Disappearing Content
<rant>
I just happened to fire up IE 5.2 (MacOSX), and looked at this web site. The GIF image of the Asymmetry Data from BELLE in this post was simply missing! Here’s the offending code:
<div style="text-align:center;overflow:auto;margin-bottom:20px;">
<img src="/~distler/blog/images/asym-highr-wsm.gif"
title="http://www.kek.jp/press/2003/image/asym-highr-wsm.gif"
style="border:0;width:567px;height:420px;"
alt="Asymmetry data in B to phi K_S from BELLE" /><br />
<span class="figurecaption">Asymmetry data from BELLE, from which the value of
<math xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML'>
<mo lspace="0em" rspace="thinmathspace">sin</mo>
<mo>(</mo><mn>2</mn><msub><mi>φ</mi> <mn>1</mn></msub><mo>)</mo>
</math>
is determined, plotted as a function of the decay time. The
smooth dotted curve indicates what one would expect from the
Standard Model, whereas the smooth solid curve is a fit to the
observed data.
</span>
</div>
Ignore that IE doesn’t support MathML; many people don’t care about being able to read the formulæ. But not to display the entire <div> because it doesn’t know what to do with overflow:auto?? That’s just brain-dead.
I give up. Life is too short…
Henceforth, InternetExplorer is UNSUPPORTED. If you view these pages in that family of browsers, they may look odd, whole sections may be missing, all sorts of bad stuff may have happened. I don’t know, and I don’t care. And I ain’t gonna “fix” it.
Get yourself a Standards-compliant browser
</rant>
Update (9/5/2003): Having cooled down a bit, I managed to fix this particular problem with IE. But I stand by my “UNSUPPORTED” position, and now have posted a warning for the (mercifully few) IE visitors who frequent this blog.
Posted by distler at September 2, 2003 5:06 PM
TrackBack URL for this Entry: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/dxy-tb.fcgi/215
Re: Disappearing Content
Bravo Jacques!
I know you tried very hard, but it is a wilderness out there. I agree it’s just not worth it. I wish I could make the same decission, but when working on other people’s pages, you just don’t have that much of a choice.
Re: Disappearing Content
I don’t know exactly what you did, but is there a reason why your site looks like this or this when I view it in Internet Explorer on-line, but like this or this when I save the page and reload the saved HTML file?
Just curious, but are you sabotaging us Internet Explorer losers? :)
Read the post
Just add that 14 bytes of accessibility
Weblog: Weblog about Markup & Style
Excerpt: Yes, that is correct just 14 little bytes (even Google wouldn't notice...) and your site will be easier to navigate. And you won't have to add them on you most frequent visited page. If you homepage is the most visited...
Tracked: September 15, 2003 1:03 PM
Read the post
IE Standards Pressure, Eolas Update
Weblog: Eclectic Echoes
Excerpt: Microsoft’s IE has long been the bane of web developers. IE’s support for standards is spotty and inconsistent. This has led to (amongst other things) CSS hacks to hide or modify CSS behaviors for IE versions 5, 5.5 and 6—instead...
Tracked: October 9, 2003 8:50 PM
Re: Disappearing Content
Ai!
I’ve been tempted to just drop IE support for so long now, if only Firefox could take a bit more, 15-20%, of the market, I think I’d feel no remorse.
So congratulations on taking a firm stance. Perhaps I will follow soon.
Re: Disappearing Content
While your stance on IE is a noble one it’s not incredibly realistic. Regardless of IE’s standards compliance or lack thereof IE is here to stay, and to say that “we will not support IE” is saying “We don’t care about 80 to 90% of my target market”.
Sure, to other web developers and I.T. savvy individuals browsers like firefox are an obvious choice, but to the other 99% of the world who a) don’t have the technical expertise to install new applications (a surprisingly large market) or b) are using corporate computers and don’t have the access to install anything else (another large market especially in the government sector), IE is the only option.
No matter how much you dislike IE it’s here to stay, and considering the number of people who use the browser I think your stance is a little premature at best.
I’d challenge anyone to develop an eCommerce website that doesn’t support IE and see how well it does.
Re: Disappearing Content
Bravo Jacques!
I know you tried very hard, but it is a wilderness out there. I agree it’s just not worth it. I wish I could make the same decission, but when working on other people’s pages, you just don’t have that much of a choice.