IE6 Compatibility

Ask a web professional what the hardest part of the job is, and we reckon that the words ‘Internet Explorer 6 on Windows’ will feature highly on the list.

There are a number of problems that this particular browser presents the web designer, and in this day of standards and accessability, building a site that is compliant, yet works well in all situations, is a tall order.

Freeway 4.3 and above outputs HTML and CSS that helps you circumnavigate most of these problems, and, again, all without having to lift a finger to type any code.

Freeway Pro 4.3 introduced a Windows Compatibility Mode option in the Document Setup dialog. This is on by default, so your existing and new sites will publish with these fixes in place automatically. Freeway Express does not have a compatibility option – it always generates IE6 compatible code.

PNG Transparency

PNG transparency is a long-standing bug in Internet Explorer. If you include a PNG graphic that has 8-bit transparency, the transparent portions of the graphic are displayed opaquely in Internet Explorer.

This bug is fixed in Internet Explorer 7. Freeway uses the well-known “PNG Behavior” fix to work around this problem (http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html).

Non-Floated Images

Pages which contain non-floated images (and other content) may break up in Internet Explorer. Freeway works around this problem, which also affects the now discontinued Internet Explorer 5 on the Mac.

Unspecified Height

If the height of a CSS box is not specified, IE6 may become confused and display the box (or its children) incorrectly. Some of the effects of this problem are documented at:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/creep.html
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/guillotine.html
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/unscrollable.html

Generally, Freeway is able to work around this problem. Freeway 5 Express outputs table-based layout code, and is not affected by this IE bug.

Doubled float margin

IE6 doubles the width of margins which are added to float items:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html

Freeway works around this problem. Freeway 5 Express outputs table-based layout code, and is not affected by this IE bug.

Italics Bug

IE6 increases the width of some boxes which contain italic text:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/italicbug-ie.html

Freeway works around this problem.

Line-height bug

If the default line height is changed to a larger value, IE6 will incorrectly display lines which contain inline elements (the line spacing is half of what it should be):

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/lineheightbug.html

There does not seem to be a good solution to this problem (Freeway doesn’t work around it).

Expanding box problem

IE6 expands the width of boxes that contain unbreakable content, instead of allowing the oversize content to overflow:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/expandingboxbug.html

There does not seem to be a good solution to this problem (Freeway doesn’t work around it).