Moodle 2.0 and IE6

Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Rene Louwers -
Number of replies: 8

Hi,

I know, it's hardly imaginable, but at my office we still use IE6. I installed Moodle 2.0 stable, but all the themes are totally misformed in IE6, see picture below, this is the SimpleSpace theme, but it is even worse with other themes. Some of them hardly show anything.

This is how it should look like (the menu at the top should be totally at the right side).

I want to demonstrate Moodle in a couple of weeks, hope someone can help me out!

Regards, Rene

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In reply to Rene Louwers

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi there. My understanding is that Moodle 2.0 doesn't support IE6   - that's what it says in the release notes I remember reading a big discussion about it a while back. Are you able to use Firefox at all? It's not my business to say, so I apologise, but it seems odd to be wanting to move to Moodle 2.0 but to be stuck in IE6?

In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by John St -

yes, the release notes state:

Any standards-supporting browser from the past few years, for example:

I did not even consider ie6 support when making that theme.

In reply to John St

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Mary Evans -
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Oh really? Ummm...

(lines from general.php and frontpage.php in SimpleSpace)

<div id="ie6-container-wrap">
<div id="container">

<div id="johncontrols">
<div class="johncontrolsleft">

...perhaps just a tiny consideration to IE6 crossed your mind at some point...and then thought better of it...

IE6!!!Grrrrrrrrr

Mary

In reply to Rene Louwers

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Mary Evans -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

I'm curious to know how Standard theme looks on IE6. Does that behave in the same way?

Mary E

 

In reply to Mary Evans

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Rene Louwers -

Almost every theme does the same thing with the blocks, some themes only show the top and bottom part. My company has choosen to upgrade to IE8, but it's a large company, it takes months to roll it out. I need to demonstrate moodle within a couple of weeks, so I have no other option than to install 1.9.10 (hope that works).

Rene

In reply to Rene Louwers

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Sam Hemelryk -
Hi Rene,

You could try the standardold theme, obviously it is just the basic theme but it should work on IE6 (it uses a table for layout rather than the floating div system that IE6 can't handle).
You can still of course create a theme that works on IE6, it could be based on standardold and just introduce colours etc, or it could be based on another theme you like and just override the layout files to use tables instead of the floating div system.

Noting: After a quick check I see there is a block header display issue in IE6 that is pretty simple to fix, I've created MDL-25431 to track that.

Cheers
Sam
In reply to Rene Louwers

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Julian Ridden -

Moodle 2 no longer officially supports IE6. It is not alone in this decision. This is a bugbear with me as corporates expect IE6 support when even Microsoft themselves state they no longer support the application. When it's creator no longer supports an app a Corporate body really needs to get on board and update. Here is the official end of life dates for IE - http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps/#Internet_Explorer

On a slightly funnier side the Microsoft Developer Team did however send flowers to the Funeral of IE6 earlier this year. A very sombre yet celebratory event. Photo's can be found here. - http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/03/microsoft-dev-team-sends-flowers-to-ie6s-funeral/

On the more offical side, in Moodle 2's official requirment specs it is stated that Moodle also no longer supports IE6. It also states that (Even Google don't support IE6 any more). If this is an issue you may need to stay on the 1.9 series. - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_release_notes#System_requirements .

While Moodle and it's core themes no longer support the IE6 standard that won't stop the community, or yourself, creating themes that still comply with the somewhat antiquated IE6 requirements. A theme can still be built with minimal AJAX, no transparent PNGs and less advanced CSS and moodle 2 has a rather nifty feature that allows it to detect the IE6 browser on the clients end and automaticallyshift that user to the less advanced theme. This is the button you see called "use for older browsers" in the Theme Selector window of the Admin settings. More details on that function can be found here. - http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=149534#p654054

Julian/Moodleman

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Rene Louwers

Re: Moodle 2.0 and IE6

by Mauno Korpelainen -

Hi Rene,

basicly I agree with others but to this particular block width issue you can give a limited support for IE6 with a few css tags.

Try for example to add to the bottom of theme/simplespace/style/core.css

* html .block {width:100%;zoom:1;}

(other browsers do not understand those * html rules) or if you want to use ie6 classes

.ie6 .block {width:100%;zoom:1;}

Most core themes use some css that IE6 can't understand or IE6 needs some special IE6 hacks to work as expected so this block width is only one of many issues but at least it helps you for a start.

Check that theme designer mode is enabled when you make changes from theme settings (adminsitration menu) or clear theme caches from theme selector menu or from moodledata subfolder cache/theme to make sure that changes to css take effect.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)