LFS Testing doesn't render properly on MSIE

[randy@…]

Using MSIE to view Version 6.0-testing-20040923 causes the stuff in the top and bottom navigation bars to render improperly. This causes difficult to read text and actually makes the middle links unusable.

I know this issue has been discussed, and it has been said it would be fixed, but as we nearer to release, I thought it would be less likely to be forgotten if it was in BZ.

I looked at all the open entries and didn't see an entry about this issue.

[manuel@…]

That issue was discussed and marked like fixed some time ago:

​http://linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs-dev/2004-May/046390.html

Please, send an screenshot and say us what Win+IE version are you using.

[randy@…]

Well, as best as I can tell, it ain't fixed.

Windows 98 with MSIE 5.5 has a problem. Windows XP(SP2) with MSIE 6.0 has a problem.

Here's a URL for a .gif screenshot: ​http://www.mcmurchy.com/lfs/MSIE_screen.gif

Let me know if you need any more info.

[kpfleming@…]

I see this also using MSIE6.0 on Windows 2000 SP4 with all updates applied. The display looks identical to Randy's screen capture.

[jim@…]

I also confirmed this. Changing status to NEW

[Matthew Burgess]

This is probably down to the recent content-type changes. MSIE has some particularly nasty "quirks" modes. I don't think MSIE understands application/xhtml+xml so it'll go for whatever random layout mode it feels like.

Reverting it back to text/html should get it to work again properly. Yes,

we'll only be playing to the spirit of the W3C standard, not the letter, but we're not doing XHTML-2.0 yet, so text/html is fine as a transitional stage IMNSHO.

[manuel@…]

Trying to confirm the possible cause reported by Matthew. There was two recent related changes: the addition of the XML declaration and the Content-Type application/xhtml+xml one. This page has both changes, must have the reported issues (please, comfirm): ​http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~manuel/lfs-book/chapter05/m4.html This page has the XML declaration but text/html Content-type: ​http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~manuel/chapter05/perl.html This one has no XML declaration but application/xhtml+xml Content-Type: ​http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~manuel/chapter05/sed.html And this one has no XML declaration and text/html Content-Type: ​http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~manuel/chapter05/tar.html Please, report if some of that pages has a good look in IE.

[j.knierim@…]

With IE 6 SP1 (Windows 2000) BTW, your links are missing "/lfs-book/"

M4 Page (Declaration and Content-Type) - Previous/next/home/etc. links on top and bottom shifted

Perl Page (declaration but text/html) - Same, links/text on top and bottom shifted.

Sed Page (no XML declaration but application/xhtml+xml) - Links/text look right, and work

Tar Page (no XML, text/html) - Looks ok also

[manuel@…]

Then, is the XML declaration what break the nav links on IE, very bad for MS :-/

Dropping it again for now, I don't have a Win (and time at this momment) to try to fix such buggy browser. Kepping the bug open a few day to see if there are more issues or comments.

[n-roeser@…]

The cause for this behavior is that IE6 still has a bug that makes it switch to non-standards-compatible mode if anything appears in a document before the DOCTYPE declaration. So if an XML declaration is used, display in IE will be broken. We should re-evaluate later (in about half a year?) to what degree we want to support broken browsers and implement hacks to get around their bugs. This IE bug might have been fixed until then, and lynx might have real XHTML support. :-)

[manuel@…]

Closing the bug. The use of XML declaration is delayed again.