WordPress.org

1. mastiff
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   I'm kind of frustrated that WP seems to have IMO major issues with IE. I read great things about how easy WP is to install, but you have to hack the CSS to make the default theme work? Plus the admin interface doesn't look right in IE, most notably the fact that the theme editor entry box is off the page to the bottom and the box grows to the right when edited.

   I do appreciate that this is free software, but it really ought to work properly with the browser that 95% of readers will be using. Firefox is a fringe thing for techno people, for the most part. I'm not a complete fool with HTML, PHP and CSS stuff, and hacking is fine for cutomization, but I think the default stuff should work out of the box with IE.

2. viitoria
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Yes, I did notice that problem with admin panel. But how exactly do you have to hack CSS to make the default theme work? It worked fine off the bat for me.

3. vkaryl
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Hmm. I don't have any problem at all with WP working with that piece of crap otherwise known as IE - then again, I don't try to do anything "important" anywhere with/in IE, knowing better as I do from many many years now online.

   And in particular, I don't do ANY editing WITHIN WP - no matter which "real" browser I happen to be using. If you want to edit WP theme files or any of the rest of 'em, you should be using a text editor - notepad works fine, but notepad2 works even better.

   I've got a half-dozen installs of WP - all of which work just fine in IE - though I do have to say I've not bothered with whether or not they "work" with the "default theme" (of course, if you insist on using the "default theme"....)

   "Fringe thing for techno people" - yep. Thanks.

   [This is a personal opinion only; YMMV.]

4. monkeypup
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   (that piece of crap) IE's always worked for me for WP's default themes. Additionally, almost every theme I've seen released is IE compliant. Only when folks (like myself) mess with a theme to customize ir does it become an issue.

5. RustIndy
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Ditto - I've really only had 1 person end up with a non-IE compatible theme, which was easily fixed.

   I too use Firefox for everything except the odd, moronic news site that requires IE to play Quicktime files (wtf?) and watching the Live8 feeds from AOL (ActiveX control, the barstids).

   Statistically, between the 25 WP blogs I host, the highest percentage for IE is only about 65%. On the tech-oriented blogs, it's more like 20%. On my root page, IE has about 70%.

   In other words, as a developer, I don't feel it necessary to develop for IE anymore. I develop for Mozilla/Firefox, and then hack as necessary to get the design working in the more broken/less compliant browsers. It turns out that most people can be persuaded into giving up on IE once they actually try Firefox or Opera :)

   Go figure :)

6. mastiff
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   The main thing with the default theme is that there are no bullets on the sidebar. Not a huge deal, but annoying nonetheless. It doesn't look right without them. I've searched this forum and asked for help and nobody can say for sure what to do to make it work. Thus my comment that I will need to hack on the CSS to get it to work - plus probably have to create a GIF bullet with transparent background. That's quite far from working "out of the box" IMO.

   The edit theme page is definitely hosed under IE. I tried it from multiple different machines and it only looks/works right in Firefox (didn't try Opera or NS). I know I can edit files off-line and FTP them over and over, but for making small hacks and looking quickly at the result, the theme editor is handy. Even if I didn't want to use it, it still ought to work IMO.

7. jdingman
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   I tend to disagree, I help manage a high profile website for work which drives over a million hits a month and the majority of the browsers are still IE, reaching about 76%. Mozilla only coming in with about 8%, I would still develop for IE.

   Once IE7.0 is released it will be a lot easier to develop and maintain as well.

   There's an IE7.0 javascript hack out there if you're interested at all.

8. vkaryl
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Addy for the hack mentioned by jdingman: http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/

   [Edit: jdingman, I still "tweak for IE" - AFTER I make sure what I'm producing works and works right in real browsers. It's WAY simpler that way....]

9. RustIndy
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   jdingman, I do still develop for IE - but it saves a LOT of time to develop standards-compliant code first and then get IE to work with it. IE's bugs are (mostly) well docuemented at various locations, and if you actually understand CSS and XHTML (as opposed to your only experience being the ...For Dummies book), it's simple enough to work that way. It also let's you bypass browser-sniffing, which is becoming more and more frowned upon - sites should just work, whether I've got a blank or modified referrer field, javascript disabled, etc.

   I can't speak for the Edit Theme page not working in IE - I agree, though, it should "just work."

