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You don’t need any CSS hack, seriously.

I make quite complicated CSS designs and I’ve never used any hacks.

I do use conditional comments to load seperate css files for older versions of IE. It’s the only method that’s future proof.

There are two variations of this hack:

#id {

width: 100px;

_width: 95px; /* works ONLY in IE6 */

*width: 105px; /* works in BOTH IE6 and IE7 */

}

Using these hacks in the correct order means that you can address both of the most popular versions of IE.

It’s worthwhile noting that this will cause your CSS to be invalid when run through the W3C CSS Validator. That’s academic, though, especially when a client has a check waiting!

It is much easier to find and modify something in separate browser-specific files then in one big file. And separate files (loaded with conditional meta tags) are CSS valid…
So why should we use not valid method if it is not better (and not faster) at all?

Yeah conditional comments are great!!! What would be MORE awesome would be if EVERY browser had their own way to do conditional comments! Right now, only IE has them but just imagine the juicy goodness if we targeted EVERY browser with its own crazy pseudo-html commenting scheme. TEH AWESOME!!!

….(now removing sarcasm)….

Conditional comments are a HORRIBLE IDEA PEOPLE. What part of ‘proprietary markup’ don’t you understand?!? And stop saying ‘conditional comments’ like its some browser-agnostic thing. They are an IE-ONLY feature which no other modern browser maker would stoop so low as to do.

Don’t get me wrong, CSS hacks aren’t great either, but at least I can put my hacks in the stylesheet away from the regular markup.

Do u use any TOOL for generating complex CSS ? Please help

Nice tip, thank you.

Allthough, I agree with Edwin Martin, this might be very helpfull in certain cases.

But is this hack W3C compliant ?

@Romulus

No this is NOT i repeat NOT W3C complient “property _width does not exist”

grtz SlechtValk

Ahhh the Harvey Morse Code hack is spreading

Romulus this is not compliant code as it throws errors in browsers such as Firefox (using the Firebug plugin*) however I’ve tested it pretty throughly across lots of browsers and it seems to render as expected in all of them.

* I recommend everyone downloads the FireBug plugin for testing their sites.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843 it’s VERY helpful.

This is nice, and it’s much faster/easier than some of the other hacks out there! As much as I don’t like to build to any specific browser, IE6 just fails miserably on several things. Having a quick CSS hack to fix IE6 saves dozens of hours of dual- or triple-CSS development.

The goal, of course, is to build standards-compliant CSS, but since somebody, somewhere (*cough* MS) chose to basically ignore them for so long, we have to compensate.

And, just how many of the regular, day-to-day users really care that the CSS on any given site validates according to the W3C? Just how many of those users have probably even heard of the W3C? They most likely only care that the site works and looks appealing.

Personally, I have always tried to avoid hacks whenever possible. Now that there are two very different versions of the most widely used browser available, every once in a while, a simple hack is the only logical solution. It’s either that, or we continue to build to the more rampant incapabilities of the older version.

That’s my two cents!

Worked for me. Thanks for the help!!!

I am soo glad I am not a web designer/developer, which leaves me free to blatantly ignore how the pages I create look like in msie.

It is so refreshing

[...] Only CSS “Hack” You’ll Ever Need [Try to stay away from these if possible] [...]

Seriously, I’d rather have these hacks than conditional comments or whatnot. It just simply works without all the hassle and extra load of lines to add.

Who cares if its not standards compliant? Ive asked ALL our clients about this and their reply… “As long as it works AND looks the same in all major browsers then its totally fine”. I mean, isn’t them who you’re working for anyways? I’d go for my client’s satisfaction.

Thanks a lot for sharing. Will do the same thing with the rest of my team.

@Graham – you are quite clearly an absolute cunt. i agree with conditional comments. Some people on here are talking about them as though they have to write out a completely different FULL style sheet for each browser, just put the rule which needs changing in the browser specific style sheets, and add them in the correct order.. .dont see how why that takes longer, or is less acceptable than hacks… and as stated by others here.. they validate.

Hey guys…. could somebody take a look at my site and let me know any tips to optimize, http://www.dealtoplay.com.

All feedback is greatly appreciated!!

thanks
Lucas
[email protected]

background-color: transparent#; for safari mac

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Just keeping this alive, I like it

>>”It is much easier to find and modify something in separate browser-specific files then in one big file”. I don’t think that’s always the case. Often I have multiple css files (calendar.css) adn I don’t want to have 3 or more versions of each file. These hacks are good- you can easily remove them later and add them only for clients who are IE6 nit-picky. Not all clients are.

Excellent discovery, yet another way to beat IE6 and IE7. Thanks for the share.

For small projects with short turn-around times, this is a perfect solution.

after 2 hours of head bashing trying to fix an absolute positioned div with background image _margin-left:2px; has saved the day. Thank you for revealing this find! xxx

Thank you!