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I make sure my website is still 100% functional in IE11: Using only .jpg and .png (I don’t use .gif on my website) for images; not using too much Javascript; us

I make sure my website is still 100% functional in IE11: Using only .jpg and .png (I don’t use .gif on my website) for images; not using too much Javascript; using .woff instead of .woff2 webfonts; text-shadow instead of text-stroke to give one font an outline look; etc. If I was building a node website which depended on a bunch of packages from developers who may or may not care about IE11, this would not be possible. But since I’ve done the entire design by hand with HTML and CSS for over a decade, I can keep it IE11 compatible without issue. Also, everything works if Javascript is turned off, and there are reasonable (if not great) fallback fonts for users who disable webfonts.

untog 7y ago
The second half of what you're saying is just standard web development practise. And as for the rest... everyone has to make a judgement call. Do you still support IE8? Presumably not. As the percentage of users with a browser drops the amount of development work required to support it means you drop it. For a lot of us the number of IE11 users (< 1%) means it simply isn't worth the time. (also, please let's cut it out with the "young developers" stuff. I've been around long enough to see lazy developers both young and old.)
- strenholme 7y ago
  To answer your question: My site still works in IE8, but with minimal CSS. It works in IE7 and IE6 with, albeit without CSS (except for my online resume), so it gracefully degrades. I have been phasing out IE8 support through the 2010s; in 2012 I went to a lot of effort to make everything look nice in IE8 but phased out that work as I updated the site. It’s also perfectly readable in browsers without CSS and Javascript, including Lynx. Dillo and Netsurf both have CSS implementations so broken, some versions of those browsers have rendering issues unless they disable CSS. It is possible to make a website which renders in Lynx, which is perfectly readable in IE6, which can be read in a browser without CSS or Javascript.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
duhi88 7y ago
I support the second half of your comment. All websites (webapps excluded) should strive for as little JS as possible. It isn't all that hard to support IE11 for most things, if you aren't doing anything super crazy with your design. The first half though...we have grateful degradation for this reason. There's no reason to serve larger woff fonts to all users when it is so easy to use it as a fallback, preferring woff2 when supported. There are a lot of simple ways to improve the experience and data consumption for modern devices without sacrificing functionality in IE11.
- strenholme 7y ago
  In my experience, the fastest way to serve a web font stack is via base64-encoded web fonts in a single “font” CSS file; it’s more raw bytes but fewer requests. To do it this way requires having all of the web fonts be in the same lowest common denominator format, which is .woff. I also add about 10k to the combined font stack file by adding hinting which is only seen on 75dpi displays, because too many users are still using low resolution monitors. The main reason I use woff fonts and their approximately 120k size is because the days of “font-face: Verdana” giving (almost) everyone the same looking website are a thing of the past with Android smart phones everywhere.
  - Nooshu 7y ago
    I'd be very careful recommending this method for loading webfonts. By Base64 encoding your fonts into a CSS file you are adding 1000's of bytes into a browsers critical path (since CSS is render blocking). You are also removing the browser ability to choose the most optimum font it supports (i.e. one with better compression like WOFF2). Requests are cheap, especially when using HTTP/2 (which multiplexes over a single TCP connection). If you do use this method, I highly recommend testing both the standard loading method vs Base64 method on a low spec device (e.g. Moto G4 via WebPageTest) and seeing which performs best for your website. This method used to be used on GOV.UK until we removed it 18 months ago. I wrote about the change here if you are interested: https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/04/making-gov-uk-pages-load-faster-and-use-less-data/ https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/04/making-gov-uk-page...

untog 7y ago

The second half of what you're saying is just standard web development practise. And as for the rest... everyone has to make a judgement call. Do you still support IE8? Presumably not. As the percentage of users with a browser drops the amount of development work required to support it means you drop it. For a lot of us the number of IE11 users (< 1%) means it simply isn't worth the time. (also, please let's cut it out with the "young developers" stuff. I've been around long enough to see lazy developers both young and old.)

strenholme 7y ago
To answer your question: My site still works in IE8, but with minimal CSS. It works in IE7 and IE6 with, albeit without CSS (except for my online resume), so it gracefully degrades. I have been phasing out IE8 support through the 2010s; in 2012 I went to a lot of effort to make everything look nice in IE8 but phased out that work as I updated the site. It’s also perfectly readable in browsers without CSS and Javascript, including Lynx. Dillo and Netsurf both have CSS implementations so broken, some versions of those browsers have rendering issues unless they disable CSS. It is possible to make a website which renders in Lynx, which is perfectly readable in IE6, which can be read in a browser without CSS or Javascript.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

duhi88 7y ago

I support the second half of your comment. All websites (webapps excluded) should strive for as little JS as possible. It isn't all that hard to support IE11 for most things, if you aren't doing anything super crazy with your design. The first half though...we have grateful degradation for this reason. There's no reason to serve larger woff fonts to all users when it is so easy to use it as a fallback, preferring woff2 when supported. There are a lot of simple ways to improve the experience and data consumption for modern devices without sacrificing functionality in IE11.

strenholme 7y ago
In my experience, the fastest way to serve a web font stack is via base64-encoded web fonts in a single “font” CSS file; it’s more raw bytes but fewer requests. To do it this way requires having all of the web fonts be in the same lowest common denominator format, which is .woff. I also add about 10k to the combined font stack file by adding hinting which is only seen on 75dpi displays, because too many users are still using low resolution monitors. The main reason I use woff fonts and their approximately 120k size is because the days of “font-face: Verdana” giving (almost) everyone the same looking website are a thing of the past with Android smart phones everywhere.
- Nooshu 7y ago
  I'd be very careful recommending this method for loading webfonts. By Base64 encoding your fonts into a CSS file you are adding 1000's of bytes into a browsers critical path (since CSS is render blocking). You are also removing the browser ability to choose the most optimum font it supports (i.e. one with better compression like WOFF2). Requests are cheap, especially when using HTTP/2 (which multiplexes over a single TCP connection). If you do use this method, I highly recommend testing both the standard loading method vs Base64 method on a low spec device (e.g. Moto G4 via WebPageTest) and seeing which performs best for your website. This method used to be used on GOV.UK until we removed it 18 months ago. I wrote about the change here if you are interested: https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/04/making-gov-uk-pages-load-faster-and-use-less-data/ https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/04/making-gov-uk-page...