IE6......Do I just pretend it doesn't exist?

[puffnstuff]

I've been trying several things with CSS, and all is good and well, seems to work on every browser, including IE7. But does not work with IE6.

Several other forums I've read, seem to lean towards just ignoring IE6, and making sure your site is properly coded and efficient, and works on all the others, and just too bad for those suckers who are still in the dark ages using IE6.

What is the consensus here?

Should I convert my old coding over to css, and therefore have a site that is efficient and fast and displays nicely in everything except IE6? Or should I stick with the old javascript and tables layouts to keep the IE6 users happy?
The site gets only about 40 hits per day, so I'm not talking about a huge population of users, here.

What about putting some kind of statement on the home page, that if the user has IE, the site will only work with IE7 and up?

[erdinc]

Of course you don't ignore it.

According the statistics on this page %12 of Internet users still use IE6.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

I think websites should support IE6 until this ratio drops under %3. I think this would be reasonable number.

Looking at the statistics I think next year this time it will drop to %8. One year after it should drop to %5 and the next year to %3. I think there is still 3 more years to go.

There are people who use computers other than their own to surf. For instance there are libraries, prisons, dormitories and other places where the user can't install another browser. Not all IE6 users are suckers.

[bluewalrus]

There are conditional statements for each version of IE. You could put a message to the user to upgrade or use a different browser to see the page as intended with these statements. If you have a lot of time you could make multiple versions. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

Also according to those stats ie6 would be gone in 1.3 years or so as it's dropped 10%+ every year for the past 4 years. If your going to go by stats though you might as well go by your pages own not what the web standard may be. Do this by either making your own browser detection and or log files or use google analytics. The w3school stats aren't exactly accurate as I've been informed and seen also...

Also be aware that many statistics may have an incomplete or faulty browser detection.....

The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures

[Snookerman]

I recommend that you use my signature below

Happy coding!

[puffnstuff]

Thanks to all who have replied so far.

I'm still really confused, though. I'm not a professional developer. I work for a small company, and I developed our own website, and it needs to be re-done. I'm not sophisticated enough to be able to code 2 completely different versions in order to satisfy IE6 and everybody else.

The current code is very cumbersome, but it does work for IE6. However, I often get comments related to the code, and that I should be using more CSS and less javascript.

For example, I have hyperlinked images that change on hover/mouseover. Currently being done via javascript. Tried various CSS solutions, none of which work in IE6.

[bluewalrus]

pngs have problems in ie6, hover events on elements other than a have problems in ie. If neither of those relate to your link mouseover/hover problem than post a link and I or someone will see if there is a better way of doing the links. But if the problem is just in ie6 I wouldn't really worry about it to much, just use the conditional statement snookerman suggested or come up with something else you want.

With the conditional statments you dont recode the whole thing just the parts that are being misread in the browser version. To do this have the main page link then the ie conditional in your head so the ie overwrites the main if it is ie.

[puffnstuff]

Link to site is here:

http://www.bossteel.com

Aside from re-designing the site to make it fluid vertically, adding new pages, etc., we need to clean up the code to improve SEO, so was told to get rid of all the javascript.

In particular, trying to use pure css for:

- hover/mouseover on buttons in left menu bar
- will be adding a catalogue of parts, and need to pop up larger image on mouseover of thumbnail.


I have actually found some code here on this site, but can't seem to get it to work in IE6. Works in IE7, though.

[bluewalrus]

I don't know where to start I think a redesign is needed keep style in mind and not to use tables for design.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...Inline&group=0

Your page doesn't display as it should in firefox 3.5.4 nor in safari nor opera, i think. Do you mean to have 1/2 if not more of your content not readable? If this is an attempt at seo you should at the least use visibility hidden, display none (I think this will make it not readable by search engines though), or position it off the screen to the left. I also think some search engines can detect this now.

Take a screen shot of your page and what you want, or two if the bottom content shows up on your computer.