IE7 Javascript Tool Turns Explorer into a Standards Compliant Browser
Designers and web programmers rejoice, Dean Edwards has updated his IE7 Javascript library to support Internet Explorer 7. IE7.js is a library of Javascript enhancements that turn Internet Explorer into a standards compliant browser, providing support for more CSS selectors and correcting some of Explorer’s erroneous rendering habits.
IE7, and the new IE8 script, attempt to make Internet Explorer behave like a standards-compliant browser and, perhaps most notable for the designers among us, the scripts add transparent PNG support for both IE5 and IE6.
The new IE7 script will “upgrade” IE 5 and 6 so they behave like IE7 and a new script, IE8, separates out those elements corrected in the real IE7 browser to upgrade IE versions 5-7 with advanced CSS features missing from IE7.
Also, as part of the new release, IE7.js has been moved to a new home on Google Code, which means you can hot-link the library directly from Google’s servers (although I was initially skeptical, several Google employees have chimed in to say the practice is perfectly fine by Google).
That means to use the new scripts all you need to do is add the following line to the head tags of your page:
<!--[if lt IE 8]>
<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/xx.x/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
Note that the xx bit needs to be replaced by an actual version number.
Given that the script weighs in at a mere 11KB (gzipped) this could be a viable way to solve some of your cross-browser design issues, though you should keep in mind that the IE7/8 scripts are a beta release. For a complete list of what IE7 and IE8 fix in Explorer, have a look at the notes on the Google Code project.
[via Simon Willison]
