Re: IE8 compatibility mode conditional statements

[VirtualTom]

Yes that is exactly it. The ability to test in IE7. Certainly, IE7 is no IE6 lol. But I had direct experience with this yesterday while working on a site. There were very few "bugs" in IE8 but enough to need two or three rules in it’s own sheet. Whereas the IE7 sheet needed 8 -10 rules. (we were not supporting IE6). IE8 needed less rules than Chrome for what it’s worth. But during the course of this I upgraded to IE8 when told about the compatibility feature. But at that point I stopped being able to see the changes to the IE7 sheet.

Now i have to note this site was using "less than or equal to" for both conditional statements as opposed to "greater than or equal to". Which I thought might solve it just as you did when suggesting it. Even though in my mind logically it could go either way, it was more of a shot in the dark. But I did not have direct access to the head.php include, the other developer said he would try changing it when he could but never got around to it.

(As you saw yourself, there is scads of information on the MS site, some of it going way over my head, but three quarters of it is the same old grousing about why microsoft is doing this and not that. And many other web searches regarding the issue seem to end up on forums discussing IE8 beta from 6 months ago.)

Sorry for the long winded reply to my own post but maybe this will help someone else out by knowing all the details!

ANYHOW I finally did a simple test here http://www.virtualdesignlab.com/testing_html/ie8_compatability_mode_test.html and it turns out I had nothing to worry about. Compatibility mode does indeed see the IE7 sheet if you use GTE rather than LTE in the conditional statements. And it sees the IE8 sheet when switched off. I also tested the "emulate IE7" meta tag and it behaves the same way. Maybe a whole lot of hoo hah over nothing but at least now I/others can know for sure. Thanks for your replies!

Tom C