Internet Explorer Collection

In web development it is the responsibility of the developer to make sure that the website is compatible (in terms appearance and features) with all major browsers in existance, namely under Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera (in order of browser market share). The latter four have almost similar characteristics (apart from some proprietary browser features) in rendering content as they adhere to web standards outlined by the W3C. The only nutcase here is IE – which has been the source of countless head scratching for web developers all around with its standards defying approach to the web. Surprisingly the latest iteration of IE just recently released, version 8 still lacks support for web standards and proves it by failing miserably in the Acid 3 Test. But with still more that 60% market share, unfortunately like it or not web developers still have to support IE (until it bows down to W3C standards or better yet – dies a slow and lonely death). Luckily there are many tools freely available for the purpose of developing in IE. The latest addition is the Internet Explorer Collection.

Internet Explorer Collection contains multiple IE versions, which are standalone so they can be used at the same time.

Conditional Comments work exactly the same as in the native versions. The original version number is shown correcty in the User Agent string. The version number can be found in the window title too.

Internet Explorer Collection also includes the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar 1.00.2188.0. This Explorer Bar provides a variety of tools which make troubleshooting websites easier. The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar is compatible with Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher when using Windows 2000 or higher.

IE versions available in the collection include the following:

• Internet Explorer 1.0 (4.40.308)
• Internet Explorer 1.5 (0.1.0.10)
• Internet Explorer 2.01 (2.01.046)
• Internet Explorer 3.0 (3.0.1152)
• Internet Explorer 4.01 (4.72.3110.0)
• Internet Explorer 5.01 (5.00.3314.2100)
• Internet Explorer 5.5 (5.51.4807.2300)
• Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2800.1106)
• Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2900.2180)
• Internet Explorer 7.0 (7.00.5730.13)
• Internet Explorer 8.0 (8.00.6001.18702)

Internet Explorer Collection v1.3.0.1 is a 54.4 MB download.

Checking If a Element Exists in JQuery

One of the things that I often forget when working on jQuery is how to check whether an element exists. This may seem trivial as one would code without hesitation that:

if ($(‘#some-element’)) { do something; }

which is incorrect! The previous statement always returns true since $() will always return a jQuery object! The correct way to achieve this is

if ($(“#some-element”).length > 0) { do something; }

since the length property would have a positive value if the object exists. IMHO it’s always best to perform the above check before manipulating an object in JQuery.

Sexy Curls

Do you remember websites that have neat page flipping (flash) animation around the corners? Well now it’s available in JQuery. Pretty neat huh?

Inaugural Speech Visualization

In time with the US Presidential Inauguration, NYTimes launches an interesting visualization on the event. Beats watching all the people talking about Obama’s speech on TV. Have a look here!

The Woork Handbook

Antonio Lupetti of Woork has just release a free pdf bundle of his blog postings:

Ok friends… finally a first preview of “The Woork Handbook” is ready to be released. This book is a miscellanea of articles I wrote on my blog in the past year. During the period form January to December 2008 “Woork” has been visited from over 4 millions visitors and I received a lot of requests to distribute a printable version of its contents. In the past days I worked hard to prepare a first version of this handbook and distribute it for free.

Although still in alpha release, I find the articles in the handbook to be very practical, quite handy to have printed version around!

ie7-js: Holy Grail for IE < 7?

The description from the project site:

IE7 is a JavaScript library to make Microsoft Internet Explorer behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many HTML and CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6.

Wow, that sounds too good to be true right? One js file to cure (if not eases) all our headaches and migrains with IE6? Here are some of the fixes that ie7-js brings:

CSS Selector

• parent > child
• .multiple.classes
• :hover
• :first-child
• [attr]
• [attr="value"], [attr~="value"], [attr|="value"], [attr^="value"], [attr$="value"]
• [attr*="value"]

CSS

• Background-image – PNG alpha transparency (IE5.5+)
• Background-attachment – Support fixed positioning
• Position – Support fixed positioning
• Margin – Support auto (IE5.x)
• Cursor – Support pointer for IE5.x
• Display – Convert list-item to block for IE5.x

HTML

• img – PNG alpha transparency
• abbr – Bug fixed

source

I’ve been working on a layout that looks great on FF, IE7, and Opera… but I haven’t got the guts to check it out on IE6, so I’m pretty excited to try this one out! You can see the library in action here (of course using IE < 7).