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pringbat · Mar 19, 2007, 06:34 PM

The reason I ask is that websites I design work perfectly on Safari, Opera and Firefox, and also on PCs (including Explorer on PCs) but I have a real struggle making them work properly on IE for Mac. Can I afford to ignore it? Let me know what you use.

slpdLoad · Mar 19, 2007, 06:37 PM

I don't think that many people use it. It doesn't come on Macs anymore since there's Safari, and it's not being updated anymore.

besson3c · Mar 19, 2007, 06:43 PM

It's dead... Don't worry about it.

Chuckit · Mar 19, 2007, 07:01 PM

As long as it works generally in IE for Mac, I figure that's good enough. A few people still use it, but they're a minority of a minority, and they really ought to upgrade their OS more than once a decade.

rickey939 · Mar 19, 2007, 07:19 PM

You can't even download it anymore. Kill it off and don't look back.

peeb · Mar 19, 2007, 08:07 PM

You can ignore it, IF you don't mind risking loosing a small, small, minority of people who might use it. Frankly, I would always provide a text based basic page for those using really old browsers or screenreaders.

besson3c · Mar 19, 2007, 09:34 PM

I bet there are more people using Konqueror under Linux than IE in OS X... Seriously. Your attention would be better spent focused there.

danaherd · Mar 20, 2007, 11:31 AM

There are definitely still some people out there that use it. I've dealt with them on and off. The way that we have learned to deal with these people is to keep an older version of a lot of web pages up so that they can still use our site, but all the newer features are disabled for their browser.

imitchellg5 · Mar 20, 2007, 11:39 AM

Most of the people who use IE for Mac are still using OS 9. So I wouldn't worry about it.

Big Mac · Mar 20, 2007, 11:50 AM

A couple of years ago I witnessed people in a computer lab using IE on shiny new G5s. Revolting.

eyadams · Mar 20, 2007, 12:30 PM

My wife still uses it - her employer has Outlook's web access for email, and it doesn't work in Safari. And she routinely manages to fine web sites that don't work in Safari - the most recent being Anthropologie -.

besson3c · Mar 20, 2007, 01:10 PM

Do you guys test pages with Konqueror?

Chuckit · Mar 20, 2007, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I bet there are more people using Konqueror under Linux than IE in OS X...

I bet not. Most Linux users use Firefox, to my knowledge, and desktop Linux users are such a minute number anyway that they're dwarfed even by Apple. Meanwhile, lots of Mac users never update their systems and thus still have IE as their default browser. Some PC users even prefer IE on the Mac because of some psychological comforting effect.

JKT · Mar 20, 2007, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I bet not. Most Linux users use Firefox, to my knowledge, and desktop Linux users are such a minute number anyway that they're dwarfed even by Apple.

I'm guessing that this was besson3c's point - that the miniscule number of people using Konquerer is probably higher than the miniscule number of people who use IE on the Mac.

FWIW, what gets me more is that ad designers still use IE for the Mac when they need to show a web page (the most ironic being PC World's TV ads here in the UK which, prior to the advent of Vista, invariably had a PC display with IE Mac running on it!).

besson3c · Mar 20, 2007, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

I'm guessing that this was besson3c's point - that the miniscule number of people using Konquerer is probably higher than the miniscule number of people who use IE on the Mac.

Right, and I bet this is indeed correct. Konqueror, I believe, is the default browser within any Gnome based install.

earthlings · 07:57 PM

My powerbook osx 10.3 had it already installed along with SAFARI.

But I never use it.

Northeastern292 · Mar 20, 2007, 07:42 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

A couple of years ago I witnessed people in a computer lab using IE on shiny new G5s. Revolting.

It is revolting but

a) They probably lacked all sophistication
b) They were retro!

Big Mac · Mar 20, 2007, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by eyadams

My wife still uses it - her employer has Outlook's web access for email, and it doesn't work in Safari. And she routinely manages to fine web sites that don't work in Safari - the most recent being Anthropologie -.

I can understand having to use it for company email if that's the only browser that works, but has she tried any of the other Mac browsers? Safari's not the only game in town. As for that clothing site, I was able to browse and add items to the cart so I don't see what's so incompatible about it. I hope your wife isn't using Explorer all the time.

TheoCryst · Mar 20, 2007, 08:59 PM

At my university's computer lab, all the G5s still have Internet Explorer as the default browser. I've actually seen people get pissed off and leave a Mac for a Windows machine after Explorer beachballed.

besson3c · Mar 20, 2007, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I can understand having to use it for company email if that's the only browser that works, but has she tried any of the other Mac browsers? Safari's not the only game in town. As for that clothing site, I was able to browse and add items to the cart so I don't see what's so incompatible about it. I hope your wife isn't using Explorer all the time.

