HTML5 and CSS3 All-in-One For Dummies
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Although all the modern browsers manage CSS3 pretty well these days, Internet Explorer (especially the earlier versions) is well known for doing things in non-standard ways. Here are a few tricks to help you deal with the incompatibility.

How to make Internet Explorer–specific code

It’s a little easier for you to see how conditional comments work by viewing a simple example and then seeing how to use the conditional comment trick to fix CSS incompatibility problems.

Here is a simple page with Firefox.

image0.jpg

Here it is displayed in IE 7.

image1.jpg

Take a look at the code for IEorNot.html and see how it works.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang = "en-US">
 <head>
 <meta charset = "UTF-8">
 <title>IEorNot.html</title>
 </head>
 <body>
 <p>
  I will now use a conditional comment to determine your
  browser. I’ll let you know if you're using IE.
 </p>
 <!--[if IE]>
  <h1>You're using IE</h1>
 <![endif]→
 </body>
</html>

The only part that’s new is the strange comments:

 <!--[if IE]>
  <h1>You're using IE</h1>
 <![endif]→

Conditional comments are a special feature available only in Internet Explorer. They allow you to apply a test to your browser. You can place any HTML code you wish between

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Andy Harris taught himself programming because it was fun. Today he teaches computer science, game development, and web programming at the university level; is a technology consultant for the state of Indiana; has helped people with disabilities to form their own web development companies; and works with families who wish to teach computing at home.

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