>> In IE6 all lines are of equal length. So this would mean that IE8
>>is emulating the quirks modes different to how
>> IE6 and IE7 handle quirks mode. Is this correct?
Nope. Or rather I don't think so. I think your original suggestion was correct.
ie. IE=5 actually causes IE8 to emulate IE6 in quirks mode. End of story.
My "error" was to use documents in standards mode as the reference
point. I have now updated
http://www.fu2k.org/alex/css/cssjunk/ie8/xua
accordingly so that it is possible to see the effect of the X-UA
switch on both standards and quirks mode documents. Along with
screengrabs of the observed behaviour. If it all gets too much, you
can switch off the bits you don't want to see (suggestions for better
text in the legends welcome!)
Now, we can see that IE8's rendering is entirely in line with IE6's
quirks mode rendering.
We can also see that it is definitely not rendering along the lines
of IE5 (either 5.01 or 5.5)
This got me wondering if IE8 was actually emulating IE6 or IE7 in
quirks mode, so I threw together a test suite that pulls together all
the hacks/filters that have been used to target various versions of
IE and see what happens when targeting different X-UAs.
http://www.fu2k.org/alex/css/cssjunk/ie8/tests
IE=5
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The results show that IE8 is definitely using IE6 when forced into
quirks mode by IE=5.
All the results tally with IE6 behaviour and we can rule out IE7
behaviour because IE8 in IE=5 mode applies the Star HTML selector
selector (* html) but not the Star plus HTML selector (*+html).
In fact the only slight niggle where IE8 differs from IE6 is that IE6
only applies the Property + Whitespace + Empty Comment filter to
documents authored in quirks mode, but IE8 applies it to standards
mode ones too. But, that is what one would expect really, since the
IE=5 is an explicit "Give me quirks" switch.
IE=7
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is nothing noteworthy to mention about IE7 emulation. It all
appears to be consistent.
IE=8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The only hack / target combination which does not jibe, is the fact
the *+html hack also gets applied by IE8 when targeted as IE=8.
To repeat *+html targets IE8[0]. Since this only previously targeted
IE7, this selector in conjunction with a new selector that IE8
understands but IE7 does not, gives us a current easy way to target
IE8. Obviously this is not recommended and hopefully this parsing
error will be fixed before a final release
.... and relax
Final rumination
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you made the foolish mistake of actually choosing to use standards
mode [1] and make IE6 work in it, then you are not able to rely on an
X-UA fix. You are doomed to keep fixing each latest variation of CSS
support that MS foists upon us, regardless of the glib assertions
that all one needs so is set the X-UA header and you're all done.
<sarcasm_as_big_as_the_ritz>So yeah, the business case of using
standards has been truly proved I think. </sarcasm_as_big_as_the_ritz>
[0] I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, but I'm sure somebody has
already discovered it - probably even on this very list which I
skimmed merrily over
[1] That would be me - I've never once authored a quirks mode
document since the distinction existed
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