Matthew Knott

This article really encapsulates a lot of the things that frustrate me about Microsoft's "I know best" attitude to it's web browsers. The purpose of the W3C Standards is to facilitate a common experience across all-platforms and browsers.

This site is something of an ongoing project for me, I've tackled advanced apache configuration through my work with mod_rewrite, cloud trees, which were mild challenges, but nothing compares to the sheer hair-pulling that comes from trying to get your site looking good cross-browser. This site, for example, great in Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, and Opera, yet I have margin issues in Internet Explorer 6.

This is frustrating as a developer because it means valuable time is wasted trying to flush out happy mediums, often forcing compromises on excellent designs.

IE 7 represented a step forwards in terms of compatibility, but there is still a long way to go before developers can rest assured that their site will look the same in each and every major browser.

My particular problem related to the infamous margin-doubling bug in IE6 when working with floated elements. This is documented in numerous websites, and the recomended fix is to use display: inline.

This resolves the issue, although totally against W3C guidelines. Plus, if you're using an element that requires the display property to be set to block, you have even more tinkering to do that will probably force you to deviate further from the set standards.

After some experimentation, I found that the display: inline-block existed, fixed the bug, and retained the properties of a block element insofar as the padding etc was still correct.

Tags: Standards Browsers Microsoft Design Safari Firefox Opera IE Internet_explorer css inline-block inline display property