Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

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4/26/2011 1:36:59 PM
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Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Hi Joe, we've come across a strange situation in testing, and I can reproduce it on the demo site. Using an Artisteer 3 skin (I tested with Artisteer-30headermenu), if you are on a page with three colums, the right column is shifted outside the page when viewing it in IE7 (or IE7 browser mode in the IE9 F12 developer page).

I did some investigating using the straight exported HTML page from Artisteer, and it seems that as long as JavaScript is enabled, the three columns work right in IE7, but if scripts are blocked for any reason, the right column is outside the page. I put in a case with Artisteer, saying that the basic page layout shouldn't rely on JavaScript to look right. Their response was that most websites would look terrible with JavaScript disabled anyway, so I think they are washing their hands of it, although I did ask them specifically if their position is that JavaScript is required for the layout to look right in IE7, and I'll let you know what they say.

My theory is that mojoPortal is somehow interfering with the Artisteer JavaScript IE7 fix. Can you take a look at this when you get a chance? It's going to hold up our Library site deployment, since there are some workstations with IE7 there at the library (don't ask). I did some research and it looks like IE7 still has 8% of the browser market share, so unfortunately it's not a trivial number.

Thanks!

Jamie

4/28/2011 9:53:10 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Hi Joe, I got an answer back from Artisteer support, quoted below. Not unexpected, but still disappointing. I definitely don't think it's right that they are requiring JavaScript functions to run in order to correct layout issues, but that's where we are at this point. I'll email you my support link from Artisteer so you can see the whole exchange.

There are lot of modifications in Artisteer 3 themes.

The issue is reproducible on my side with disabled JS only.
We suggest our customers to not disable scripting to avoid display issues with sidebars, menu separators, etc.

Please note that we do not support mojoPortal and we do not support custom template modifications.

Thanks again,

Jamie

4/28/2011 10:11:07 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Hi Jamie,

Is there any chance I can get a link to the site in question? I might be able to figure out a CSS solution for you. You can send the URL my email address (I think you already have it). If you can't give me a URL, send me the skin and I'll take a look.

Thanks,
Joe D.

4/28/2011 10:26:20 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

I think it happens with all the atisteer30-* skins included with mojoPortal and all designs exported from Artisteer 3.0. I haven't had a chance yet to look into a workaround solution. I figured Artisteer would not resolve it. In previous versions of Artisteer they supported IE 8 by setting a meta tag to make it work like IE 7, and in the latest version they "support" IE 9 by adding a meta to make it work like IE 8, so they are always behind on IE support in general though that is a separate issue than this IE 7 problem.

I'm sure there must be a way to work around it once I have time to work on it, or maybe Joe D can find a solution.

Best,

Joe

4/28/2011 11:00:33 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. Joe D., you can see it by using any of the delivered Artisteer 3 skins, and viewing a page with three columns using IE 7 or IE7 browser mode in IE 9. A CSS workaround would be awesome if you can come up with one. Fortunately our time crunch is not as bad as I thought--the library decided to go live on Monday regardless, so whenever you can get to it would be fine. I didn't know about it until recently, but we've been living with this issue for awhile already.

Jamie

4/28/2011 2:04:51 PM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Hi Jamie,

I used Artisteer-30headermenu. Add a width property to the art-content-narrow class. In the skin I tested with, I used 40% because both the side columns were 30% in width (30*2=60, 100-60=40).

Artisteer probably uses javascript to check for the available width and make the column that width. Seems silly to me.

HTH,
Joe D.

4/28/2011 2:08:31 PM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

I also found that style.ie7.css has display: block; on .art-content-layout .art-layout-cell. Try removing that before adding the widht property. See if it does anything for you. I doesn't in the developer tools but that could be a problem with the tool.

HTH,
Joe D.

5/1/2011 8:58:37 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Hi Guys,

I was able to fix this and it is now fixed in the source code repository. It turned out to be another difference between Artisteer 3 and previous versions in the CSS classes used in certain scenarios. So the fix actually broke the artisteer24-* skins and this required me to add a configuration property so that we can use different logic in layout.master for Artisteer 3 vs older Artisteer versions.

So basically I added a property on StyleSheetCombiner UseArtisteer3="true" which must be specified in layout.master because the default is false for backward compatibility. The property is not really used inside of StyleSheetCombiner, it is actually used in the code behind for layout.master, but it reads the property value from the StyleSheetCombiner control since that is a convenient place to store style related properties. So after getting the latest code (or after the next release) you would add that in your layout.master and it will fix the layout problem in IE 7.

Best,

Joe

5/1/2011 9:35:57 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Thanks Joe

Backwards compatibility sure is a pain!

Here's the latest stats on IE 7.  About 5% use it and declining.
More Info here

And view here to see Firefox and Chrome jumping ahead of IE and climbing.
Seeing Chrome's rank here shocked me!  The icon sits on my desktop and I never check it for my Websites.

Rick

5/1/2011 10:26:13 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

I like Chrome the best myself, it is what I use for day to day work with my own sites. But I use different browsers for different things.

For banking and such I use IE and this about all I use IE for other than testing.

For general surfing and searching and visiting unknown and random web sites or links that people post or send to me I usually use Firefox with the NoScript plugin enabled so that javascript is disabled by default unless I enable it per site that I visit. Since javascript is needed for the vast majority of possible malicious exploits this is a good way to stay safe from malicious sites.

For Facebook, I use Firefox on a separate machine, my old laptop to protect my main machine from risk. I figure the odds of getting infected on Facebook are higher than most other sites because it has so many people the hackers target it all the time.

IE 9 is much better than previous versions, I used it for a few weeks as my main browser to give it a good test, I like it quite a lot, but I still find I like Chrome better.

Best,

Joe

5/2/2011 11:54:10 AM
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Re: Issue with Artisteer 3 RC skins and IE7

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the help! I'll get our sites updated to the new source soon.

Jamie

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