Feature slider on IE8

[chules+ 4]

I am working on a site at http://heislerind.pingandreply.com. I have a feature slider displaying on the home page that is working on Safari, Firefox and IE 9. However, when you view the page using IE8 the feature slider is not displaying properly. It does not display the text overlay and the image is not sized correctly. You see a grey background bordering the image. Does anyone know what could be causing this and is the feature slider compatible with IE8. Thank you - chules

[Simon 248]

IE8 has no css3 capabilities, and as far as i know no transparancy. You could install the browser-css plugin the add some custom css for ie8 that way.

[chules+ 4]

Wow, so if I understand this correctly features will not work with IE8. I do understand IE7 as Microsoft has even dropped support for that version of IE but there is still an awful lot of IE8 browsers out there. Is this the plugin that you recommended, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browser-specific-css/

Thank you - chules

[Simon 248]

No, this one http://www.pagelines.com/store/plugins/browser-css/

[chules+ 4]

Simon, thank you for the update and I downloaded the plugin. I checked all of my customer sites that I have used Pagelines Feature on and they all have the same issue so I plan to use this plugin on all of the sites. Only one of my customers noticed this but I wish to take care of this across all the sites.

How would you go about configuring the plugin so the default features section works with IE8? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really feel this is something Pagelines should address. As I stated earlier I understand IE7 compatibility problems but with a product like this IE8 should work as is still widely used on the Net. As always thank you for your assistance - chules

[Rob 547]

Chules, I'm not sure if you're using PlatformPro or Framework. That plugin is intended for Framework, so I can't be certain it will even work in PlatformPro.

[chules+ 4]

Rob, I am using the Pagelines Developer Framework. I really do like the feature section in the Framework but it really should work with IE8 and I'm just trying to figure out how to apply a fix across all my websites that have this feature section which does not display correctly on IE8. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I could replace it with something like Royal Slider, etc but having this built in integration with Features is really nice.

Thank you - chules

[catrina 103]

I would recommend upgrading to the latest version of Internet Explorer 9 and finding a fix for that (if any kind of CSS fix can get the slider to where it needs to be).

[chules+ 4]

I'm not sure that this post is on track. Many large corporations still use internet explorer 8 as they do not take every upgrade that comes around. I have had several complaints so far from customers about people coming to their website and the front page not working since features does not work with IE8. Many of my projects are in the NY city area and I have asked my customers to find out who has notified them about the issue. Many are from fortune 100 companies still using IE8 so obviously I can not tell them to contact their IT department to roll out IE9 to 70,000 desktops. I really feel that Pagelines should assist with this as features is built into the product and IE8 is still an actively supported browser. If anyone know how to simply have features work where you can add an image, title, teaser body and display an overlay either on the left, right or bottom it would be greatly appreciated. As I said one of the great things about Pagelines is how easy it is to work with the product and my customers really like the features section. However, it really does need to work and I don't want to rip it out of sites and replace with one of the slideshows such as Royal Slider, etc that do work with IE8. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you - chules

[Danny+ 1,327]

As a Mac user, I am unable to test the Feature Slider on IE8, therefore can you provide screenshots of the issue please.

[chules+ 4]

I had to remove the feature slideshow across all my Platform Pro sites. This is unfortunate and I can not believe web developers from Pagelines are not addressing this and that this product is not tested with cross browser compatibility. A few VM machines you can develop and test major browsers. Again, I was only asking for some assistance with having Features work with IE8.

Very dissapointed - chules

[Danny+ 1,327]

Hi Chules,

First of all you have post this in our PageLines Framework forum when the issue is related to Platform Pro. In future can you please post your issues in the correct forum.

We test our products on all the latest browsers and make sure they're compatible and working as intended. However, we also use the latest HTML and CSS techniques, some older browser such as IE8, do not support HTML5 and CSS3 and therefore some functions will not be compatible.

However, I have no heard of any other PageLines users report of a issue with the Platform Pro feature slider in IE8. Therefore, I would it be possible for you to create a test fresh install with only Wordpress and Platform Pro and see if the feature slider is working as intended.

Also, if you wish to not have issues with features such as the Feature slider, I recommend you migrate to PageLines Framework.

[chules+ 4]

I do use PageLines Framewok. The developer version 2.3.3. Sites are all running the developers version 2.3.3 and Wordpress 3.4.2 and are all hosted with Rackspace on a dedicated server. I have the same issue on all of the websites but will create a fresh installation for testing. Thank you - chules

[Rob 547]

Chules,

First, let me say I couldn't agree more that government offices, corporations large and small and millions of individuals still use IE8 and want to assure you that I drive my colleagues crazy advocating for more resolution of this issue. I'm glad to have your support in that effort.

We have made some progress as now the NavBar works in IE8. But the feature slider is a problem. However, as Simon pointed out, we do provide the Browser-Specific-CSS plugin that will help you set CSS for IE8. When your site detects that browser, it kicks in the IE8 styling and the site is largely visible. Some things just never worked in IE8, like text-shadow, which surprisingly doesn't even work in IE9.

The problem with the Slider appears to be a transparency, shadow and likely, image scaling.

So, let me address those in reverse order. Scaling is taking the image from one size to another dynamically. You're familiar with WP allowing you to change an image size when adding one to a post. Well, IE8 and 9 don't recognize even those changes. Hundreds of people over the years have complained about that here and on WP.org. When the slider tries to use Aspect Ratio, it doesn't work. So, one trick is to make sure your images are all the same size and fit within the space you want them, considering padding and margins.

For the shadow, using Firebug or Chrome inspection tools, along with Browser Specific CSS, you want to simply hide it with something like display:none; in your code.

The same thing with transparency, except you can always substitute a color for the transparency, though I don't know what effect that might have in that browser. If it doesn't work, just display:none; the element if need be.

If you google IE8 browser specific CSS, you're going to find tons of sites giving you many great hints.

Don't give up. There's work to be done, but this is do-able. Patience is key, and research.

I apologize for asking so much work of you, but with CSS3 and HTML5 post-dating IE8, there's very little else I can offer.

[Jason M 1]

I just heard about this issue from a client and the above advice is a good starting point.

 

Rob or someone else, Is it possible to provide a little more detail on how to get started with the browser-specific css plugin?  I've installed it on a site and when I went into edit I noticed functions for devices but not for specific browsers.  From you're description above it seems like everyone should be using the same code when the problem is the feature slider in IE8, so can someone just post the code?

 

Thanks in advance. 

[James B 436]

Hi Jason

 

I don't have IE as i'm a mac user so I can't help there unfortunately. If one of the previous posters is following this thread still they might pop back and paste their findings.

 

You can find details on using the Browser specific plugin here - http://support.pagelines.me/docs/plugins/browser-specific-css/ along with a list of the various browser prefixes.

[Jason M 1]

Thanks, James.  I had just found that link earlier and now I have another seemingly easy question.  After installing the browser specific plugin, do I leave that alone and add any code into the pagelines-customize/style.css file or am I adding the code somewhere else?

[James B 436]

Hi Jason, yes just install and leave active, then all the css code can go into either the custom code box in Pagelines>site options>custom code or the style.css of the customize plugin or the base theme.

 

So if you've got all your custom code in one place, like the style.css of the customize plugin you can paste in there and keep it all together :-)

[Jason M 1]

Thanks, James.  I think I can figure things out from here.

[Rob 547]

Wonderful Jason. Let us know if you need additional help.  I'm going to mark this resolved, so a new topic will help.