Smaaz’s Blog

W3C Compliant HTML and IE 7

December 27th, 2007

Whilst Microsoft’s Internet Explorers 5 and 6 were fairly easygoing pieces of browser software which usually displayed web pages reasonably correctly irrespective of W3C compliant HTML, the same cannot be said about their successor.

Indeed, like Mozilla Firefox, the new version 7 flavour of Internet Explorer seems to be rather more discriminating when it comes to displaying HTML code.
This becomes especially apparent when one is looking at a page constructed from old style layers (div tags) such as the ones cranked out by Dreamweaver MX and its contemporaries.

It should be said that I am not in fact referring to table-less designs where the HTML code simply specifies a div id and leaves all formatting issues to the CSS; I am talking about old style div tags such as the one below:

[div id=”Layer1″ style=”position:absolute; left:350px; top:225px; width:550px; height:794px; z-index:4″]Whatever content[/div]
Please note: < > brackets have been changed to [ ] brackets so the code can be displayed on this page.

The above approach was (and in a lot of cases still is) a firm favourite with many less experienced web designers using earlier versions of Dreamweaver and its ilk without any clear appreciation of W3C compliant HTML or the long-term implications of launching web sites with improperly formatted code.

In any case, whilst Internet Explorer in its version 5 and 6 incarnations was the undisputed king of web browsers, issues related to improperly formatted HTML did not generally come back to haunt the designer after his or her site went live, but with the advent and increasing popularity of Firefox user complaints about text overlap, collapsed page layout and other on-screen formatting issues became an annoying part of life for many designers employing the traditional div tag approach.

Yet still this was not seen as a huge problem by many less experienced professionals since Firefox’s market share was comparatively small and the majority of their client’s visitors would invariably be using Internet Explorer to surf the web and so the issue was simply ignored or put off until later.

The launch of Internet Explorer 7 however is set to change this generally lax attitude to W3C compliant HTML by certain elements of the web design industry.

In fact, Microsoft’s new and fussier browser is being adopted at an incredible rate.
January the 8th 2007 officially saw the 100 millionth installation of IE 7; quite impressive for a time span of less than three months since its release.
Some sources in the U.S. even claim that the browser has now reached a 30% market share, although this does sound a little premature.

So what about those designers now finding themselves with a portfolio of web sites increasingly plagued by screen formatting issues, not to mention the growing promotional drawbacks brought on by a lack of W3C compliant HTML?

These days, W3C compliance is an essential part of web design and site deployment, especially as Internet Explorer 7 becomes a fact of daily life on the web during the course of 2007 bringing with it an increasing number of display and functionality issues for improperly formatted HTML.
Designers who have not yet made the transition from the WYSIWYG approach to actually learning about HTML would be well advised to take a look at the W3C web site and familiarise themselves with internet standards.
A small investment in some HTML learning materials and the time to put them to good use might also be an idea.

Entry Filed under: Dreamweaver