It should never work for company email while others don't, unless the site is blocking based on user agent and not differentiating between the Mac and PC versions... The Mac version never had Active-X controls, and never will. Therefore, it is no more capable than any other Mac based browser out there in terms of sites it will work with.

pyrite · Mar 20, 2007, 11:50 PM

IE on mac is shameful, don't even waste ur time

Kent · Mar 20, 2007, 11:52 PM

I deleted my IE. I downloaded FF instead.

rickey939 · Mar 21, 2007, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by Kent

I deleted my IE. I downloaded FF instead.

Love the username....we share the same namesake, as well as, location. Odd!

drnkn_stylz · Mar 21, 2007, 10:01 AM

I use Internet Explorer only to access my work website so I can check my schedule and book off days. It was built to only run on IE, and will not let you log in with Safari, Camino, Firefox, nothing. Only IE. It's so stupid and the guy who built the site for my work is an amateur at best.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by drnkn_stylz

I use Internet Explorer only to access my work website so I can check my schedule and book off days. It was built to only run on IE, and will not let you log in with Safari, Camino, Firefox, nothing. Only IE. It's so stupid and the guy who built the site for my work is an amateur at best.

You could have definitely disguised your user agent within any other web browser if you wanted to, I'm sure it would have worked.

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 10:51 AM

My GF sometimes still uses IE for Mac, but I have managed to switch her to Firefox now, at least on my computers. Safari still has too many issues with certain websites, so it p!sses her (and me) off. She's perfectly happy with Firefox though. That reminds me... Next time I'm at her place I'm gonna remove IE from her dock.

I do know a few other people who use IE for Mac too, but that's just because that's what their Macs came with. I think they would have no problem using Firefox though, since they're not especially partial to IE for Mac either.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

My GF sometimes still uses IE for Mac, but I have managed to switch her to Firefox now, at least on my computers. Safari still has too many issues with certain websites, so it p!sses her (and me) off. She's perfectly happy with Firefox though. That reminds me... Next time I'm at her place I'm gonna remove IE from her dock.

I do know a few other people who use IE for Mac too, but that's just because that's what their Macs came with. I think they would have no problem using Firefox though, since they're not especially partial to IE for Mac either.

I agree about Safari. It seems like maybe Safari was a failed experiment in relying solely upon web standards to come up with a browser that is as capable and as compatible as Gecko, the gold standard in development these days.

I think that Apple would have been better off in trying to figure out how to work with/around XUL using the Gecko rendering engine.

FastAMX79 · Mar 21, 2007, 01:11 PM

i personally have not used this 'internet explorer' on my mac since my Performa 550 when i was running system 7. Even then I was using Netscape.

Between Safari and Firefox, I personally have not had issues with any websites. My credit cards, banking, watching videos, all works well for me on my Powerbook G4

Catfish_Man · Mar 21, 2007, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I agree about Safari. It seems like maybe Safari was a failed experiment in relying solely upon web standards to come up with a browser that is as capable and as compatible as Gecko, the gold standard in development these days.

I think that Apple would have been better off in trying to figure out how to work with/around XUL using the Gecko rendering engine.

Actually, Safari implements "quirks mode" as well. Compatibility bugs are among the highest (possibly the highest) priorities of the webkit team, so anything filed on it at bugs.webkit.org has a good chance of getting serious attention. If there's already a bug filed on it, you may be able to help if you're a web developer by finding the smallest possible bit of html that demonstrates the problem (called a reduced testcase). You'll also find that many of these issues have been fixed in the nightly builds.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by Catfish_Man

Actually, Safari implements "quirks mode" as well. Compatibility bugs are among the highest (possibly the highest) priorities of the webkit team, so anything filed on it at bugs.webkit.org has a good chance of getting serious attention. If there's already a bug filed on it, you may be able to help if you're a web developer by finding the smallest possible bit of html that demonstrates the problem (called a reduced testcase). You'll also find that many of these issues have been fixed in the nightly builds.

Well, the TinyMCE Javascript toolbar has been broken for ages, and it is widely available in numerous different CMSes and blogging tools such as WordPress.

They may have a good system for reporting problems, but I would imagine that their track record for releasing fixes is much slower, especially since it takes times for the fixes in the nightly builds (such as TinyMCE, which apparently has finally been sorted out) to be merged with the trunk.

My point is that Safari seems to chase Firefox far more than the reverse.

Catfish_Man · Mar 21, 2007, 04:11 PM

Yeah, I'm definitely eager to see an updated webkit actually released... the current one is two years old.

Chuckit · Mar 21, 2007, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

My point is that Safari seems to chase Firefox far more than the reverse.

Does Firefox implement text-shadow yet?

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Does Firefox implement text-shadow yet?

