Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

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JellyFish
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Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JellyFish »

I've just gotten this message from windows updater to download IE8, but I don't know if I should. If I do I don't think I would be keeping IE7. Should a web developer such as myself upgrade to internet explored 8? I'm using IETester to test older vesions of Internet explorer maybe I could also use it to test IE7. What do you think I should do, 'cause I don't want to get stuck with the latest version of IE that nobody uses yet. what did you do? Did you get the update yet?

PS: why don't we usually worry about keeping older versions of other browsers? Or is that just me?t
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onion2k
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by onion2k »

If you're using IETester then it doesn't matter what version is installed for the rest of the OS.
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by sidevon »

My answer is clear yes. Why? As developers we simply can't afford not checking IE8. Sooner or later the number of IE8 users will occupy the number of temporary IE7 users.
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onion2k
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by onion2k »

IETester is good enough to test 99% of sites. If it looks ok, and works, in IETester then you're fine.
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JAB Creations »

onion2k wrote:IETester is good enough to test 99% of sites. If it looks ok, and works, in IETester then you're fine.
Onion, dude thanks...I just downloaded it and started checking it out.

I agree, stick with the latest versions of IE just like any other browser. If a client wants (or expects) support for older versions charge them for it!

In fact I would still change clients more just for having to add JScript support to JavaScript for IE8.

I've been using VirtualBox for testing IE6 as the system IE and I have a second image of XP with IE7 as the system IE. A system IE by the way is when it's not a standalone.

When I test I pretty much start with IE8 which essentially the only thing I have to worry about is adding JScript support since IE8 still only supports JavaScript 1.5 and I think Gecko 2.0 will have JavaScript 2.0 I think?

Then I throw IE8 in to compatibility mode which effectively lets me test IE7. What is nice is that a lot of bugs in IE6 can still be flattened by testing IE8 in compatibility mode.

I of course load my image of XP with IE7 as the system IE to verify fixes.

Then I'll load the XP image with the IE6 for the system IE.

I still test IE 5.5 albeit only a standalone simply because when I fix the vast majority of bugs in IE6 and apply them for IE 5.5 they typically are fixed and by that time I'm on a roll.

Since I've gotten really solid with XHTML/CSS I've noticed that my work is afflicted by a substantially reduced number of bugs in IE. IE is still the worst possible browser no matter the version but in it's time it was surprisingly cutting edge...in it's time.
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JAB Creations »

I noticed an issue I've been well aware of for some time: IEtester does not handle conditional comments correctly for older versions of IE.

That is why I run copies of XP with system versions of IE, conditional comments in standalone versions of IE always use the system IE version.

Since conditional comments always correctly target the version of IE it unfortunately does not allow successful testing of conditional comments.

However the upside is that you can show clients how IE looks before you patch it up. :wink:

Every thing has it's ups and downs and I think I'll keep IEtester on my system for a while as it could prove valuable in the long term. I think I'll also contact the person working on it about conditional comments.
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by Reviresco »

For the moment I'm sticking with IE 6 and IE 7 on my two Windows machines at work. Since nearly all my associates have IE 8, I can just check on their computers, and still have the two previous versions at hand to test on.
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JellyFish
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JellyFish »

I remember when testing IE6 on IETester for the png alpha transparency hack it didn't work correctly. I don't think that IETester has supports CSS filters yet?

Little things like this I don't know if I should rely on IETester. What do you do for testing older versions of IE John?
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by onion2k »

JellyFish wrote:Little things like this I don't know if I should rely on IETester.
If you're putting that much effort into supporting IE6 then I agree, use a proper PC (or virtual box) with IE6 on it. Personally, I'm happy if the site looks ok and the basic functionality works. I'm not being paid to support browsers from 2 major releases ago. It'd be like testing in Opera 8 and Firefox 1. Noone even thinks about doing that do they?
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Bill H
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by Bill H »

How do you even know what version of IE you are using? I use Firefox, of course, but I have IE for testing and I decided to see what versions it was. There is no "File" menu, and I have found no way to locate any kind of "About" box or version number. That seems really odd, but we are dealing with MS here. Anyway, how does one detect the version number of IE?
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JAB Creations »

Bill, yeah you've noticed one of the effects of Microsoft's GUI suicide. Microsoft decided that a consistent user interface was in the best interest of users, so naturally they've worked really hard to make what should be second nature to be instead yet another obstacle in our lives.

Press the ALT key and it'll show the menus. There is (usually) some option somewhere to force Windows to display the file menu. Unfortunately Vista's taint has slowly trickled in to XP. :roll:

In Internet Explorer right-click on the anti-GUI toolbars and put a check for "Menu bar'. I think that should do it for you. :)
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by Weirdan »

Bill H wrote:There is no "File" menu
'About' boxes are usually in 'Help' menu, so you don't need 'File' actually =)

Here it is:
ie.version.png
ie.version.png (17.12 KiB) Viewed 1094 times
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JellyFish
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by JellyFish »

onion2k wrote:...It'd be like testing in Opera 8 and Firefox 1. Noone even thinks about doing that do they?
I don't think anyone thinks of testing for older versions of other web browsers because it doesn't take 3 years for they're user base to migrate to the latest version. Look at Firefox for example, 8,002,530 downloads in one day.

I just don't feel like IETester is that reliable. If I do upgrade to IE8 I'll loose IE7 as a stand-alone. I have MultipleIE installed on my machine as well, which means I have IE5, IE5.5, and IE6 on my machine, running as stand-alones.

What does Microsoft expect you to do?
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by omniuni »

Personally, I use IEs4Linux, which installes IE5, IE5.5, IE6, and experimentally IE7. A Windows XP VM can take care of IE8.
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Bill H
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Re: Should a web developer upgrade to IE8?

Post by Bill H »

'About' boxes are usually in 'Help' menu, so you don't need 'File' actually =)
Oops, you're right. No "Help" either, but thereis a little thingy to expand that menu, and that showed a "Help" menu.
Mumble, mumble, mumble. I'm usinf IE7. Well, I'm using Firefox. I have IE7.
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