Weirdness using Internet Explorer 8

[John H]

[quote="Stew Bartley"]
Really john. Unfortunately i dont post pics of my breasts on my Facebook but your more than welcome to add me
[/quote]
ahem

[Terry Kennedy]

[quote="Richard Marler"]
As an aside, the latest version of IE with all its bells and whistles really is an incredible hog. And since when do browsers need a special plugin to allow older sites to work well.[/quote]

I'll bash Microsoft just as much as (or more than) the next guy. However, in this case while the mess was of their own making, they're trying to do the right thing. Older versions of IE (7 and below) had various quirks which web sites compensated for by testing if the browser was IE and changing their behavior. IE8 is more standards-compliant than earlier versions, which causes changes in rendering between it and earlier versions. As an example, look at the results for the Acid2 test.

Microsoft (and other browser authors) tend to imply that passing one of the Acid levels means that their browser is "perfect" - that's not the case, it can pass that test and still fall apart on various real-world web pages.

I think the "plugin" you're referring to is actually a list of sites known to have problems with IE8. This is updated regularly by Microsoft so that those sites will render properly in IE8 without the user having to click "Tools / Compatibility View".

There were quite a few web sites and content authoring systems that went into "ostrich mode" and ignored the fact that IE8 was coming. Many of them said "IE8 isn't released yet; we'll look into it when it is released and see what we want to do about it". That completely ignored the point of the public beta / release candidate cycle, which is so people can work with the software and get ready for visitors who use it.

Having said all that... the particular problem that's being seen when browsing this site is a bug in IE8 (Microsoft article here) which is triggered by specifying both COLS and a width% for a textarea. There's SMF-specific discussion here. However, turning on Compatibility View for this site will work around the bug, since it is only in the "new" renderer codepath.

[John H]

[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
[quote="Richard Marler"]
As an aside, the latest version of IE with all its bells and whistles really is an incredible hog. And since when do browsers need a special plugin to allow older sites to work well.[/quote]

I'll bash Microsoft just as much as (or more than) the next guy. However, in this case while the mess was of their own making, they're trying to do the right thing. Older versions of IE (7 and below) had various quirks which web sites compensated for by testing if the browser was IE and changing their behavior. IE8 is more standards-compliant than earlier versions, which causes changes in rendering between it and earlier versions. As an example, look at the results for the Acid2 test.

Microsoft (and other browser authors) tend to imply that passing one of the Acid levels means that their browser is "perfect" - that's not the case, it can pass that test and still fall apart on various real-world web pages.

I think the "plugin" you're referring to is actually a list of sites known to have problems with IE8. This is updated regularly by Microsoft so that those sites will render properly in IE8 without the user having to click "Tools / Compatibility View".

There were quite a few web sites and content authoring systems that went into "ostrich mode" and ignored the fact that IE8 was coming. Many of them said "IE8 isn't released yet; we'll look into it when it is released and see what we want to do about it". That completely ignored the point of the public beta / release candidate cycle, which is so people can work with the software and get ready for visitors who use it.

Having said all that... the particular problem that's being seen when browsing this site is a bug in IE8 (Microsoft article here) which is triggered by specifying both COLS and a width% for a textarea. There's SMF-specific discussion here. However, turning on Compatibility View for this site will work around the bug, since it is only in the "new" renderer codepath.
[/quote]
cheers Terry.......................that worked!
No more bouncey screen......................yipeeeeeeee

[Terry Kennedy]

[quote="John H"]
[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
Having said all that... the particular problem that's being seen when browsing this site is a bug in IE8 (Microsoft article here) which is triggered by specifying both COLS and a width% for a textarea. There's SMF-specific discussion here. However, turning on Compatibility View for this site will work around the bug, since it is only in the "new" renderer codepath.
[/quote]
cheers Terry.......................that worked!
No more bouncey screen......................yipeeeeeeee
[/quote]

Somebody might want to sticky this part, as Microsoft is pushing IE8 as part of Windows' Automatic Update, which means more people will get updated by surprise this Tuesday.

[Richard Marler]

[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
Somebody might want to sticky this part, as Microsoft is pushing IE8 as part of Windows' Automatic Update, which means more people will get updated by surprise this Tuesday.
[/quote]

Done and thanks for your investigative help Terry. I have also changed the title to make it clear that the behaviour happens with IE8.