Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work

Subject: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 07:48 AM

on my website cresby.com I use the status line to alert people to the day of the month (eg 3rd Fri), but still allow URLs to be displayed.

Which I took great pains to get working on three different browsers and assumed that the different versions thereof would behave similarly. Not so IE7. Security issue? who knows.

As a result of playing with different ways to do job I switched-on the debugger in IE7.

Now every website I look at (including the 'Cat) delivers a JavaScript error and I visit some pretty switched-on commercial sites from work. All of them throw an error and on a lot of their pages too. OK they don't prevent usage visibly but then the webmasters only respond when the problem is seen or told to them. But there are a lot of JavaScript errors and nearly all because of IE7.

If anyone knows any web sites that list the defecated instructions (deprecated they might have been but it is past that stage now) I would appreciate a few clues. I still use Mozilla 1.7.8 and IE5.5 at home as a baseline - you never know who is still relying on legacy systems.

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 07:55 AM

I'm using Firefox and when I click your blicky it tells me that Firefox doesn't know how to open it!

Could be my fault cos I delicberately don't have flash on my Firefox.

Sal

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: gnomad
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:07 AM

Link reads "htpp etc" but works if changed to "http etc" this on Firefox 2.0.0.15

Of the rest I know na-a-athing, sorry.

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:25 AM

Mr Red

comment much the same as gnomad above

Link reads "htpp etc" but works if changed to "http etc" - this on Firefox 1.5.0.12 for me - (Still Fedora 6 - FF V2 won't work 'easily' on F6)

I have NoScript - and both the link (corrected) you gave and the alternate link thereon work OK - no errors - even with NoScript blocking everything. I have Flash.

I can see no 'day info' in the status line on the 2 links I mention - no errors either.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:06 AM

I read somewhere that most new browsers don't allow access to the status line, so I have to devize a fading alert - I have one that works on IE5.5 & not on Mozilla, but it is the newer browsers that I have to address. the status line wheeze works on IE6.

Not tried Firefox since 1.xxx. AND I hate Flash anyway. I use Flashblock at home just to speed-up Tx.

Correct link to cresby.com

Still looking for things to watch-out for in newer browsers. Any URLs that list some of the missing niceties.

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:28 AM

Use a web validator to check for errors.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 01:13 PM

I seldom venture into web page design, but do quite often resort to looking for Microsoft fables about what they're doing to us.

Using "Microsoft Advanced Search" for information on IE7 with search term "New Features" finds Some Articles on IE7 differences.

With your understanding of what you've done, you probably can eliminate most of the articles listed as not applicable to your problem. I can't guess whether that will leave any that are applicable.

Articles during beta releases and early final distribution of IE7 claimed that IE7 made changes "to make it more strictly compliant with the w3 Specification," and predicted some "incompatibilities" with prior versions of IE and with other browsers. Most browsers have used "proprietary features" to try to differentiate their "goodness" from other makers' "badness." (Trivial example, Marquee/scrolling vs Flashing text?) Lots of "gimmicks" crept in, some of which may no longer work or may work differently.

I'm not smart enough to tell whether it's related to your incompatibility, but the second article in the search return above -

Separation of Internet Explorer 7 from the Windows shell (KB928675)

- gives a somewhat crude description of one of the "new features" that seems to have been troublesome. Check the last paragraph, "Compatibility," for the "party line."

John

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:17 AM

Thanks John - I am a tinkerer so it may take some time.

Stilly River Sage - I will use the validator, though the last time I tried the W3 facility it just got worse and worse and worse.

And that was using Dreamweaver to generate all the headers, and nothing special in the body.

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:21 AM

I use Firefox 3.0, and your site seemed to open just fine. I didn't try any of the links from it.

Subject: RE: Tech: IE7 - things that no longer work
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 08:07 AM

I have just loaded FF2 and found the switch to turn on the status line messages. However as it is a user choice, and it is not that important to users often, they probably don't switch it on. So if those messages are useful I must find another way to display a simple date message. I am tinkering and found a method that is working, but like any change it needs to work with existing stuff and that is a longer project.

the techy bit is - style sheets, I have to unify a lot of them instead of the ad hoc methods I employed.

The whole ethos with the status line was that if it failed the site was unaffected. So in that respect it was a good decision. But things have changed since I devised the wheeze. And there are those who still use old browsers so I need to test on several machines. One of the reasons my site is relatively mundane, data are King. Fashion can wait.