I’ve played around with IE7 for a while, but haven’t really started debugging with it until now. Fortunately, I’ve already set up the site to use conditional comments and deliver an IE6.css file and a separate IE7.css file. This has made it much easier to target the offending areas of the site.
IE7 has had a couple surprising problems for me. I have a topnav section that completely disappeared. The container div only has position:relative and inside are a number of floated elements. This actuall works great in all browsers… but IE7! No hacks for IE6, but hack for IE7! I went with the old adage, I think from Andy Budd, when all else fails float, if it’s already floated, unfloat. I added float:left to the container div and the topnav re-appeared from the IE7 void.
Munged Background Images
I’m using a series of positioning, text-indent, and background images on the site. Here’s a simplified version:
.targetdl dd {position:relative;}
.targetdl dd span {text-indent:-1000em; width:66px; display:block; position:absolute; top:5px; right:20px;}
.happy0 span {background:url(/images/happy0.png) no-repeat 0 -650px;}
IE7 shows the background image ok on some pages and on other pages, it shrinks the background image. I tried adding zoom:1 and font-size:100% to no avail. I’ll try line-height next. This is an odd bug, but not the first time I noticed it on IE7 betas. It certainly seems to be buggy with positioning.
De-bugging Strategy
Since I’ve already got a fairly solid ie6.css file, I’m going to use that as the basis of my IE7 CSS construction. After fixing the topnav, the rest of the ie6.css file is going into the IE7 css and rules will be removed one at a time. This should help me figure out what is still needed.
I’ll keep notes on this site as I find it a convenient place to remember them. Has anyone else come across some positioning bugs in IE7? Sorry, no screen shots or details at this time, we’re still pre-alpha stage.
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