So I’ve done a bit of cross-browser testing for my new CatCubed design:

• Safari, Chrome (i.e., Webkit): works perfect
• iPhone Mobile Safari (i.e., Webkit): works but any fixed attachment is ignored (this is due to how the iphone browser works)
• Firefox, Camino (i.e., Gecko): works except for multiple background images
• Internet Explorer 8: Works (after a small fix) but is ugly due to lack of CSS3 support
• Internet Explorer 7: fails dramatically because of IE float bugs
• Internet Explorer 6: fails dramatically because of IE float bugs and lack of CSS2 support
• Opera 10: fails somewhat due to a bug in how Opera handles floats. Also is ugly due to lack of CSS3 support

Also, thanks to Jason I found (and fixed) a bug that only occured on large monitors (24″  or more).

As I mentioned, I added a small fix for IE so it’s readable, but I’m not bothering to fix the IE6 or IE7 massive fails and I added a very basic stylesheet for IE6/7 so they could at least read the content. Also, I added a “why don’t you try another browser” warning to the site for IE users.

Just thought I’d mention that this redesign is meant as a means for me to experiment with new techniques and do so quickly, which is why I am no longer fully supporting IE with this site. There are workarounds for many of the techniques that I am using on this site, but it would take me at least twice as long to implement. All my real work projects will continue to be built with a graceful degradation / progressive enhancement process in mind.

I gotta agree with Eric Meyer. The Opera lawsuit is stupid. The only reason that people don’t install things besides IE these days is laziness, ignorance, and poor marketing on the part of the other browsers.

Not the mention, I like Eric Meyer got no beef with IE7. It ain’t half bad — if only the adoption process was better IE6 is still about 14% for CatCubed and a whopping 50% for the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center.

Internet Explorer 7 came upon the scene with uproar for us web developers. Oh Nooz! What will happen to our precious site designs!?!

Frankly however, it didn’t really effect many people as long as they designed for standards, avoided messy css hacks, and didn’t use Active X. Ok admittedly there were probably several web managers who had to overhaul their active x css hack-job of a site. Luckily, I was not one of them.

Instead, I was hoping that IE7 smash like a meteor wiping out almost all instances of crappy IE6. I so dearly wanted to never have to code for IE’s bugs ever again.

I watched my UCSF web stats and at first it seemed promising, but then it hit around 30% and has just stagnated there for the past 6 months. Firefox’s browser share is around 10-12% on and Safari around 3.5%. (on CatCubed Firefox use is around 68% and Safari 11%).

Ugh it seems like I’ll be stuck designing for IE6 for a quite a while.