Is IE, even 8, just effin broken?

[headcoach09]

I'm getting ticked off. I am making first website and trying to make it semi-useful. I'm trying to learn standards and use them but IE isn't cooperating.

My page is no longer up and just dummied down to text at the moment because of this issue. Any suggestions to help with the following are super appreciated.

I can get the w3.org html validator to validate me as xhtml 1.1 valid. The page works in Opera, Firefox and Safari. But bloody hell IE keeps trying to save the page! Even version 8.

I definitely had the correct headers. I have the extension .xhtml like my book says and a web tutorial. UTF-8 without BOM like the validator suggests. I just don't know what the heck to even do with it. Driving me nuts.

Anyone have any advice? I really appreciate any input or info or somewhere to direct me where the heck I can find it. x.x

[risendead]

You need to save it as .html

Some reason IE8 tries to save .php and .xhtml as a file when attempting to browse from your local machine.

I've never heard anyone speak highly of IE, it seems to be the bane of webdesign.

[misson]

It's a matter of MIME type. IE (even version doesn't understand the "application/xhtml+xml" MIME type. You can serve XHTML 1.0 as "text/html", which IE will understand. XHTML 1.1 must be served as "application/xhtml+xml". Currently, HTML 4.01 strict has the most browser support, followed by XHTML 1.0 served as text/html.

[headcoach09]

Thank you very much for the info on that. I was wondering I was just incredibly stupid (which I am to web stuff, total nooblet. I'm a gamer not a designer). It just didn't make sense though.

I have the free hosting account right now. I would like to move up eventually.. but, eh not enough dollars at the moment.

I noticed in the cpanel thing there is an option for mime types. I made a guess that I could change it to text/html but it didn't seem to work either. Then I paid a bit attention and read I can't change what the system has already set there...

For now I renamed it .html. Is there a difference by doing that? If there is, can I solve it on this hosting account at this time?

[fguy64]

take heart, coach. Many people have switched to Firefox, and many more will switch to Google Chrome once all the hiccups are ironed out.

[adamparkzer]

For now I renamed it .html. Is there a difference by doing that? If there is, can I solve it on this hosting account at this time?

There's a big difference in doing that. Essentially, Internet Explorer sees a .xhtml file and doesn't know how to display it, so it just tells you to download it. A simple analogy is with .exe files - when Internet Explorer comes across a .exe file, it doesn't know how to open it within the browser, so it asks you to download it so you can figure out what to do with it by yourself.

[misson]

For now I renamed it .html. Is there a difference by doing that? If there is, can I solve it on this hosting account at this time?

That should work. Apache will send any file with an .html extension as text/html, which IE can handle. Other browsers will handle xhtml served as text/html without problem (though they may handle the page as HTML, rather than XHTML). An alternative is to use a <meta> tag to set the content type, but <meta> should only be used if you don't have access to the server config.

Speaking of server config, adding an "AddType text/html .xhtml" to my site-wide .htaccess worked for me. Using cPanel to add a MIME type should do the same thing. IE was probably using a cached copy of the page. Touch the xhtml file on the server to make sure IE re-fetches the page.

As for an .html extension rather than .xhtml, it generally shouldn't matter. To determine the type of a document, many browsers will try in order:

1. checking Content-type header
2. sniffing (MSDN has its own page on sniffing in IE).
3. checking file extension

Sniffing might fail if you serve a document fragment, which you might do for a web application using AJAX. Of course, any method of guessing content type is not something that you (as a web developer) should rely on; your content should always have a Content-type header. Sniffing is for browser developers, so browsers can handle poorly configured web servers.

[headcoach09]

Thank you very much for the information on this. It is nice to understand a bit more about what the hell IE is trying to do. In a little bit, or tomorrow, I will add the AddType to the .htaccess file. I tried changing again in cpanel and deleting the temp files in IE to see if it would show it properly, but it still did not.

I wish I could just say 'the hell with IE' but I guess every Windows user has it installed by default, so I would be saying goodbye to a lot of users? Even the book I have said that good design works cross platform and cross browser, so I need to take into account IE.

That is excellent news though that I can serve it as .html and text/html but the other browsers will actually pay attention to the DTD put at the top first, before going to the server text/html. So in theory, I can accomodate IE but not break other browsers?

I feel a whole lot more educated now, and I realize I probably haven't even got a drop in the bucket about IE vs everything else differences!

Thanks again! I'll post again to see if I can get it to work later!

[fguy64]

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I wish I could just say 'the hell with IE' but I guess every Windows user has it installed by default, so I would be saying goodbye to a lot of users? Even the book I have said that good design works cross platform and cross browser, so I need to take into account IE.
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Hey coach...

from a strictly philosophical perspective, sometimes standing up for principle involves sacrifices. Also, by taking a stand and refusing to knuckle under you make it easier for others to do so in the future. "It started with a trickle, and became a flood."

Besides think of the brownie points you'd get from the growing legion of Firefox supporters if you had a little blurb at the top of your page that said something like "Due to Microsoft's refusal to adhere to standards, this web page works well with all browsers except Internet Explorer".

[misson]

[...] you had a little blurb at the top of your page that said something like "Due to Microsoft's refusal to adhere to standards, this web page works well with all browsers except Internet Explorer".

Users shouldn't be made to pay for Microsoft's failings. You'll also alienate the majority of users who don't understand the issues and technologies and who will blame you for any problems with the site. It's entirely possible to create great looking, flexible designs that follow best practices and work on the major browsers.