Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 01/09/06 12:27

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, David Graham wrote:

> Does IE 5.5 have a standard mode as well as a quirk mode?
> I think IE5.0 and IE4.0 is always quirk regardless of doctype - is that
> correct?

If only due to security concerns, IE users seem to be well above
average in updating to the latest version of the browser. Those who
choose to stay with an even more obsolete browser version than IE6
presumably get accustomed to living with its shortcomings on other
folks' sites, so they'd have no particular reason to be upset by
yours, I'd have thought.

> Is it really necessary for this tutorial to start using a property which
> only works in some versions of IE in standard mode?

CSS is optional by design, so it's "working" in either case - unless
the browser crashes or otherwise misbehaves instead of simply
disregarding things that it doesn't understand. CSS also does what
it's intended to do (i.e in that case "nothing at all") on Lynx -
which is perhaps as well, since Lynx is a character cell browser and
wouldn't know what to do with all those pixel-exact specifications.
There's rarely a stylesheet that can't be improved by re-engineering
most of the px units into em units (with the exception of borders, and
some instances of margins and padding).

> I was really enjoying this simple straight forward tutorial on how
> to produce a nice simple straight forward 2 column layout but
> min-width has muddied the waters for me. Any opinions and advice
> please.

Without specific reference to the tutorial cited, I would make the
following general remarks...

min-width and max-width, if used carefully by an author, can extend
the range of browser window sizes over which pleasant results can be
achieved, on consenting browsers. Those which haven't chosen to
implement the feature, may benefit from the user adjusting the window
width for themselves.

But as for this particular tutorial:

body {
min-width:750px;
}

is plain rude. I'd prefer a browser which ignored that! The design
would otherwise have worked fine in my usual browser window, but the
pesky author insisted on throwing a pointless and useless left/right
scrollbar, something which users are well known to dislike - me
included.

IMHO and YMMV

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