DIGIT-ARC read-only archive · snapshot: July 23, 2026

Why doesn't IE do CSS?

15 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/why-doesnt-ie-do-css.103236/

C
chandru.in Original post #1
Nov 30, 2008 at 2:08 AM
Is MS killing CSS on IE juts to ensure that standards based web design will always remain difficult and people will choose Silverlight or is it because they never really understood how to render CSS? :mad:

Being a web developer I'm having to suffer every single day thanks to IE. Developing a web app and making it render as I wish is dead simple on every single browser (including FF, Opera, Chrome and Safari). But after that several minutes and sometimes even hours have to be spent to find workarounds for IE's half arsed rendering brain. :mad: :mad:

I had to suffer one such situation recently. Something as simple as this is not supported on IE (not even in IE 7). WTF is it so? :mad:

Code:
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Demo Page</title>
        <style type="text/css">
            .btn {
                border:  1px solid black;
                background-color: green;
                color: white;
            }

            .btn[disabled] {
                background-color: gray;
            }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <input type="button" value="Enabled" class="btn" />
        <input type="button" value="Disabled" disabled="true" class="btn" />
    </body>
</html>

Is there any damn way to make this work on a stable release of IE without having to resort to Javascript? My app has 100s of buttons across several pages and many get enabled and disabled based on state maintained on the server. Adding JS only to handle something as simple as this is stupid (esp when it is needed for only one among the supported browsers). Stylig is needed as native browser widgets look out of place in our page (more so as we target multiple platforms). To avoid such out of place appearance every element in the app is styled appropriately.
lywyre
lywyre #2
Nov 30, 2008 at 8:18 AM
IE never respects and standards completely. Designers around the world should stop writing specific code for IE. I am also suffering with similar problems (styles) for the past three days, just to make the design similar (not even exact) in all browsers.

Whatever tweak I make, the design is mostly similar in Firefox, Opera and even Chrome. But IE really sucks that way. Even when I have to use JavaScript, I have to code separately for IE.
Faun
Faun #3
Nov 30, 2008 at 10:27 AM
IE sucks, lol I wish it just die ! Always I have to write something to stop that CSS bug :p
Faun
Faun #5
Dec 1, 2008 at 1:16 PM
imo, CSS is boring ...... great move ie ......
blasphemy, madness, abhorrent...forget it. Stick with WYSIWTF editors.
lywyre
lywyre #6
Dec 3, 2008 at 1:27 PM
imo, CSS is boring ...... great move ie ......

You said boring! Here are two samples:
1. *www.cssplay.co.uk/
2. *www.csszengarden.com/

Visit and have a good look and then say.
Faun
Faun #7
Dec 18, 2008 at 5:51 PM
lol @ disabling .jsp file :p
C
Dec 18, 2008 at 6:57 PM
& some ppl disable .css & .jsp files 4 browsers also .... so here, ur site goes haywire ...
AFAIK no browser allows disabling CSS by default. If user installs some add-on to strip CSS or even worse replace it with his own and the site looked broken, it is his problem not the designer's.
RCuber
RCuber #9
Dec 18, 2008 at 8:05 PM
The button is disabled in my computer on IE, except that the color is still green but still disabled.
C
Dec 18, 2008 at 8:07 PM
The button is disabled in my computer on IE, except that the color is still green but still disabled.
That exactly is the problem. :(
gary4gar
gary4gar #11
Dec 18, 2008 at 8:19 PM
IE8 should improve things by little atleast
RCuber
RCuber #12
Dec 18, 2008 at 8:22 PM
^^ +1
C
Dec 18, 2008 at 9:21 PM
IE 8 still uses quirks mode for intranet sites. 90% of enterprise apps are intranet apps. :(
iMav
iMav #14
Dec 18, 2008 at 9:32 PM
Here are some posts on CSS by the IE team on the official IE blog. See if it helps with anything.

I don't know anything about CSS and or IE's handling of the same. Just sharing a link if it helps.
E
Dec 23, 2008 at 3:08 PM
The world still awaits an absoultely extensible and yet stable browser, opera, chrome, Firefox, and IE all put together in the best form!