This Beta version of Internet Explorer 8 is ready for web developers and designers. Are we ready for IE8 ?
Geir noticed in http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=94323 that htmlarea has serious problems with image plugin and when I checked some other pages there will be several things that must be checked for IE8.
Starting from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/DevelopersExisting.htm
IE8 can emulate IE7 if Emulate button is used but then IE8 does not use new features of IE8 and in the near future IE8 may be the default browser of many schools - without possibility to change browser settings...
Forum
Quiz
Glossary...
Many activities seem to have problems in IE8 with correct css layout in editing mode - it can't be a big problem but some css property used in forms (not all forms) gets mixed up.
Theme section might need new tags for IE8 (new file styles_ie8.css)
Quiz
Glossary...
Many activities seem to have problems in IE8 with correct css layout in editing mode - it can't be a big problem but some css property used in forms (not all forms) gets mixed up.
Theme section might need new tags for IE8 (new file styles_ie8.css)
Created a new report to http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-14258
Hello,
I just noticed that the JavaScript from the "grade" link in submissions.php is not working in IE8. It just blanks the page (without reloading anything).
I just noticed that the JavaScript from the "grade" link in submissions.php is not working in IE8. It just blanks the page (without reloading anything).
The final IE8 may still be different than current beta2 version - those issues that we saw in beta1 were fixed by beta2 and Urs was right when he said that we should never change core files for beta versions...
Final IE8 was supposed to be out some months ago so I wonder what has happened in Microsoft... in addition to Bill's "retirement" 
Right, it would be unwise to change anything on the Moodle site now that IE8 is not even at the RC state.
I had to tell my one IE8 beta2 user that we could not support IE8 until it was officially released ... anyhow I think I'll have to keep in mind to watch for RCs in order to know if 75% of our users will be unable to use Moodle from one day to the next
I had to tell my one IE8 beta2 user that we could not support IE8 until it was officially released ... anyhow I think I'll have to keep in mind to watch for RCs in order to know if 75% of our users will be unable to use Moodle from one day to the next
Now that Microsoft has released IE8 officially I checked several Moodle sites in IE8 (in IE8 standard mode not in compatible mode). Among others moodle.org and themes I created with IE8. This browser works very well with actual standard conform sites.
I saw 1 small issue with moodle.org and an issue with an older jQuery library. Using the actual jQuery library fixed the issue. The moodle.org issue must be specific to moodle.org because similar pages with other themes work without changes in IE8.
Congratulations to Microsoft. These congratulations don't come out easily after MS caused me and many others many hours of extra work to get websites working in IE6 and IE7. But it is well-deserved now - they seam to have managed to get IE8 right.
Hopefully many IE users may switch to IE8 as fast as they can.
Yes, the "stable release" of IE8 is much better than the alpha/beta versions of IE8.
I switched back to IE7 because IE8 has some odd behaviour with popup links - links do not always open as they do in IE7 - but it's really time to give IE8 a proper test period in moodle.
Can't wait to see stable releases of Opera 10 http://www.opera.com/browser/next/ and Safari 4 http://www.apple.com/safari/
I switched back to IE7 because IE8 has some odd behaviour with popup links - links do not always open as they do in IE7 - but it's really time to give IE8 a proper test period in moodle.
Can't wait to see stable releases of Opera 10 http://www.opera.com/browser/next/ and Safari 4 http://www.apple.com/safari/
"Congratulations to Microsoft. These congratulations don't come out easily after MS caused me and many others many hours of extra work to get websites working in IE6 and IE7. But it is well-deserved now - they seam to have managed to get IE8 right."
They killed so much of my efforts to do webstuff so i dont thank M$ for this piece of cake... they should stop this ridiculous and absurd 'fight' against other Browsers.
They should addopt webkit or gecko ASAP... .. . everything else is pointless and IE hurts my soul more and more with every release...
"Hopefully many IE users may switch to IE8 as fast as they can."
