FAQ: Why does Internet Explorer ignore the Statement?

HarryB · **Posted:** Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:48 pm

Many existing Joomla templates have the following statement as the first line of the index.php file:

This conforms to the W3 specifications and is interpreted correctly by browsers other than Internet Explorer (IE). Unfortunately, having this statement the head of the template's index.php file causes IE (including the current 6.0 version) to go into Quirks Mode. Read this to learn about Quirks Mode and IE.

To prevent IE from entering Quirks Mode, replace the and statements at the top of the template's index file with:

$iso = split( '=', _ISO );
$Browser_Type = strtok($HTTP_USER_AGENT, "/");
$doc_type = "";
if (ereg( "MSIE", $HTTP_USER_AGENT))
{
echo $doc_type;
echo '';
$browtype = "You are using IE";
}
else
{
echo '';
echo $doc_type;
$browtype = "You are not using IE";
}
?>

Hopefully the future IE 7 release will correct this and bring IE in line with the W3 specifications.

bluesaze · **Posted:** Wed Sep 21, 2005 2:10 pm

Mmm Maybe this should be inculded in the upcoming joomla 1.0.1 ...... less headache for the end users

HarryB · **Posted:** Wed Sep 21, 2005 2:16 pm

bluesaze wrote:

Mmm Maybe this should be inculded in the upcoming joomla 1.0.1 ...... less headache for the end users

No...its not a Joomla core deficiency...its an issue for 3rd-party template builders to consider, not the Joomla core developers.

acepp · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:25 pm

is this why when i view some of my templates in IE it shows it all funny compared to firefox?

Tonie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:13 am **Posts:** 13234

Basically yes. The current version of Internet Explorer is notorious for not keeping up with CSS standards. Hopefully version 7 which will be released next year will be better in this regard.

schultkl · **Joined:** Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:26 am **Posts:** 1

Instead of browser sniffing (x_x) couldn't you just insert the following in the segment?

Code:

That's what Jeffrey Zeldman recommends in his book, "designing with web standards," page 158. See source code here: http://zeldman.com

Kevin

damog · **Posted:** Wed Nov 02, 2005 6:54 pm

Why? Mainly because IE sucks hardly. >:(

Jinx · **Joined:** Fri Aug 12, 2005 12:47 am **Posts:** 6431

The xml prolog isn't needed when serving pages as text/html. In Joomla 1.1 we have removed it from the included templates and are forcing the use of meta tag. We will advocate template developers todo the same.

CHCG · **Posted:** Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:52 am

Hi! I am desperately searching for a cure for the rhuk solarflare ii template displaying weird in IE6 for Windows. I have modified the template and it looks fine in all my Mac-based browsers. The URL is http://www.anotherproject.se. I am, however, not savvy enough to understand how to alter the index file to make it work in all IE for Windows. Could someone with the expertise help me through this, by exemplifying it in the copied code below?

Code:

<?php
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
// needed to seperate the ISO number from the language file constant _ISO
$iso = explode( '=', _ISO );
// xml prolog
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'. $iso[1] .'"?' .'>';
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<?php mosShowHead(); ?>
<?php

Thank you for your kind assistance!

HarryB · **Posted:** Mon Jan 09, 2006 5:07 pm

CHCG wrote:

Hi! I am desperately searching for a cure for the rhuk solarflare ii template displaying weird in IE6 for Windows. I have modified the template and it looks fine in all my Mac-based browsers. The URL is http://www.anotherproject.se. I am, however, not savvy enough to understand how to alter the index file to make it work in all IE for Windows. Could someone with the expertise help me through this, by exemplifying it in the copied code below?

Code:

<?php
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
// needed to seperate the ISO number from the language file constant _ISO
$iso = explode( '=', _ISO );
// xml prolog
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'. $iso[1] .'"?' .'>'
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<?php mosShowHead(); ?>
<?php

Thank you for your kind assistance!

