Web Developers: Taking Action

This is a call to arms for all the web developers out there who constantly complain about Microsoft and how they didn't auto update when IE7 was released.

All over the web I see developers complaining about how they have to develop for IE 5, IE6 & IE7, but there are no real solutions presented, just a lot of talk about how bad microsoft is. I'm asking web developers to make steps to make the average user aware that there is an updated version of internet explorer out there.

People use IE. Microsoft is everywhere, and the average user is not going to switch to firefox. I think helping people move onto IE7 and start abandoning IE6 is a step in the right direction. So here's my solution

developers: start letting your users know about their old browser with this code:

HTML:
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
    <div id="browser">You are currently running an old version of Internet Explorer <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx" target="_blank">click here to update your browser</a></div>
<![endif]-->

CSS:

#browser{
    display:block;
    background:#AA030D;
    color:#FFF;
    font-weight:bold;
    text-align:center;
    font-size:100%;
    line-height:2em;

}

#browser a{
    color:#FFF;
    text-decoration:underline;
}

#browser a:hover{text-decoration:none;}

Customize as you wish. If someone comes to your site using IE6 or less it will let them know and provide them a way to update to IE7. I installed it on this site if you want to see it in action (open in IE6-ish).

I hope this idea spreads, I'm not supporting IE by doing this. I just want to take some steps towards people using updated broswers (yea, yea i know). Let's stop complaining and do something about it!

cheers
_tim


Posted by tcwrigh2 ( Dec 04 2006, 04:26:44 PM EST ) Permalink Comments [1]