As fast as they switched from IE5->IE6 and IE6->IE7? I think you are dreaming. This Microsoft-Crap ist mostly used by Companys and they will stay with 5 or 6 because the inhouse-software made for old IE want work with IE7/8... so: nothing will change! just for developers like me the work is growing a little bit more... one crappy IE more to test...sad sad sad... .. .
For example
- Links in Recently rated posts block (moodle.org) do not open in IE8
- Can't add smileys in HTMLArea (dialog.js line 47 character 5: var dlg = window.open(url, "ha_dialog", "toolbar=no,menubar=no,personalbar=no, width="+ x +",height="+ y +",scrollbars=no,resizable=no, left="+ lx +", top="+ tx +"");
not supported in IE8 -> IE8 stopped responding... (IE8 crashed when developer tools were on!!!)
- Can't change font color or background in HTMLArea, can't add images with image plugin in IE8, can't add special characters, popup dialog in HTMLArea is broken...
Does not look like stable at all.
Yes - I created http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-14258 almost a year ago but it was too early to test IE8 then.
Now when IE8 stable is out we seem to have major problems with javascripts... MS fixed the zooming but the main problem is now popups.
I tried both options and the amazing thing is that IE8 still keeps session open if you just close browser and do not press logout.
The same happens even with Microsoft Outlook web mail (Microsoft Exchange Server) - so obviously you should just remember to press logout everywhere before you close IE8 - or anybody using the same PC after you has access to your account...
I think I will keep Developer Tools in IE8 open all day long tomorrow and try to debug all activities and resource pages of my test site to get some more specific data to tracker. Those popup errors may be easy to fix if the only problem is use of "window.open" - but I suppose that's not the only problematic javascript tag in IE8.
This popup issue with javascript tags window.open was not caused by code of moodle - it was an IE8 bug - updated workaround for Windows Vista (I don't know if it works in XP as well) in http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18645
To be continued (after message "can't move focus")
- help files (popups) are not supported in IE8
- can't enter chat in IE8
- can't add resources in IE8
It looks like these are all javascript problems and caused by tags like
windowobj = window.open(fullurl,name,options);
in function openpopup(url,name,options,fullscreen)
Popup blocker is turned off in IE8. Css side looks rather good actually... and I will switch back to IE7 - or FF3 - again.
Nicolas,
you can't be serious!!!
All stable versions of moodle are using HTMLArea and moodle 2.0 won't be stable for a long long time.
I have tested TinyMCE a couple of years so I'm not worried about it - but resources, help files, chats etc are major processes in all versions of moodle even if you never used HTMLArea.
And if I know people using Windows at all they will upgrade IE7 to IE8 as soon as they hear that IE8 is STABLE...
you can't be serious!!!
All stable versions of moodle are using HTMLArea and moodle 2.0 won't be stable for a long long time.
I have tested TinyMCE a couple of years so I'm not worried about it - but resources, help files, chats etc are major processes in all versions of moodle even if you never used HTMLArea.
And if I know people using Windows at all they will upgrade IE7 to IE8 as soon as they hear that IE8 is STABLE...
I have created new meta issue MDL-18645 for this, please add as much subtasks as possible
I hope soon we will will be able to drop support for IE6, I always hoped 2.0 will not have to deal with old buggy IE versions. I was even thinking about special frontpage block strongly encouraging people to upgrade or switch browsers.
I hope soon we will will be able to drop support for IE6, I always hoped 2.0 will not have to deal with old buggy IE versions. I was even thinking about special frontpage block strongly encouraging people to upgrade or switch browsers.
"And if I know people using Windows at all they will upgrade IE7 to IE8 as soon as they hear that IE8 is STABLE..."
dream on... .. .
Also: forget about HTMLArea and even TinyMCE (pay for plugins? your mother....!)
also YUI and stuff is.... no words left.
jQuery and FCK-Editor... the way a modern Webapp should go... just my 2 cent... .. .
dream on... .. .
