Comments on: Taking Conditional Comments Too Far

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 10:24:43 +0000

Sorry if you find this off topic. However I think this can be a good tip if we can solve it.

I use conditional events too. However I have run into a problem with it.

I have two seperate css files for IE7 and IE6 in my online portfolio located at http://cssfreeancer.awardspace.com .

IE6 mysteriously using IE7′s css file in addition to it’s specific css file. This causes IE6 not to render the page as intended in some cases such as the shadow of the bg pic in the header and div in “about portfolio” section.

When I disable the other.css file which is for browsers other than IE6, then IE6 is just fine. Problem occures when other.css file is enabled.

Have you guys run into the same problem before? could somebody help to solve this please?

thanks in advance.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:35:47 +0000

I use conditional comments exactly as you do. I have an “ie6hacks.css” and an “ie7hacks.css” that get included into nearly every site I design via conditional comments. I’ve never even considered putting them into the body (I just made sure a friend of mine didn’t do that last week, as I showed him the conditional comment technique). I find conditional comments far better than the * html hack, and IE7 introduced it’s own set of problems when working with CSS, even aside from its predecessor, IE6.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:59:16 +0000

I dislike conditional statements, they make the developer do the work of the browser. What I would like to se is standards compliance in browsers, but we can’t hope for miracles right?

In my view, XHTML is there to markup content, CSS is there to style it and Javascript is there to make the content do pretty things. If there is a standard content should be marked up to that standard, if everyone stopped jumping hoops for IE then hopefully market forces would work and consumers would vote with their feet and start using standard compliant browsers.

If you really want conditional statements then use a server side method, it is far more powerful and all the ugly hacks are hidden away.

By: Julie Hathaway

Julie Hathaway — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:41:38 +0000

I always use a conditional comment to link to an IE-specific stylesheet, even if the stylesheet only contains one stupid rule, such as a height declaration to mimic min-height. I do this because I want to make it as obvious as possible how ridiculous IE is (“see what it takes to make IE behave?”). I find this perversely satisfying.

Up until now my CCs have only gone in the head, though. Phil’s idea of using them to advertise FF is terrific. :)

By: All in a days work…

All in a days work… — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:17:03 +0000

[...] Taking Conditional Comments Too Far When you choose to use conditional comments in the body of your document, you’re electing to alter the DOM in a more significant way. Now, instead of working with different style sheets to solve a problem, you’re altering the problem itself. [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:42:58 +0000

I must admit, the comments offered here have opened my eyes to some circumstances which hadn’t crossed my mind before.

@Calvin: In my opinion, that can be deemed acceptable use of conditional comments in your source. You’ve done a nice favor towards those not using IE.

@Phil: Yes, including an ad for Firefox specifically aimed at IE users. You’re right, there’s definitely a gray area here. Like everything, it can be taken to an extraordinary level for sure.

@Luke: That’s a creative use I haven’t seen in the wild before. As far as conditional comments and JavaScript are concerned, I was simply referring to wrapping the