Crystal Ball Question - IE6 vs IE7 Options

[Dr Z]

What percentage of IE6 users (casual internet users only) would you project that will have upgraded to IE by March 1, 2007?

The reason I am asking is that , hopefully I will be opening a web site for a company by about that time. Should I take advantage of some of the new features (new only to IE not others) of IE7, or be clunky but accomodate the short comings of IE6?

[pandy]

People who don't run XP or Vista, like for instance me, cannot upgrade. You have to take that into consideration. Also, from what I hear on lists that aren't about web design, people aren't that fond of it. I think most people want their browser to look and function about the same when they upgrade. As I understand it IE7 is very different from previous versions. That may put people off. Sooner or later they'll go for it for security reasons of course.

As I see it we now have to cater to 3 versions of the beast, all with their own bugs. Oh, what fun.

[Dr Z]

Good point on the subject of OS (XP)!

I have been talking to people (in US mainly and some in Mexico) - with rather limited incomes, who have computers used for internet, photos, etc. (no more) they all have XP. Perhaps I am getting a wrong impression from a rather small sampling.

Yes IE 7 is rather different, in my opinion it is as pretensious as Opera. However, MS has a way of forcing things down to every one's throat. Coupled with the security reasons - real concieved, I thought that the migration would be rather rapid.

Well, I have been proved wrong before, not very many times, but still...

[Peter1968]

Pretentious as Opera? Interesting...I don't think IE7.0 holds a candle to Opera in any way I can see, and i'm a Firefox fanboi.

IE 7.0 starts faster than either FF or Opera but that's about it.

[Christian J]

What percentage of IE6 users (casual internet users only) would you project that will have upgraded to IE by March 1, 2007?

No idea, but if it's true that IE7 will be offered as a WinXP security upgrade I'm sure many/most users with high speed internet connections will download it, probably the same percentage that downloaded WinXP's Service Pack 2. Also owners of pre-XP computers may buy a new one when Vista's marketing hype takes off, but not as soon as in March, more likely this will take a year or two. A guess is that the number of die-hard pre-IE7 users will remain as large as the number of non-IE users for several years.

The reason I am asking is that , hopefully I will be opening a web site for a company by about that time. Should I take advantage of some of the new features (new only to IE not others) of IE7, or be clunky but accomodate the short comings of IE6?

Why not use the advanced features for newer browsers and hide them in the older ones? With IE and conditional comments this is easy. There are also (javascript) workarounds for many of IE6's CSS shortcomings.

[pandy]

I have been talking to people (in US mainly and some in Mexico) - with rather limited incomes, who have computers used for internet, photos, etc. (no more) they all have XP. Perhaps I am getting a wrong impression from a rather small sampling.

Of course. XP is what's already installed on every Windows system sold today. To not run XP means you either have made some kind of active choice or haven't bought a pre-built system since XP was first released. IE7 will dominate, sure. But if you ignore IE6, or even IE5.x, you can just as well ignore Opera or Mac users altogether if you are going after how big percentage of visitors they represent.

[Frederiek]

...you can just as well ignore Opera or Mac users altogether if you are going after how big percentage of visitors they represent.

Excuse me, but the use of Safari (Mac) grows, as of what I've heard lately.
That's also my prefered browser, as you surely already know.

[pandy]

I'm not dissing Mac. I want a Mac.

[Tom H.]

You ask about "casual Internet users," which is sort of a vague description to me. No matter what you expect, it's possible that lot of your visitors may be using computers at their place of work. In the workplace, I think you'll see a slow adoption of Internet Explorer 7, because many applications used in the business world have hooks into IE 6 and will need to be tweaked for compatibility. It may also be helpful to point out that it's becoming more common in the business world to have alternate web browsers installed (notably Firefox) as a supplement to Microsoft's security-impaired browser.

Especially if you'll be building a web site for a business, I recommend that you adhere to published web standards and avoid catering to any particular browser

[Dr Z]

Why not use the advanced features for newer browsers and hide them in the older ones? With IE and conditional comments this is easy. There are also (javascript) workarounds for many of IE6's CSS shortcomings.