Also: forget about HTMLArea and even TinyMCE (pay for plugins? your mother....!)
also YUI and stuff is.... no words left.
jQuery and FCK-Editor... the way a modern Webapp should go... just my 2 cent... .. .
Sven,
"When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality." (Dom Helder Camara)
FCKEditor and TinyMCE are very similar and nice editors with flexible configuration, they both work and support all modern browsers, it's a shame really that we can't select & use both of them in current stable versions of moodle. Both editors have commercial and free plugins - nobody forces you to buy any plugins for TinyMCE or FCKEditor... 
With jQuery, mootools etc you can do some nice things - and YUI can do some other things that you can't do with jQuery.
It's however a sad fact that most schools and offices use products of Microsoft and they are regularly upgraded - no matter if we like it or not after some months we will see a lot of people using IE8...
I checked also the functionality of latest TinyMCE in IE8 and it has no problems with different plugins so the main problem is in moodle and a few javascript functions that create popups in moodle.
"When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality." (Dom Helder Camara)
good one, thx!
"With jQuery, mootools etc you can do some nice things - and YUI can do some other things that you can't do with jQuery."
Ok, you mean buildin UI-stuff? I think jQuery-UI can also do the job.
There must be a reason why major companies like Nokia,Microsoft and
a lot of f100-companies adopt jQuery... but anyway: YUI is the choice
of Moodlers... live with it... i know, i know ;)
regards,
sven
good one, thx!
"With jQuery, mootools etc you can do some nice things - and YUI can do some other things that you can't do with jQuery."
Ok, you mean buildin UI-stuff? I think jQuery-UI can also do the job.
There must be a reason why major companies like Nokia,Microsoft and
a lot of f100-companies adopt jQuery... but anyway: YUI is the choice
of Moodlers... live with it... i know, i know ;)
regards,
sven
I don't know a single Windows user (yet) who has upgraded to IE8 on their regular workstation (we've got 650 workstations here). I know I'm not in any hurry to upgrade. We've just been able to get Firefox on campus, let alone IE8. We're stuck between XP->Vista and Vista->Windows 7. It's going to be an interesting battle for working browsers, but I know for us, I better start testing our site with IE8 so I can make my own determination as to whether or not things are broken. I saw that Bb doesn't yet have full support for IE8 either, so I don't feel like we're behind.
The color b8cb2b is not showing through on IE 8, but if you run in it compatibility view, it does work on some machines. Some machines like the green and when run in compatibility mode they will turn to grey.
.sideblock .content {
}
.sideblock .content hr {
border-top-color:#999
}
.sideblock .list {
}
#left-column .sideblock .header {
color:#b8cb2b;
border-bottom: 4px solid;
}
#left-column .sideblock .list td {
border-color: #b8cb2b;
}
#right-column .sideblock .header { /* VQA OFFICE BLOCK AND UPADATED EVENTS */
color:#b8cb2b;/* this color is not showing through in ie8 */
border-color:9b9b9b;
border-bottom: 4px solid;
}
#right-column .sideblock .content {
}
.sideblock .link {
border-bottom-color:#FFF
}
.sideblock .post {
border-bottom-color:#FFF
}
.sideblock .content {
}
.sideblock .content hr {
border-top-color:#999
}
.sideblock .list {
}
#left-column .sideblock .header {
color:#b8cb2b;
border-bottom: 4px solid;
}
#left-column .sideblock .list td {
border-color: #b8cb2b;
}
#right-column .sideblock .header { /* VQA OFFICE BLOCK AND UPADATED EVENTS */
color:#b8cb2b;/* this color is not showing through in ie8 */
border-color:9b9b9b;
border-bottom: 4px solid;
}
#right-column .sideblock .content {
}
.sideblock .link {
border-bottom-color:#FFF
}
.sideblock .post {
border-bottom-color:#FFF
}
The yellowgreen color is showing on my moodle 1.9 site, both in MSIE 8 and FF 3 (see attached screenshots). I do not understand what you mean by "if you run in it compatibility view" and "Some machines like the green and when run in compatibility mode they will turn to grey".