Should we actually care? Not trying to be sarcastic. Just wondering.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Should we actually care? Not trying to be sarcastic. Just wondering.

Until IE starts supporting the CSS3 spec more, you're right, this is pretty meaningless to count on...

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Does Firefox implement text-shadow yet?

You sure are quick to jump to Apple's rescue! Apple's Tony Snow, if you will

(just teasing)

Chuckit · Mar 21, 2007, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Should we actually care? Not trying to be sarcastic. Just wondering.

I guess that depends on whether we want to do shadowed text. Personally, I like it.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 06:44 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I guess that depends on whether we want to do shadowed text. Personally, I like it.

To be honest, I don't really get the point of it. Usually body text is too small to make a drop shadow worth it, and anything larger you'd probably want to bring into Photoshop to work out the details of the shadow, right? (unless the blur radius setting happens to yield exactly the results you want)

I suppose it might make a heading look a little cooler, but...

JKT · Mar 21, 2007, 08:00 PM

It makes a huge difference. Try it yourself - prepare a site with text shadow and compare how it looks in Firefox versus a WebKit browser. You can achieve a very subtle look (and it is particularly useful when you need to emphasise an e.g. heading with a light colour on a light background) with text shadow in WebKit that is completely lost in Firefox. Photoshop is not going to help when you have tens of such headings on a page... unless you really do want to spend hours making gifs or pngs.

besson3c · Mar 21, 2007, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

It makes a huge difference. Try it yourself - prepare a site with text shadow and compare how it looks in Firefox versus a WebKit browser. You can achieve a very subtle look (and it is particularly useful when you need to emphasise an e.g. heading with a light colour on a light background) with text shadow in WebKit that is completely lost in Firefox. Photoshop is not going to help when you have tens of such headings on a page... unless you really do want to spend hours making gifs or pngs.

I see...

Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought this through to the extent you have. I hope that text-shadow becomes commonplace soon, because it seems at least as useful as several other properties within the spec.

moonmonkey · Mar 24, 2007, 05:06 AM

Until you can make Safari have pink icons IE will still be used.

Eug · Mar 25, 2007, 02:07 AM

Pink icons?

moonmonkey · Mar 26, 2007, 04:19 AM

Yes.

Chuckit · Mar 26, 2007, 04:23 AM

I think he means buttons. On the page. Maybe.

JKT · Mar 26, 2007, 02:25 PM

What they mean is that IE5 allows you to change the colour of the toolbar icons, one of which is pink. IOW, they are joking that such a "critical" feature is absent in other browsers, ergo IE will be around until they too allow pink toolbar icons!

Terrin · Mar 26, 2007, 02:49 PM

I use Wordpress (watchingpolitics.com). Even if Safari's Code was identical to Firefox or IE, it still would not work correctly with Wordpress. Wordpress intentionally excludes Safari because Safari for a while supposedly didn't support Quicktags, which TinyMCE relies on. Apple, however, has corrected any problems it may have had. Wordpress still by default locks out Safari because the Wordpress PHP tells it to disable TinyMCE when the browser is Safari. There are simple hacks to address this:

http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3051

As far as Firefox goes, I think it is a great Window's browser that I am happy works on a Mac. I, however, find it is not very Mac like, and slow. I much prefer Camino, which has the same Firefox engine, but is souped up to work better on the Mac.

Even though I have Camino on my Mac (as well as Firefox, Opera, Omniweb, and Explorer), I still come back to Safari. I cannot explain exactly why, but overall it seems to work the best. It will be interesting to see what Safari does in Leopard.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Well, the TinyMCE Javascript toolbar has been broken for ages, and it is widely available in numerous different CMSes and blogging tools such as WordPress.

They may have a good system for reporting problems, but I would imagine that their track record for releasing fixes is much slower, especially since it takes times for the fixes in the nightly builds (such as TinyMCE, which apparently has finally been sorted out) to be merged with the trunk.

My point is that Safari seems to chase Firefox far more than the reverse.

littlevish · Mar 31, 2007, 12:59 AM

My school uses IE5. It drives me nuts when Safari is better.

None of the teachers know what Safari is so they think you're messing up the computer if you use it

Big Mac · Mar 31, 2007, 09:05 PM

Sounds infuriating for you, littlevish.

littlevish · Apr 1, 2007, 12:41 AM

Yea, and somehow IE5 doesn't have a back button and I can't find where to put it back, so I have to use backspace.

Big Mac · Apr 1, 2007, 01:59 AM

I can remember those days, so I can still empathize with you. You should write-up a friendly letter to the administration alerting them to the problem and then have your mother or father put either of their names on it. IE 5 is basically child abuse in my book.

:dragonflypro: · Apr 2, 2007, 12:46 AM

text-shadow was dropped from CSS 2.1

I'd not ever count on it.