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[nineseven]

Hi

I have a question regarding ie8 and its ie7 compatability mode.

When you have compatibility mode activated will it pick up any ie7 specific fixes on and ie7 stylesheet that is called through a conditional comment in the page header?

Thanks for your help

[Andy]

Yes, Internet Explorer 8 in IE7 compatibility mode does apply IE7-specific conditional comments.

[nineseven]

Thanks Andy for the reply.

Ive done some testing and indeed IE8 in compatibility mode does apply IE7 specific style sheets, however it looks like IE8 in compatibility mode doesnt render exactly the same as IE7 so were looking at adding:

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

into the header to disable the compatability mode. We dont need another version of IE to test in. 3s enough at the moment without adding IE8 in compatibility mode into the mix.

[Andy]

Why?

IE8 won't be in IE7 mode unless you explicitly tell it to render as such.
When X-UA-Compatible was first announced, it was advertised that IE8 would render as IE7 by default. They got a lot of criticism for this and therefore reversed their stance.

[shareAll]

I started using the IE8 meta because you cannot control the user environment. Some people don't even realize they're in Compatibility mode!

Of course, having an IE7 stylesheet in place also remedies. However, I've had a few elements I'd prefer users view in IE8 mode.

[Tarvalon]

My results have shown the same as you nineseven - compatibility mode (and changing the browser mode via IE Dev Tools) does not re-create the IE7 environment in it's entirety and that has led to problems on some of my sites, especially when trying to debug problems that a client has in IE7 as I don't get the same issues in IE7 via IE8. If disabling compatibility mode is an option for you, that would certainly cut down on your frustrations. Not everyone can do that, however...