One of the items was the nested menus using "hover". This is reccognized by all, except IE6 or earlier. IE7 will recognize it. Well, instead I could use JavaScript . (I had written one some moons ago, I can dig it up since it was tested and applied). However, there has been comments on this board and other places, expressing the concern about JavaScript being dissabled by users.

At this point I have to clarify one thing: I have never been fond of JS, and will resote to it when "all else fails". Consequently, I never bothered to learn it properly. Yes, I can deal with it in simplistic cases, but that is all.

Now the question comes (I afraid I know the abswer already, but ...): Can you turn of the JS for all others, except for IE6 using "conditional statements"? Please note that the menu itself is an "include file" using SSI.

[pandy]

Yeah, sure. But why not give the JS to older version of IE too?

The problem isn't using JavaScript. It's relying on JavaScript (or CSS, for that matter).

[Dr Z]

Yeah, sure. But why not give the JS to older version of IE too?

The problem isn't using JavaScript. It's relying on JavaScript (or CSS, for that matter).

I am not really understanding what you mean. Could you elaborate?

[pandy]

What? The thing about giving older IE the JavaScript menu? Well, why couldn't they also be able to use the menu? If the JS isn't too complicated it should work several versions back.

[jimlongo]

By the end of 2007, less than 5% of installed PCs worldwide will sport some business-oriented version of Windows Vista, according to Gartner Inc. By comparison, 47% of PCs will likely be running Windows XP Professional, and nearly 10% of PCs will still be running Windows 2000 Professional, an operating system that will be seven years old by then.

The percentage of PCs running a business flavor of Windows Vista is expected to rise to 15% by the end of 2008. But that will still be dwarfed by the 40% of installed PCs still running Windows XP Pro.

[Peter1968]

Time marches on - yes, even for people who surf the internet and insist on using IE 5.x for Windows.

My theories have always been simple. Write a HTML and CSS compliant site and let God sort 'em out.

[Darin McGrew]

Time marches on - yes, even for people who surf the internet and insist on using IE 5.x for Windows.

Hey, I know someone who still uses Win98 and NN4. Getting him to upgrade from NN3 was a challenge.

At work, we don't upgrade unless there's a business reason to upgrade, and then everyone must upgrade their development environment simultaneously. And the Windows OS (including MSIE) is part of the development environment. I've got two WinXP machines on my desk that won't be upgraded to Vista or to MSIE 7 until 100+ other machines are also upgraded at the same time.

At home, I won't upgrade my WinME box. I'll wait until it is no longer useful (e.g., because I can't install the new version of my tax software on it), and then I'll replace it with a Mac (or possibly with a Linux box, if the tax software supports Linux by then).

[Christian J]

However, there has been comments on this board and other places, expressing the concern about JavaScript being dissabled by users.

You should use a JS menu that stays open when JS or CSS is unavailable, maybe something like http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

Very few users disable JS, and when they do most of them realize the page will not be as pretty as before, but they should at least get a working page. Personally I have nothing against JS and don't see the reason for using CSS just because you can.

Can you turn of the JS for all others, except for IE6 using "conditional statements"? Please note that the menu itself is an "include file" using SSI.

You could make a CSS menu for newer browsers, and then add the JS workarounds inside conditional comments for IE5/6. That the menu's HTML is included with SSI doesn't matter.

[pandy]

Very few users disable JS, and when they do most of them realize the page will not be as pretty as before, but they should at least get a working page. Personally I have nothing against JS and don't see the reason for using CSS just because you can.

Sure, but not so few firewalls do it for them. That may be corporate firewalls that you can't control yourself or it may be personal firewalls that are web-washing-happy and maybe change the JS and the user often has no idea that it does and how to prevent it. So I'm told anyway.

[Dr Z]

You could make a CSS menu for newer browsers, and then add the JS workarounds inside conditional comments for IE5/6. That the menu's HTML is included with SSI doesn't matter.

Can you point me to more info as to how this was done, or examples?

[pandy]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....comment_ovw.asp

Note that there are errors in the examples. What the say is correct but there are errors in the displayed code.