Ie6 Emulators / Plugins *solved, After A Fashion*

[chibineku]

I've been having a look for IE6 emulators or plugins so that I can view pages as they would look in IE6 in a browser that offers the inspect element/developer tools options I've come to expect from modern browsers. It would be a lot easier making my site look right in IE6 if I could see things like the browser's interpretation of the box model for the page elements. I haven't really found what I've been looking for. Tons of plugins that will open IE browsers within FF, or that will launch IE from FF...but that's not really what I need, as its always modern versions of IE. I have tried installing IE 6 but I have IE8 and it won't install since I have a later version.Anyone have any thoughts? I can see the output of IE6 in AOL's built in browser, and it's not good, but fixing it is a pain. Life editing like FF offers would be incredibly useful.I just learned that I can set a meta tag to make IE8 display my site as IE5/7 which is fine

[jlhaslip]

IE 6 as a WINE package installed on a dual boot machine running XP/Ubuntu

[chibineku]

Oh man, is that as simple as it gets? I guess I'll uninstall IE8 and install IE6...not THAT much hassle really.

[dsonesuk]

install IE collection http://www.brothersoft.com/internet-explor...ion-172444.html

[chibineku]

Fantastic, thank you, ds. I read the blurb and it mentions a piece of software called Edskes Software Silent Setup, which immediately installs either a full or temp version of FF and opens the page in that. Have you (or has anyone else) used that before? It sounds ideal, but I guess a lot of users wouldn't trust it.

[dsonesuk]

i use multipleIE mostly, which starts from about IE3 to 6 (i just use IE6), which used to be on quirksmode website, but seem to have been taken over by Tredosoft.the other one 'IE collection', i have also used on another PC, and has versions up to IE8, and also does the business.Never heard of Edskes Software, but as firefox is not as problematic version compatible wise, as compared to IE why would I.

[chibineku]

Well, the software automatically downloads FF if someone tries to open your site in IE7 or below, so they end up seeing it in FF, which is, as you say, less problematic.I have DLed the collection, which has many different versions of IE, and I am testing in that. I still can't get my site to display properly. I'm using PHP to detect user agent and displaying some different style declarations inline if I detect AOL, MSIE 6 or MSIE 7, or a WAP browser. I've tried so many fixes to make it work and I'm growing really tired of it. I have a message that appears if I detect IE6 or 7 advising people to upgrade, but that feels cheeky and it feels like a cop out. I want it to work. I am using a two-fixed-sidebar-fluid-center layout and that is the problem. The padding, margin, float, left and right statements are vital and they just fail on IE's weird box model. I guess this isn't the right forum for my CSS woes, so I might start a thread on it.

[dsonesuk]

why AOL?, Its not worth worrying about, as hardly anyone uses it, IE6 about 13%, IE7 - 8 in the teens about same, generally all other browsers, show exactly as FireFox does, and with IE7, and i presume IE8 90%+ of the time.i generally create to Firefox, compare with IE7, adjust when needed, which at the end leaves a few annoying adjustment for IE6, which are usually down to floating, padding and margin adjustments.

[chibineku]

Well, the site mostlyworks in IE7 and 6, but I can't seem to make those final tweaks work. I personally use AOL, basically because I have since I was 13, and I like some of its features. But I use FF as my primary browser, so I develop on it and test in everything. I don't have the experience to make the relevant fixes for IE once I have working code for FF et al. I don't want to have the site look messy in IE6/7, but I just can't seem to fix it. You are the CSS guru du jour...perhaps you wouldn't mind casting your eye over it?