I don’t know why I keep trying. As Homer Simpson once observed, “trying is the first step towards failure.” I think he was onto something.
I had a stylesheet that I liked and almost worked with Explorer. Almost. There are three nagging problems, though.
The first is with linked images. I’ve defined the default link color as a pleasant green to match the site layout:
a:link {
color: #5e882c;
text-decoration: none;
}
That should be inherited by all links including images. Here’s how it should look:
The image should have the default green border. The layout is consistent, and the city can sleep soundly tonight. That is, until Explorer inflicts its own interpretation:
There’s no call for it to add the default blue border, and I’m stumped as to why. There are no image borders specified any where, and the only #5e882c is specified anywhere as a link color, so this shouldn’t be happening.
Before anyone chimes in, I know how to fix it. That’s not the point. I’d like to keep the code lean, and adding little extra bits to make Explorer happy bugs me to no end. What I’d like to know is why it’s doing this.
Well, that’s problem #1. Our second problem has to do with relative negative margins. The IE screenshot is taken from my home box, and the menu column on the right lines up where it should. On two other computers, however, it’s squished up against the top of the screen.
The index loads Header (top area)–>Content (left column)–>Menu (right column). The menu attributes are
#menu {
margin-top: -12%;
padding-right: 2%;
width: 16%;
float: right;
font-variant: normal;
text-align: left;
}
with a negative margin to keep it relative to the Header element. All I can surmise is that different versions of Explorer handle this differently.
The third problem is that Explorer doesn’t seem to understand the list-style-type specification:
#menu ul {
list-style-type: circle;
margin-top: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-left: 15px;
}
Check the second screenshot above; IE renders the ticks as inverted triangles.
I’m having a hard part finding any verification of these problems, much less solutions, on the intarwebs, so please let me know if you have any input.
Postscript: yeah, I know I’d previously blocked Explorer. Yes, it was a snotty and elitist thing to do, and yes, I stand by my decision. However, several people have had need to access the site, and they’re stuck with Explorer at work. I figured I’d try something plain and functional. This is what I get for trying.