[Irl-dean] CSS, Conditional Comments and Using Multiple IE

[Colm McBarron]

Hi Josh,

For all our browser testing we use virtualisation in the form of  
VMWare (fusion for Mac or Workstation for Windows)

Fusion:
http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/

Workstation:
http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/

It allows us to run as many different versions and configurations of  
windows/linux on the same machine without the need to reboot (even at  
the same time).

It also lets us setup various scenarios to test with - win 2k, xp,  
vista etc. as needs be. You can also browse to your own machine from  
within each of the environments.

For browser testing - I have the following environments at my disposal  
- IE6 on XP, IE7 on XP, IE8 on Vista.

There is some other virtualisation software available - but so far  
VMWare has been working excellently for us.

All the best,

Colm



On 22 Apr 2008, at 14:13, Joshue O Connor wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have already asked Gez and Maura about this but I wonder if anyone
> else has come across this problem.
>
> Part 1: I am building a website and I wish to use conditional comments
> to serve different CSS files/rule to each browser as needed. I have my
> CSS for "good browsers" and then I usually write more as needed with
> fixes/variations for IE.
>
> However, with the following code I found problems with getting the <  
> IE
> 6 rules to display at all.
> < IE 6 were instead loading the style sheet  
> 'good_browser.css' (which is
> for Mozilla etc and IE 8 where it works happily).
>
> Here is the code, any pointers appreciated but it is pretty OK.
>
>  <!--[if lte IE 6]>
> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../test/css/ie.css" />
> <![endif]-->
> <!--[if IE 7]>
> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../test/css/ie7.css" />
> <![endif]-->
> <!--[if IE 8]>
> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
> href="../test/css/good_browser.css" />
> <![endif]-->
> <!--[if !IE]> <-->
> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
> href="../test/css/good_browser.css"  />
> <!--> <![endif]-->
>
> But no matter what I did, it would not work and the good_browser.css
> file seemed to consistently be the default for IE 6 and earlier.  
> Then I
> came to the following conclusion.
>
> Part 2: I am using Multiple IE and I think I *may* have gotten to the
> bottom of the problem. After much digging, there seems to be a problem
> correctly using Multiple versions of IE on the same local machine, and
> conditional comments. Basically when using conditional comments to  
> serve
> different style sheets/rules etc, each browser will actually behave,  
> or
> identify itself as the highest numbered version of IE that you have
> installed on your local machine.
>
> For example, if you have IE 8 installed on your local machine, (as I
> have) even if you open up say IE 6 or IE 5.5 to test how some style
> looks etc, they will *still* be served the CSS/rules etc for IE 8 as  
> the
> older browser seems to identify itself as the highest numbered  
> version.
>
> Any ideas, solutions appreciated as Multiple IE is great - but it does
> need to work *properly* to be of any use for development. [1]
>
> Also if anyone has come across this and there is a patch or similar  
> (or
> another way of really running different versions of IE on a local
> machine please let me know).
>
> Cheers
>
> Josh
>
> [1] http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
>
>
>
>
>
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