Compatibility view in IE8

[redsox9]

Is anyone aware what causes IE8 to recommend turning on the Compatibility View? My site passes an HTML validator and only provides some minor warnings when performing a CSS check, but it apparently doesn't pass muster in the latest version. With CV turned off, I only notice a very minor difference. Any clues?

[farcaster]

Sox, I will point you here (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/27/introducing-compatibility-view.aspx) as it's a microsoft thing. Maybe someday they will adhere to published and accepted standards instead of creating new ones. But until then, as web designers we are going to be working around this kind of stuff. For now, consider it a feature.

[redsox9]

I should have guessed in talking about a Microsoft product! :D Thanks for the link!

[Early Out]

Another in a long line of wonderful usability innovations from the Wizards of Redmond, like the delightful "mark of the web," which makes running web pages from your own PC such a thrill, and "user access control" in Vista, which causes a user to be thrown into an extreme wrestling match whenever he tries to perform some fairly routine function. :rolleyes:

That said, I've got mixed feelings about MS. I'm old enough to remember the days when MS was just a minor player. There were no standards. If one office had machines and software from Maker A, and another from Maker B, sharing information was very nearly impossible. It was easier to re-enter stuff by hand than to go through some wonky third-party conversion (that is, if you could even find a medium to move the files from one platform to another).

MS eventually used its market position to impose some standards on the industry. Someone had to do it. I just wish they were better at choosing the standards. Apple might have been better at it, but they got greedy, and priced themselves out of the business market. Pity.

[felgall]

MS eventually used its market position to impose some standards on the industry. Someone had to do it.

And it was actually IBM that did it starting in 1981. Microsoft actually did the opposite and ended the operating system standards era.

In the late 80s and early 90s there were actually three different but compatible DOS operating systems to choose from of which Microsoft's was one - and all three could run the same applications. There were even a couple of other operating systems that could also run all the same applications as well as ones written specifically for those systems since those OS had a DOS mode. It was only whenWindows 95 was launched and Microsoft became incompatible with their competitors that they really took off - by breaking with the existing standards.

The term PC is in fact a reference to IBM's first Microcomputer and the hardware is still referred to as IBM compatible even though almost none of it these days is produced by IBM.

[Latoret]

Can someone tell me if Compatibility View is enabled or disabled on a default install of Windows with IE 8? My site looks rather bad when Compatibility Mode is turned on, but it looks fine in all other modern browsers.

Im trying to decide if its worth the trouble of going through and fixing them or not. If so, what is the best way of going about this so IE 7 doesnt break??

[felgall]

Can someone tell me if Compatibility View is enabled or disabled on a default install of Windows with IE 8? My site looks rather bad when Compatibility Mode is turned on, but it looks fine in all other modern browsers.

Im trying to decide if its worth the trouble of going through and fixing them or not. If so, what is the best way of going about this so IE 7 doesnt break??

Compatibility view is enabled or disabled on a site by site basis depending on whether Microsoft, the page author, or the browser owner has flagged the page as being iincompatible with IE8. There is a meta tag you can use to tell IE8 which mode to use.

[webbster]

Can someone tell me if Compatibility View is enabled or disabled on a default install of Windows with IE 8? My site looks rather bad when Compatibility Mode is turned on, but it looks fine in all other modern browsers.

Im trying to decide if its worth the trouble of going through and fixing them or not. If so, what is the best way of going about this so IE 7 doesnt break??

Microsoft needs a streamlined solution for IE 9. I'm still finding IE 7 just as usable as IE 8
http://bodybuilderspro.info/customimages/4/1240197088/random.gif.

[felgall]

Compatibility view is enabled or disabled on a site by site basis depending on whether Microsoft, the page author, or the browser owner has flagged the page as being iincompatible with IE8. There is a meta tag you can use to tell IE8 which mode to use.

If you don't include the meta tag then the default is for compatibility mode to be off unless Microsoft add your site to the list of those that are broken with compatibility mode off so as to turn it on.