Ie7-js: JS library to make IE behave like a standards-compliant browser | Hacker News Reader

Ie7-js: JS library to make IE behave like a standards-compliant browser

code.google.com

34 pointsniyazpk10 comments

It's rather slow.

I've used this on a few projects before, and always found it took several seconds to "do its thing" on a mildly complex site.

Remember that the typical computer that runs IE6 is not new hardware, and is probably already throttled by corporate bloatware in the systray.

I've tried using this on a few sites and it seems to fix some problems. However, it inevitably ends up causing new bugs.

I still think the best solution is to keep your CSS and javascript as simple as possible, while resorting to browser dependent stylesheets/scripts only as a last resort.

could you elaborate on the bugs?

I tried it, but frequently found it causing Javascript failures in seemingly unrelated areas of the site as well as element flickering and disappearance.

There is a massive amount of functions and variables in the global space. That looks fishy to me.

I tried this about a month ago, and found that it wasn't an instant fix for CSS issues. Things still weren't positioned correctly, though it did repair others.

Along with not wanting to bog down IE7 with more javascript (my site is pretty javascript heavy already) I decided to stick with just IE7 css hacks (I think I have about 20 of them).

I use it in all my projects that require IE6 compatibility. While it does not solve all problems it makes IE6 a lot closer to IE7/IE8 than it would otherwise be. It is a bit slow but it has saved me tons of development time so far.

Do you know if there's a "fix-to-standard.js" where it update the current browser to standard? I'm not a web expert, as you probably guessed, but I was just wandering if it was feasable. For instance, it could add the ajax stuff which is different or missing in IE6 like it is in firefox. Etc.. Just including a .js would make everything standard. Again, I know it's noobish and probably unfeasable, but I was wondering why exacly?

Aside from this library, I'm not aware of a library like that. While I think the idea has some merit, there's a couple of problems:

- Its a lot of Javascript, and that can make things really slow. As another commenter pointed out, the computer running IE6 is probably on the older side anyway.

- Its a lot of work, and people would rather spend the cycles getting people to upgrade. To borrow a phrase, it would be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

- Its sure to cause some quirks that in turn require their own workarounds. While older versions of IE are a PITA, their quirks are at least finite and known.

Regarding AJAX, IE6 actually has fine support for AJAX. Perhaps someone can correct me here, but I believe IE actually introduced the XHR, which is the foundation of AJAX.

That's not to say it couldn't be done, or that it wouldn't be fun to try. Those are just my guesses as to why we haven't seen one.

Old news, I much prefer the updated IE8 and IE9 versions myself. The title should reflect these two as opposed to IE7 as it's a dated lib.

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