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Is IE8 compatible with backward compatibility?

I hope some of them are aware of this.

I quickly realize that IE8 certainly cannot be ignored. I previously put it on: a) just a buggy piece of software, or b) still up to a small fraction of market share. Now, however, I see more and more requirements to make sure sites work on it.

My question is: can I switch to testing only on IE8 and safely "believe" that the resulting code will still work on IE7?

Any thoughts / knowledge will be helpful. Greetings.

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6 answers

My question is: can I switch to testing only on IE8 and safely "believe" that the resulting code will still work on IE7?

No.

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No, IE8 is radically different from IE7. And this is radically different from any other decent browser, so you cannot rely on other tests ...

And yes, now it is installed on enough machines, and we also need to check it.

The good news is that now IETester is working (it didn’t work at all for me a few months ago, it didn’t even load), so definitely give it a shot, even if you tried it before and it wasn’t working for you. And definitely test in three versions.

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

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You can force IE8 to render pages as IE7, which can provide a workaround , since IE7 and IE8 cannot cohabit. Just add the following tag to <head> :

 <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7">

Microsoft also provides this tag to be added to the HTTP header or site header:

 <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"/>

Microsoft has more information on using a tag on a page.

I understand that the entire IE7 rendering engine is left untouched in IE8, so sites can simply add to these headers and leave it in IE7 mode. However, changes were made to the DOM and for security, which were not passed in IE7, so the transition is not perfect.

Firefox / Safari / Chrome / Opera / etc .. completely ignore this tag. There's a great entry on A List Apart .

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Whether IE8 is ready or not, this is not a valid reason to ignore it for testing. It is widely used. Therefore, if you want to get high coverage for your sites, you should carefully test them in all major browsers. This includes IE7 and IE8, without any compatibility options.

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You can switch to IE8 and run IE7 compatibility tests in IE8 compatibility mode.

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For simple testing in browsers, check the IE tester (and debugbar at the same link). It emulates IE 5.5. I personally still use IE7 (like what most of my clients use), but check compatibility in IE Tester at 6 (yes, there are still clients using 6) and 8. I don't think it covers all compatibility issues but I don’t, but for me this is a problem.

I also assume that you are testing Firefox and other browsers other than IE.

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