Coding for Internet Explorer 6 can indeed be a total pain slowly but its creeping to deaths door with IE8 release.
Sindustries takes your through some of the good and more so the bad bits with you in regards to internet explorer 6.
IE6 was released August 27, 2001 that means web designers today are fixing problems 7 years old!
I’ve had many troubles with IE6, it can be the biggest pain in the butt fixing sites broke in IE6 however its the problems and the pains that can make you a much better coder and can help you spot where your going wrong when building a site instead of fixing the problems with the site at the end.
Now IE6 as you know was released on August 27, 2001 and that day was a Monday, It now features DHTML support and in-line frames and partial CSS 1 support.
Coding for Internet Explorer 6
Correcting bugs in IE6 will make you a better coder.
There is a multitude of IE6 bugs such as the double margin bug, step down bug and so now if you build a site today chances are you will have 1 or 2 IE6 bugs.
The majority of the problems are easily fixed however OK it might not make you totally 1337 but its good practice to at least find out where your going wrong.
When you discover you have some problems with IE6 don’t get cross with yourself take it in your stride and start looking on Google for the bug fix’s but do take the time to remember and understand them.
Adding IE6 compatibility will make your site more presentable.
Squashing all the bugs for IE6 will ensure that that your site will be view able in IE6 combine this with cross browser testing and everyone can view your website correctly and the way you want.
The hacks for IE6 are a learning curve.
At some point in time your going to want a site that can use .Png’s and you want them without the Grey border you want them to work!
Now doing this isn’t done by normal means and requires a IE6 Png hack OK you might be limited in regards that you need to insert title and width and you can repeat a .png image but the fact remains it allows you to use .Png’s for IE6
Knowing and understanding the bugs are valuable knowledge.
I really can’t stress enough how valuable it is to actually know the most common bugs and even some of the more uncommon bugs its something you can add to your arsenal and can only make you the stronger and remember time is money friend! The less time you spend fixing problems the more time you have to address other issues.
Not coding for IE6 could affect traffic.
The following figures are from W3C’s latest Internet Explorer user count on the internet (Source: W3C browser stats ).
- 3.5% for IE8
- 23.2% for IE7
- 15.4% for IE6
Even though IE8 has just been launched a lot of the browser market are still using IE6 and I wouldn’t even class the people using IE7 a good thing.
Saying this though If your only getting 3-5 users a month using IE6, I believe this number is good if you were getting 100,0000 page views a month and that number of IE6 users was 3000-5000 I would strongly suggest you make your site render correctly in IE6.
If you not going to fix your errors at least display a “error”.
If your going down the path of not fixing your website for IE6 you should at least proved a message that shows users there browser is out of date such as this Jquery IE6 error message – Its simple and presentable and allows users to find there way to the most up-to-date browser for them and hopefully user will update the browser and then more importantly come back with a better browser.
Conclusion.
My conclusion is simple Internet Explorer 6 is for now something you cant ignore you can’t just leave it alone to gather and expect the user to update there browseron there own you need to either tell them there browser is out of date or fix your website to render correctly in IE6 from a production and marketing aspect its an issue you must address for time is money friend.
I believe that to rid the internet of IE6 your either going to need a miracle/act of god or come up with IE9 or some sort of warning is made by the W3C,
