* Posts by Nick Fitzsimons

1 publicly visible post • joined 19 Mar 2009

Microsoft promises 'lessons learned' on IE 8 download day

Nick Fitzsimons
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Wrong way round

'All sites need do - according to Microsoft at least - is complete the relatively simply task of inserting a tag in their code in order to render pages in IE 8's default standards mode - the new, web-standards compatible version of IE rendering. Sites that don't insert the tag won't render properly, and will be viewed in IE's non-standards "compatible view" mode.'

Umm, it's the other way around - sites are rendered in Standards Mode by default, and a META-tag can be used to enforce IE7 Compatibility Mode - see <http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/06/10/introducing-ie-emulateie7.aspx>.

The only reason a page intended to render in Standards Mode would have to use a special META-tag would be to prevent the use of IE7 Compatibility Mode even when selected by the user. See <http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/27/introducing-compatibility-view.aspx>: "Sites on the public internet... display in IE8 Standards Mode by default."