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Shims: Four Ways To Make IE Support CSS3

Broadly speaking, there are three methods for bringing Internet Explorer 6 – 8 up to speed with modern web standards:

  1. Replace the rendering engine in IE with something better, such as ChromeFrame, that understands both CSS3 and HTML5. (It can be difficult to convince clients and visitors to a site to do this, however).

  2. If your page is written in HTML, try to work in IE-equivalents to CSS by using -ms- vendor prefix selectors for IE9, and / or work in older Microsoft proprietary equivalents to transforms and gradients, into the CSS.

  3. "Shim" the web page with JavaScript that will allow IE6 – 8 to understand CSS2 & 3 selectors, properties and values.

If you choose to take the second option, I would suggest using a transform translator to generate CSS for IE 6 – 8, and using ColorZilla to do the same process for gradients.

If you take the last option, there are a number of possible solutions. Previously, I've discussed using JavaScript to make IE aware of HTML5. Some of those scripts can also make IE CSS3-aware; what follows are exclusively CSS3 solutions for IE written in JavaScript.

CSS3 Pie is great until you are changing elements using JavaScript or using special CSS statements like + attribute. Be careful as this will deteriorate the site performance on IE 8,7,6 browsers or as in my case cause elements to miss-render sometimes..

posted by Ian Carson

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by JoelB in Goodbye, JQuery Validation: HTML5 Form Errors With CSS3

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A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three
A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three

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Californication: The Third Season
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