Lately, I’ve decided to switch themes on a few of my blogs. So I started looking around for some themes that are nice and simple enough. I found about five (5) candidates and that were nice, simple and not too loud. To my surprise none of these themes worked in Internet Explorer 6.0. It seems that, lately, blog theme designers are saying a big old “screw you IE 6.0″ and I don’t blame them.
Now, I’m having mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I’m happy that people are finally putting the nail in IE 6.0’s coffin. However, I’m slightly pissed that I can’t use these themes. I, more than anyone, should know the reasons why we should abaondon IE 6.0 and move on to better, more productive web development and enjoyment. But, the purist in me still doesn’t want to leave the poor saps who are trapped behind the veil (whether is by software contraints or ignorance) of Internet Explorer 6.0 behind.
Browser statistics show that IE 6 still maintains between 26% and 37% of the web browser market. Right now, that’s just too many people to ignore.
The main problem with making themes compatible with few different IE versions – you can have only one version installed on your computer.
I used to keep IE6 on one of my laptops ONLY for that reason…
Now that I have upgraded last computer – there is no way for me to check any new designs in IE6.
It has been quite a few years since Microsoft released IE7 and if people are using internet – it makes all sense in the world to upgrade your browser…
Not quite sure about the other platforms, but on Windows XP (and Vista, I guess) you can download Multiple IE or IE Tester for your testing purposes. Sometimes, they act a bit weird (especially IE 5.0, but I never open that anymore anyway) with things like Java and Flash sometimes, but they do very well to give you a nice basic layout of what your website is going to look like.
I believe not too many developers have equip their computer with multi version browsers (FF2, FF6, IE6, IE7). That’s why it become virtually impossible to test in both version of IE (meanwhile, there’s no dramantic styling difference between FF2 and FF3, so it’s understandable if one doesn’t have both version).
I also use the Multiple-IE that Baz mentioned.
http://I-Hate-IE.forums-free.com