May I say that that yellowgreeen color #b8cb2b is not a good choice for accessibility (for text) anyway. It fails the Colour Contrast Analyser for Web Pages. Please consider another choice of color.
Joseph
Compatibility view is an IE8 feature that complicates debugging. If you want to turn it off for a site (ie make it so that users can't turn it on and confuse/break things), add this to your theme (near the top of the HEAD section; it won't work if you leave it too far down):
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
--sam
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
--sam
Interesting - I have thought that css gets broken exactly in IE8 mode on most old sites and have on the contrary turned compatibility view permanently on so that IE8 should work like IE7 with this guide:
In order to enable and turn on Compatibility View mode for all web pages and websites, click on Tools menu, and select Compatibility View Settings. In the "Compatibility View Settings" dialog, tick the check box for Display all websites in Compatibility View option. Click on Close button when done.
Now you are saying that we should force IE8 mode... 
Sam, can you check
It is up to you what you do. However for the theme I'm in charge of, I forced IE8 mode.
The reasons we changed it here are:
1) I don't think we make progress by getting IE8 to pretend it's IE7, especially when IE8 is a much better browser. If something doesn't work in IE8 we should fix it, not continue to ship broken code and get the browser to pretend it's IE7.
2) Giving users the option is definitely a no-no; it makes it impossible to narrow down errors because it causes yet another category of 'which browser are you using'. We had to force one option or the other.
2b) This is doubly true because by default, IE8 uses compatibility mode for intranet sites, and not internet ones - meaning that even without any option-fiddling, our internal staff (sometimes including, depending on how they logged in, actual testers) saw one version and students see another. Not good.
3) We experienced a very odd bug in 'IE8 with compatibility mode' that certainly didn't occur on real IE7 (and nor did it occur on IE8 in IE8 mode). It was a very funny bug - basically on this page with a big table, when you mouse over it, the table and everything below it 'vibrates' by one pixel - it looks like you are seriously drunk. But although we were amused, we felt it might not aid the learning process any more than actual booze...
--sam
The reasons we changed it here are:
1) I don't think we make progress by getting IE8 to pretend it's IE7, especially when IE8 is a much better browser. If something doesn't work in IE8 we should fix it, not continue to ship broken code and get the browser to pretend it's IE7.
2) Giving users the option is definitely a no-no; it makes it impossible to narrow down errors because it causes yet another category of 'which browser are you using'. We had to force one option or the other.
2b) This is doubly true because by default, IE8 uses compatibility mode for intranet sites, and not internet ones - meaning that even without any option-fiddling, our internal staff (sometimes including, depending on how they logged in, actual testers) saw one version and students see another. Not good.
3) We experienced a very odd bug in 'IE8 with compatibility mode' that certainly didn't occur on real IE7 (and nor did it occur on IE8 in IE8 mode). It was a very funny bug - basically on this page with a big table, when you mouse over it, the table and everything below it 'vibrates' by one pixel - it looks like you are seriously drunk. But although we were amused, we felt it might not aid the learning process any more than actual booze...
--sam
Well I am not against using IE8 mode - I was just surprised once again.
Some rules of IE8 are stricter than the ones of IE7 and this may lead to similar situation as we had with IE6 where some things work in all other browsers than in IE(6/8) but if we don't use those features at all everybody should be happy.
Yes, IE8 is stricter. I had a couple problems to fix related to JavaScript along those lines (where a hack to fix IE6 caused an error message and broke in IE8). In general though I think that's a good thing.
We do have the luxury of a testing team here so we knew IE8 would be tested; I didn't just flip a switch and force that option onto our users immediately.
The few problems we found have been mainly due to (our own) complicated JavaScript, and changes in security rules where our Moodle-generated pages were embedded inside another system that uses https - not straightforward things.
