Remove Compatibility View IE7 and 8

Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:13 am

If your site works in IE7 and 8, to remove the Compatibility View option from Internet Explorer, open includes/meta.php and add the following line to your meta tags.

$metastring .= "\n".'<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" />';

It will work for IE7 and IE8.

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Thanks. Can you explain this a bit more? If the sites work under the 2 IE versions, why would you add the tags?

Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 2:30 pm

In IE 8, you get a button beside the navigation window that gives the viewers of your site an option to view your site in compatibility mode and than goes on to say some sites use older code and this option is to be able to view them correctly. Kind of like saying the site is old and needs updating. IE 8 uses the meta tag to know the site is compatible with IE 8 and the option is not shown in viewers browsers.

Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 2:49 pm

Interesting. Just so I understand this right.

If you are sure your site is completely IE 8 compatible you would add this to remove this option? Well at least remove the viewable option?

I don't see us adding something like this until after IE 8 is officially released. Even then it it kind of iffy because what if a user has an old module?

Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 3:00 pm

Correct. IE8 does not know if your site is compatible or not, it relies on the meta tag to determine the compatibility.

I agree it's not something you would want to add to RN. I was just giving a heads up.

If your site does not view well in IE8 you can also force IE7 view by default.
To force it to view in IE7 mode, use this.

$metastring .= "\n".'<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />';

Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:50 pm

I get it! This Microsoft's way of saying that in 7 past incarnations they chose not to be standards compliant but since they are now making an effort in IE8, since they're still playing catch-up, they have broken all their non standard code. killing me

Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:11 pm

All modern major browser are almost reaching 100/100 in the browser standards compliance acid3 test. Development versions of Opera are flawless, i think they already reached 100/100, the others are in beyond the 70's and the infamous IE8 only get a shameful 20/100, far beyond IE7 that gets only 11/100 Razz

. Now that's what a call a standards compliant browser.

IE is a pain in the ... (put you favorite nasty word here) ROTFL

Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:14 pm

I totally agree. The only time I use IE is when I am testing my sites to make sure IE doesn't do something stupid.

Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:25 pm

Anytime you see a site that say's best viewed with IE, all that means is they are too lazy to close their tags and could care less about being html compliant. Check out http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/ they are all about sites being cross browser viewable.

Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:43 pm

H3ll yeah!!
I have heard/read about that campaign but i have never put the button on my site :S but all websites must look the same with the same code under any browser, that's why standards were born... Kind of a utopia, doesn't it???

registered · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:26 am

Only problem is that it probably should read "Viewable with Any Browser Except IE" because as stated above, even IE8 isn't anywhere close to standards compatible.

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:45 am

So true. So many websites rely on the low standards of IE to design their sites. Standards should not be used as optional. They should be a must.

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:46 am

The real problem comes when the lead browser (around 60% of market share) is the one with the lowest degree of standards compliance... Sad but true