Change this statement..

echo ''
to...

// echo ''

This may help some, but think you may also have to change the width in some of the css statements in the template_css.css file too....

Think there are more threads here in forum regarding this issue with the solarflare ii template....try searching the forum for more on this issue...

Good luck...

CHCG · **Posted:** Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:19 pm

Thank you for your kind help, HarryB. As you anticipated, your solution solved more than some of the problem: It mended the broken structure!!! I will now see if I can fix the rest in the css. I must say, getting things right for IE is tricky!

Regards,

Chris

absalom · **Posted:** Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:25 am

That's what you get with quirks mode..

Quirks

magsglass · **Joined:** Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:19 pm **Posts:** 11

HarryB wrote:

Change this statement..

echo ''
to...

// echo ''

Thank you HarryB! Adding these two little forward slashes just solved the text resizing problem I've been wrestling with all day!

~Mag

sitearsiv · **Joined:** Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:56 pm **Posts:** 1

Thank you...

kevin_chambers · **Joined:** Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:13 pm **Posts:** 22

Hmmm. My page is still messed up even with commenting out that one line in the rhuk solarflare ii template. I'm seeing that modules are not displaying in their correct locations. Like the frontpage content is displaying under the left main menu rather then next to it. demo.rolwheels.com. Any help would be great. thx.

acepp · **Posted:** Thu Dec 14, 2006 6:37 am

Is this still an issue with IE7?

kevin_chambers · **Joined:** Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:13 pm **Posts:** 22

IE6. What I have learned is that I am using the scrolling news module in the "top" location. The width parameter was set just a hair too long and caused the whole template to bump over a location (just in IE6). The scrolling news module doesn't seem to scroll on IE6 or IE7 so I may just replace it all together. Other than that, my main menus are not displaying correctly (just in IE6) so I may have to adjust the height in the .CSS or something.

Rumor has it that there is another version of this solarflare template that is not a fixed width. Anyone have a pointer to that?
Thx.

imrich · **Joined:** Mon Nov 20, 2006 12:17 pm **Posts:** 43

I found this because many of my visitors tell me that things don't look right with IE6.

I did testing and everything looks just fine with IE7 (yes they seemed to have fixed the issues in IE7!

)

However the majority of my visitors are still using IE6.

So I'm trying to fix some templates so that they will work with BOTH IE6 and IE7.

From what I've been reading, by changing the order of the !doctype and the XML prolog statement you can force IE6 into quirks mode ore not. See here:
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/quirksmode.html

Quote:

Explorer Windows special: the xml prolog
In Explorer 6 Windows, Microsoft implemented one extra rule: if a doctype that triggers strict mode is preceded by an xml prolog, the page shows in quirks mode. This was done to allow web developers to achieve valid pages (which require a doctype) but nonetheless stay in quirks mode.

Note that this behaviour has been removed from Explorer 7.

I don't think the code above that just tests for MSIE will work as it seems to not check for versions below IE 7.

Just saying IE sucks doesn't help much as the majority of visitors to my web sites are using IE (like it or not).

Does anyone have a suggested change to templates which will work for IE 6 and below as well as IE 7 (and above)?

karryberry · **Joined:** Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:36 pm **Posts:** 20

thats strange, i use w3o to validate my html and i dont seem to be having this issue? weird!

Iroken22 · **Joined:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:24 pm **Posts:** 2

I have the exact same problem with my joomla site when viewing it in IE6. I have tried all the steps listed here and cannot find a fix. my site is http://www.peoriatroop333.org.

bestfunnyman · **Joined:** Wed May 14, 2008 12:54 am **Posts:** 2

I had luck.Works in IE6 and IE7 with this fix...i was really careful at reading.This is very important because i have 76.95%
from IE.

lagibosen · **Joined:** Sat Jun 28, 2008 11:43 pm **Posts:** 3

yup it work in IE 7

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