   If you really want bullets in your Kubrick sidebar (which, IMHO, looks dumb), find the CSS rule for the UL and/or LI tags, and remove the line that says display-type:none;. No guarantees that the spacing will be perfect afterwards though, you might need to mess with the margins and width too.

10. moshu
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    The WP 1.5.1.2 Theme Editor in IE 5.5 on Win 98. You cannot find a worse browser... and still the Edit panel is usable.

11. eveums
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    Yes there does seem to be some preference for FF. I have had some issues with FF too, I don't think it's the greatest thing out there, so I don't use it. In addition, the vast majority of my readership is still using IE, so I do have to be accomodating to them.

    Luckily, I have not found major compatibility issues with WP and IE. Usually just a tweak here or there. The biggest problem I have had is with the dashboard, which remains unresolved, so I just worked around and got a hack.

12. davidchait
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    FYI - the 'preference' for FF is that most CSS stuff works as it should by spec, whereas IE has some mind-blowing bugs which have in turn produced some mind-blowing workarounds and tricks -- that don't always work. Hopefully IE7 will implement CSS on-spec rather than making up new rules. ;)

    And yes, you can go add whatever bulleting you want, VERY EASILY, in the CSS for the theme. And there's NO reason whatsoever to go creating a transparent-gif bullet -- there's something like a dozen bullet options that should be respectable.

    -d

13. dthought
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html

    I noticed a lot of this issue on the WP admin pages using IE. Surely you have noticed this occurring too?

    For example, the Write Page title gets half guillotined - though that might be the guillotine bug itself. Bleh. So many bugs, but at least with a little forethought and some P.I.E. you can avoid most :)

14. richards1052
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    "I do appreciate that this is free software, but it really ought to work properly with the browser that 95% of readers will be using. Firefox is a fringe thing for techno people, for the most part."

    First, only 65% of my visitors use IE. 20% use Firefox. I don't see that number as a "fringe thing for techno people."

    And yes, FF isn't a perfect browser but it's about the best that I've seen & it blows IE away by comparison.

15. miklb
    Forum Concierge
    Posted 4 years ago #

    shouldn't this post be directed at M$, asking them to join the rest of the world in developing and adhering to standards?

16. macmanx
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    shouldn't this post be directed at M$, asking them to join the rest of the world in developing and adhering to standards?

    They're working on it.

    http://webstandards.org/press/releases/archive/2005/07/05/index.html

17. DianeV
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    The point is, though, that the bugs are within IE because it does not display some things per Web standards. Thus, you can code for a buggy browser -- that is, code for Microsoft, and hope that Microsoft never corrects its browser bugs -- or you can code correctly and then apply hacks that only affect IE. Your choice, but it pays to understand *what* is buggy.

18. DianeV
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    (Oops; the last three posts were made before I posted mine.)

19. macmanx
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    An example for DianeV's post:

    You're filming a movie. Audience A knows proper English, and Audience B knows some malformed/chopped-up mess of the English language, and a little bit of proper English.

    Do you film the movie using proper English for the dialogue, or do you use some malformed/chopped-up mess of the English language for the dialogue. Now, I know that the latter has been done, but the former (film the movie using proper English) has always been preferred.

    You can't film the movie for Audience B, because Audience A will not be able to understand the dialogue. If you film the movie for Audience A, at least Audience B stands a chance of understanding the dialogue.

20. DianeV
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    :) Fortunately, it's possible to code CSS properly and then apply IE-only hacks to get a layout that displays the same, or pretty much the same, in all modern browsers.

21. miklb
    Forum Concierge
    Posted 4 years ago #

    But as long as that is "accepted", M$ will continue to force things to be adapted for them. That cost $$ in productivity, if nothing else.
    Not to mention, it totally creates a much steeper learning curve. That can be evident from the multitude of posts seen here everyday, including the OP.

22. graemep
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    Firefox is hardly for just for "techno people". I recommend it to everyone and I have got a number of people who are anything but techno using - they all prefer it to IE. I have had the same experience with Opera. Most often I have installed a decent browser for them in the office, and, once they saw what it could do, they installed it forthemselves at home.

    I agree themes do need to work with IE given its market share. However admin themes are a bit different - you are going to be using your blog regularly, aren't you? so why not spend 5 minutes installing the best client software for its admin interface?

    In any case if you use the net enough to have a blog, then you probably should get a decent browser. I had to use a PC with only IE on it yesterday, and it felt very primitive by comparison to Firefox or Opera - the experience was closer to using a browser in 1996 than my daily experience today. No Live bookmarks, no Flash blocking, no search box or search shortcuts, no tabs, no spellchecker, no pop-up blocking etc.

