Let's face it, browser testing for Internet Explorer isn't on most developers' "Top 10 Things to do for Fun" list. Of course we were all doing our happy dances last year when Microsoft released The Countdown to IE6, but that doesn't mean the battle is over. We still have to test for IE7, IE8, IE9, and a multitude of possible combinations in between.

You see, in addition to variations between versions, developers must consider asymmetries between native installs and virtual machines, document modes, and browser modes (a feature intended to improve the browsing experience for IE users viewing sites built for outdated versions).

I recently spent some time brushing up on my understanding of how the browser, document, and compatibility modes function - both independently and together - and thought I'd report my findings.

The Compatibility View button

The Compatibility View button is a smart addition to IE, but sometimes I find myself wishing I had more control over it on a per-site basis. If it was designed to resolve problems with websites built for earlier IE versions, why does it appear on my standards-compliant, 2012 website?

Many times I've made the mistake of trying to figure out why something is rendering inconsistently, only to realize I'd been viewing the site in compatibility mode the whole time. If I can make that mistake as a developer, surely it's a common occurrence among casual visitors.

(Testing, testing, testing) x 6?

IE Developer Tools is undoubtedly an invaluable addition to the IE suite. It's important to be familiar with the two mode controls indicated in the image below.

In the tool's most recent release, these two settings allow you to test your site in 16 possible variations. Whoa. Testing for 3 IE versions doesn't look so bad anymore…

Working with U-XA Compatibility meta tags

Enter U-XA Compatibility meta tags. With this small snippet of markup, we can control the sea of seemingly endless browser/document combinations and boss IE around, a little.

So we add something like this to our site's header, paying specific attention to the content attribute:

meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"

In the example above, we're telling Internet Explorer to modify the document mode to render as IE7, but not the browser mode. The browser mode is responsible, however, for controlling the document mode. So even if you add the compatibility meta tag, a user can still override your settings by clicking the compatibility button if the meta tag content doesn't match their version of IE.

On the other hand, you could always use the controversial IE=edge method to eliminate the button altogether, but Microsoft advises against it.

Web Standards, IE, & the Future

Keeping all these various "modes" around might make true compatibility more difficult to achieve in the long run because ultimately, we're supporting old code. It'd be nice to see the compatibility button phased out in near the future, but until then… it's Internet Explorer à la MODE. Good luck!

Switzerland, like every year around this time, is in the centre of global media attention. You may think what you want about the World Economic Forum in Davos, but when it comes to their CMS of choice they certainly deserve applause. Yes, it is Drupal!

Anyway here is our weekly selection of content that we enjoyed:

Design

.net magazine: Ethan Marcotte on responsive web design
The creator of responsive web design gives his view on "his" technology in an interview with Jeffrey Zeldman, the godfather of web standards.

Smashing Magazine: What Successful Products Teach Us About Web Design
Yiannis Konstantakopoulos, author of this article, points out that success and great design go hand in hand. But what does this mean for web design?

Technology

Wired: Command & Conquer recreated in HTML5
That HTML5 is powerful is beyond doubt. Demos of its strength are often astonishing but this one stands out since the original version of the real time strategy game was enjoyed by some of the Labs' team members back in the days.

Webmonkey: Google Tweaks Search Results to Punish Ad-Heavy Websites
The latest SEO related announcement sounds promising in theory but also raises some eyebrow how it will be measured. "The fold is dead" anybody?

Switzerland

Swisscom: Free Internet access for guests in Migros restaurants
This might be the most underwhelming item in the short history of this series. (Since it's just a press release). But here in Switzerland, when you're not in one of the major cities, finding a free Wi-Fi can be a pain in the neck. So for that reason this announcement by Swisscom and Migros might be helpful to you in the future.

With pride we refer to the latest (german) podcast from the great DrupalCenter.de podcast crew. Miro Dietiker and our Head Technology Michael Schmid (aka Schnitzel) answer Caseledde and SirFiChi's questions regarding the latest module sprint. It yielded 100 man days of joint programming effort, uniting Drupalistas from Switzerland, Germany and Austria. What the module's about, how the weather was, why sprinting make sense...  listen in right here.

As mentioned in the initial post of our "Essence of a Web week" series, multilingual solutions are at the core of all of our projects. Despite lots of great improvements in Drupal 7, we are still losing valuable time on the rough edges of the multilingual system. To sort these issues out, the multilingual system's (i18n) co-maintainer Miro Dietiker, together with Jos Doekbrijder and our own Michael Schmid, organised a code sprint with the goal to create a module that simplifies the translation management for Drupal 7 and additionally integrates a possibility to work with 3rd party translation services such as Supertext, mygengo or Bing.

Just to give you a feeling of how big this event is: Based on the 100 pledged man days by the attendees for this week (16 - 22 January), we can estimate that the Drupal Community Switzerland, supported by our dear friends from Germany and Austria, will offer a module worth 200'000 Swiss Franc by Sunday night. (Well that’s the plan.)

Here are some impressions of the event:

(Photos by Michael Schmid)

I want to end by thanking the event’s main sponsor Microsoft for enabling this code sprint.