More Dorkey Web Stuff

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been going through some changes with my website business - and not just re-naming it. Another big thing is I upgraded to Adobe CS4 Web Professional. This was a large expense, but one I feel pretty good about. Already I have noticed a number of changes in Dreamweaver and Photoshop - some of which give me great delight and some of which drive me nuts. Hopefully those in the latter category will morph into the first before too long.

Beyond that, I have made one of the more liberating decisions of my (albeit brief) professional career. I have decided that I, personally, will no longer support Internet Explorer 6. I spent several hours today adding a notice to my own websites (all three of them) that is invisible to all visitors except those using IE6 or older. The notice explains that IE6 is archaic and offers a few helpful upgrade options with links. I found the gumption to do this when I discovered there are whole campaigns of web-developers moving en force to create a IE6-free world.

But, of course, I am anti-IE6 only in moderation. My sites still work in IE6. They just look strange. And I will offer my clients the option of being IE6 compatible when they hire me.

Ironically, in learning how to inform my IE6 users that they should upgrade I discovered what I'd say is the only cool thing about that old browser. It will show what is inside a tag < !---[if lte IE 6]------ >, and no other browser will. So, when people with IE6 go to one of my websites, they see this:


Any other browser sees this:

This is a nice, clean, javascriptless way to deal with the notice. Thus I will say for IE6, at the very least, it makes itself easy to phase out.