23. mastiff
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    FWIW, I am a fringe techno person. I did dowload Firefox to use with WP and other things, and I've used it before on a 98 machine when IE simply would not go for more than 5 minutes without crashing. But I don't want my blog to only look good for technically savvy people. It's not a computer related site. My wife, for example, would never even know about anything but IE, since it came on the computer. I don't know Firefox's numbers, but last I checked my logs (for another non-computer oriented site) I think IE was over 80%.

    I didn't mean to start a discussion of the merits of IE. I just think that any respectable package ought to work properly with it given the market share. Can you imagine paying money for some hosted blog service, having the layout be half garbled under IE and then getting lectured about standards when you requested tech support? That's my experience here, mostly, minus the paying part, of course ;).

    If someone didn't have web programming experience and asked me about WP, I'd say to just forget it I think. I've spent a lot of time tweaking and it's still not right in IE. I'm not sure what package is out there that "just works" and allows modest customization (like changing the colors).

    Again, don't get the impression that I'm angry. For the most part I'm happy with WP and really appreciate the work that I'm parasiting for free! I just would have been happier if it were a little more polished feeling, and the anti-IE thing is just frustrating because sites need to work under IE or you lose 70%+ of your readers.

24. mastiff
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    And yes, you can go add whatever bulleting you want, VERY EASILY, in the CSS for the theme. And there's NO reason whatsoever to go creating a transparent-gif bullet -- there's something like a dozen bullet options that should be respectable.

    If it's very easy to fix, then why doesn't someone associated with WP just fix it? It's NOT very easy for me, obviously, since I've wasted a lot of time trying the various hacks people have suggested on this forum. At the least I kind of expected an article or official post about making the default theme look right in IE.

    Anyway, if it's very easy, then please tell me what to change to get the small >> bullets as intended by the designer. :)

    (no preview on this forum? I'm not sure if I'm quoting properly)

25. miklb
    Forum Concierge
    Posted 4 years ago #

    I don't get where you are coming from mastiff "get someone from WP to fix it". You are the only one who thinks its "broken". If you have a question about CSS, then ask a question about CSS. But don't blame the hammer because you can't drive a nail straight.

26. dhoughal
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    I think it would be the wrong way to make HTML output compliant to a specific browser. For this reason the W3C has developed standards: HTML, CSS etc. As far as I can see WP and its themes are compliant to these standards. If your browser can't display WP output correctly, your browser isn't standard compliant and you should think about switching to a compliant one, as long as your preferred software producer can provide a standard compliant browser.

27. dthought
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    I wouldn't criticise the WP team for having troubles with the CSS in IE. It does take a long, long time to learn all the caveats of coding for it. Still, I manage my way around it and if I find a spare moment, I'd be happy to supply fixes (that is, conditional hacks) to make the pages render properly in IE without affecting other browsers.

    Sure, it may make the CSS not "perfect", but it would then render perfectly in IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera or any other generally supported browser. Is that not a good thing?

28. roterhund
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    Hm. Guess people are finally finding out that IE in fact doesn't work. I guess you wouldn't expect instructions for take-off in a car, either. So why expect instructions on how to make something standards-compliant look right in IE? I think you should install Firefox (or Opera) for your wife, by the way. I wouldn't let my wife surf with IE/Win ;-)

29. mastiff
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    I don't get where you are coming from mastiff "get someone from WP to fix it". You are the only one who thinks its "broken". If you have a question about CSS, then ask a question about CSS. But don't blame the hammer because you can't drive a nail straight.

    ??? Search on "bullets for IE" or something similar and you'll see that everyone acknowledges that the default theme does not display bullets under IE. Other posts have also acknowledged the text box layout problems in the theme editor. I'm not doing anything wrong because I haven't done anything. I'm using the default theme.

    I'll say it again. MOST people use IE. A good web application needs to work with it. Saying IE is not standards compliant doesn't help anyone, since most readers will still be using it. If I go to a site using IE and it looks garbled up, I just assume the web designer is an ameteur. Think you could code for E-bay or Amazon and just tell your boss that IE users don't matter because they should use a "real" browser?

30. mastiff
    Member
    Posted 4 years ago #

    Oh, and I do have a CSS question. What do I change to show the default theme sidebar bullets under Firefox and IE?

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