For us basically it was just a choice between, we test against four IE browsers (IE6, IE7, IE8 pretending to be IE7, IE8 being itself) or three. I picked three.
--sam
We do have the luxury of a testing team here so we knew IE8 would be tested; I didn't just flip a switch and force that option onto our users immediately.
The few problems we found have been mainly due to (our own) complicated JavaScript, and changes in security rules where our Moodle-generated pages were embedded inside another system that uses https - not straightforward things.
For us basically it was just a choice between, we test against four IE browsers (IE6, IE7, IE8 pretending to be IE7, IE8 being itself) or three. I picked three.
--sam
Claire,
I think IE8 just does not know what you are trying to do:
if you want to change border color to #9b9b9b (grey) you should add # to your color and use
border-color:#9b9b9b; - and it is shown as grey
You have changed font color to green #b8cb2b - not border color...
Usually browsers use browser default colors if no color is defined or rule is not correct.
Claire >
But - as pointed by Mauno - this is precisely what you asked for in your CSS, with color:#b8cb2b;There should be no font which is green.
Joseph PS.- If you are not using that yellow-green color for font, then there is no accessibility problem, you can ignore the warning in my previous post.
.sideblock .header {
border-bottom: 4px solid;
border-bottom-color: #b8cb2b;
}
or simpler
.sideblock .header {
border-bottom: #b8cb2b 4px solid;
}
unless that block has some custom class and custom css (like for example calendar block can have...)
Note: try to add those tags to the bottom of your css file so that they will override previous settings... my IE8 gives green border both in compatibility view (when IE8 is playing IE7) and in IE8 mode
If you add new css somewhere in the middle or to the beginning of css some latter tags may override block css.
You have made so many changes to standard theme layout that the easiest way to fix it is to start modifying styles_layout.css from a fresh file or if you have named your theme for example to claire you could try to modify only fonts and colors (and tabs) and change theme config.php to use
$THEME->sheets = array('styles_fonts', 'styles_color', 'styles_tabs');
$THEME->standardsheets = array('styles_layout');
Oh - and take away the lines
$THEME->resources = base64_decode(...); - you obviously don't need it in theme config.php unless you want to use some ads by Themza themes.
Check also that your theme config.php does not have empty lines or extra whitespaces at the bottom when you save it with text editor...
Hi Claire,
Just a general tip: For debugging CSS in IE you might try using Development:Firebug#Alternatives with similar functionality for other Web browsers:. It's not as powerful as Firebug for Firefox but better than nothing.
Cheers,
Frank
Just a general tip: For debugging CSS in IE you might try using Development:Firebug#Alternatives with similar functionality for other Web browsers:. It's not as powerful as Firebug for Firefox but better than nothing.
Cheers,
Frank
It's a good tip, Frank - and in Firefox Web Developer and Firebug plugin help a lot - but IE8 has of course Developer tools in itself (F12 or menu...) for debugging and inspecting html and css.
See for example http://blogs.msdn.com/brunoterkaly/archive/2009/08/03/internet-explorer-8-developer-tools-debugging-html-and-css.aspx
Those tags can just sometimes be dropped to many places in css files of moodle and particularly in standard theme css...
Here is another bug that has been reported...probably should be put in the meta:
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18232
Section Links block in IE8 doesn't work at all.
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18232
Section Links block in IE8 doesn't work at all.
Perhaps this isn't the right place to ask this but I have been researching how to fix the IE8 issue of not allowing you to link to a section. I have an HTML block where I put a Table of Content and added links to the topic blocks. It works in IE8 if we are in compatibility mode.
I found a patch located in the link you posted, ie8_section_links.patch, but it looks like it 'fixes' the weeks format.php but not the topics sections format.php. And I'm not sure if it will fix all links to sections like my href or just the ones found in the section links block. If it fixes all links, can I make the same changes to the topics/format.PHP? I am a newbie at the PHP and changing it is a bit scary.
