later, I learned that I can make a flash slideshow to fallback, so when a browser cannot display my HTML5 slideshow, my flash slideshow will displaying it. Do you think make your HTML5 website with your old website (HTML4 website?) fallback will work?

 

Oh everything works funnyishere, I gutted HTML5 completely out of the picture. I have a few indifferences with using flash for a website, this is just my SEO and Security+ side talk though. It's load time is a bit slow especially if using high quality pictures (I have a photographer who has practically no web design skills, uses wysiwyg Dreamweaver) His slideshow takes a good three minutes to load, the bounce rate would have already happened by the time it even popped up.

Second Flash is prone to get injections for drive by downloads, which in turn infects anyone going to your site and chances are you would lose some returning visitors. Adobe Flash Player does get patched everynow and then but not as much or as quickly as Java (Which by the way the Patch Came out early instead of Feb 13th due to a HUGE hole found), also an SEO rule of thumb, do not use flash. It does not help with page ranking at all in anyway.