Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

HTML How to Make a Website Responsive Web Design and Testing Website Testing

Posted by Dani Donovan
Dani Donovan
651 Points

IE8 Troubleshooting

I don't like Internet Explorer, but the company I work for (with nearly 9,000 employees) uses IE8 as the default browser-- and doesn't look like they'll be updating any time soon. I'm still new at learning to code so I'm not sure what elements of this track are HTML5/CSS3 specifically. In the video after testing, you say that it's sort of a "lost cause" to worry about IE8 since it's 4 versions back. But is there a way to "fix" the navigation issues so it's at least visible in IE8? Or would it require re-coding the whole site?

Like I said, I'm new at this so I don't know what's regular HTML code that works in IE8 and what's HTML5 that doesn't. Hopefully (eventually) they'll move to an upgraded browswer, but for right now it's what I have to work with.

2 Answers

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

You can use the HTML5SHIV to enable HTML5 elements in older browsers of IE. What it basically does is create all the elements from HTML5 with JS so the browser can find them.

here

Dylan Dixon
Dylan Dixon
947 Points

I actually do not know about this, and even though I don't usually really support IE8 yet, I may learn this just in case.

I really just wish that they would get rid of Internet Explore though :/

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

Yeah still alot of users on IE8 so makes sense to add it in. Nothing really to learn just add the file and the conditional comment and feel happy in the fact that more people can view your beautiful semantically marked website. I am a chrome bum super speedy minimal clutter that how I like my browsers. I could load up a page in chrome and log in somewhere before I can even get a search off in IE.

Dylan Dixon
Dylan Dixon
947 Points

Alright, I'll start using it then! Thanks!

Dani Donovan
Dani Donovan
651 Points

Oh my gosh, thank you! That worked well. The only problem I'm having now is that the phone, mail, and Twitter icons on the contact page are messed up and not resizing correctly. Is there a way to fix that?

http://web.pe2rdf12n8.treehouse-app.com/contact.html

Dani Donovan
Dani Donovan
651 Points

(It also seems that it's only using the mobile version of the site. Do the queries / responsive designs not work in IE8 at all, even with the HTML5SHIV?)

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

For the media queries they won't work in IE8 but here is a post with some advice using more conditional comments and seperate stylesheets for those browsers. here Not too sure about the icon thing in IE. I would ask another question on the forum see who pops up to help. Good luck Dani Donovan

Dani Donovan
Dani Donovan
651 Points

Awesome. Thanks for all your help, Adam Sackfield! That HTML5SHIV was really useful :)

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

Anytime!

Dylan Dixon
Dylan Dixon
947 Points
Dylan Dixon
Dylan Dixon
947 Points

I would keep asking them to change to a better browser, but I think that there are reset.css files and such that can fix this.

An example of a reset css: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/ .

Correct me if I'm wrong but that usually deals with IE8 as well.

Once again I could be wrong.

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

Had to grab this question. My last one :P BTW the reset will NOT have any effect of enabling HTML5 elements on older browsers. It will just ensure that all browsers start off with the same stylesheet. Aids in consistency

Dylan Dixon
Dylan Dixon
947 Points

xD no worries.