Differences Between IE6 and IE8

So far our customers used IE6, so our system is compatible with IE6 only. Now, we want to support IE8 too. What differences are we going to exp开发者_Python百科erience while adapting our system to IE8? ( in the context of CSS and JS )

Thanks in advance.

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See this, http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/14/css-differences-in-internet-explorer-6-7-and-8/.

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http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024(VS.85).aspx

If you have coded specifically against IE 6 (working around issues, using non-standard features), it may be a little rough, but IE 8 is infinitely better in terms of stability and standards support.

Along with moving to IE 8, consider supporting other reasonably compliant browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Chrome. IE 8 isn't a bad product, but other browsers will "keep you honest" and help you avoid hacks and also expose you to features not supported by IE 8.

It's also worth noting that pretty much any framework you may already be using (if it's still being maintained) will have equal or better support for IE 8. Same goes for any third party components which render HTML/script.

Lastly, I would also spend some time with IE 9 to understand the direction that Microsoft is going with the product. Most IE 8 apps will work fine with IE 9, but there are some subtle differences (mostly fixing/reinterpreting style and layout implementations in IE 8).

Edit: Here's an excellent, free tool I use for running different versions of IE side by side:

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

Here are several things off the top of my head that are non-standard IE extensions. These will probably still work in IE 8, but keep in mind that Microsoft is making a big push towards standards compliance, and they aren't guaranteed to work in the future. Also, other browsers don't support them at all.

• Proprietary filter syntax
• CSS expressions (I really wish this WAS a standard)
• DHTML behaviors (.htc files)
• VBScript
• Data islands (http://www.w3schools.com/Xml/xml_dont.asp)
• HTML Apps (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536496(VS.85).aspx)

Again, to my knowledge none of these things have been removed from IE 8 but they are all red flags for future maintainability.