I’ve always used this site as the testing ground for new techniques I learn on my treks around the internets — usually they tend to feel like they’re just tacked onto the site, simply for the benefit of using them. Which obviously it is. These aspects tend to be removed fairly quickly after their novelty has worn off, as I feel that they’re usually not particularly beneficial to the site as a whole. Sometimes, however, I find an aspect that I ADORE.

Such is the case with fluid layouts — I’ve always thought it was the approach to take with site layouts, but found it to be too broad a brush to use with some designs, resulting in slightly hackish and half-thought-through implementations in attempting to get it working on all browsers. So usually I would resign it to the category “not for this project”.

However, recently the the really rather clever Ethan Marcotte wrote a fantastic article for A List Apart on Responsive Design, and it’s opened my eyes to a whole brave new world of flexible layouts  — one where the site layout and so forth is dependant upon the medium the site is being viewed. In a world of widescreen monitors, iPads, smart phones and televisions of different resolutions, colour depths and orientations, the WC3’s media query allows the constructor of websites to create a design that can accommodate them all should they wish.

So now, I can proudly boast that this site will change and alter it’s appearance to best capitalise upon the dimensions of the browser it is being viewed upon. I still get to keep my layout at full desktop resolution, but as the space becomes narrower, the various forms, menus and columns start to realign and shrink to accommodate the new viewpoint.

It’s a small detail, but I feel that this is such an important step that most sites should at least be thinking about taking — and means that there’s no need for elaborate header detection techniques, subdomain or style sheet switching — the layout now has the ability to instantaneously alter to the new requirements, all from within the style sheet itself. Marvellous stuff!

Obviously, with pretty much any new site design technique, we all know that Internet Explorer 8 and lower will not get to natively take advantage of these just yet. I feel that this isn’t enough of a problem to prevent site implementing them — after all, we all know that websites don’t have to look the same across all browsers, and most people don’t judge sites because of that. As far as most IE visitors to this site will think, there has been no change to the site as it was a week ago. No harm, no foul.

It’s still in the testing phase, and the small amount of trials I’ve done on an iPhone (when I pinched a friend’s for a few minutes) show that it’s all working very nicely indeed. Have fun, muck about on the site and please drop me a line to let me know what you think!

Google Chrome Frame is an IE6 plug-in that will render any html page (that contains a specific script tag in the page’s header) with the full majesty of the Google Chrome engine, giving the late browser adopters the chance to view some of the more advanced modern web pages in glorious standards compliant CSS3-o-vision. Unmodified pages, those without the script, would be left to be rendered in the savage wasteland that is Internet Explorer 6. This is great news for those users in corporate environments that still require IE6 to to function – but still want access to popular sites such as YouTube that are now starting to scale down their IE6 support.

Who actually *needs* IE6?

‘Why do so many corporations keep hold of such outdated software?’ you may ask. A lot of the usual reasons/myths are there – the perceived cost, outdated hardware that cannot support newer browsers; the majority, to be honest, wrong.

However, one viable reason is that a lot of companies are bound to various bought-in web-based management and customer support systems that simply cannot function in modern browsers. A large portion of software out there, developed at a time when the only viable browser choice was Microsoft, and tied into a plethora of MS-only components and controls, have not moved with the times and allowed for the next generation of browsers to work with their systems. Their solution? Only allow IE6 to be supported. The corporate sectors and their reticence to upgrade (in part due to restrictions imposed on them by their software suppliers) have been widely reported as one of the reasons for the longevity of IE6.

Having worked in IT departments in the past, I feel that I can speak on behalf of a goodly portion of them when I say that, by and large, most departments want to upgrade browsers. They might not necessarily care about standards compliant code and how it renders in relation to other browsers, but actively enjoy the extra security enhancements that newer browsers provide. They love the fact that the gaping maw of security loopholes can be plugged up in IE7 and 8. It makes their lives easier not having to clear up the mess that security exploits in IE6 leaves them susceptible to. They can’t get enough of that sh*t. It’s not the IT departments that are preventing the upgrades. Usually it’s because their hands are tied by the requirements of their software.

The Downside

If I have a concern, it’s that in my experience, some of the companies that have developed this software for IE6 alone, have a… failure to prioritise (yes, I’m putting that nicely). They’ve had 4 years –FOUR! – since the first announcement of IE7 to upgrade their software to allow for modern browsers, but instead have been… what? Tracking bugs? Adding more superfluous features into their mix in a bid to catch up with more progressive software houses? Putting their fingers in their ears and loudly shouting whenever anyone mentions the HTML5 spec?

Whatever it is, up until these last few days, there were quite a few development houses out there becoming more and more uncomfortable about the fact that their clients are starting to enquire about upgrading their outdated software. If they wanted to retain their business, they were going to have to look into spending some actual cash and look into upgrading the system wholesale. It wasn’t going to be easy. The software is a mish-mash of old ActiveX controls and outdated programming methods. The initial site developers have left and no-one knows how to use their impenetrable code.

With the news from Google, there’ll be a huge sigh of relief as they inform their tech support guy to tell their customers to install this virtual ‘get out of jail free’ card, oh, and whilst they’re at it, up the annual licensing costs as well, will you? Economic downfall and all that.

Google have come up with an excellent viable and workable option for allowing IT departments to have some way of allowing their users access to the corners of the web that IE6 wouldn’t go. They’ve also (‘incidentally’, I’m sure) found an excellent method of gaining access to a large portion of the market share that Firefox and the other browsers have no current chance of getting into. What they’ve also done, however, is give a quick and easy ‘out’ for lazy developers that have no business providing modern web software, and potentially extending the lifespan of many woefully inadequate web applications that should have died years ago.

Look at the web stats of IE6’s share of the market over the last few months. There’s a steady and noticeable drop there that I’d like to see continue – but I have a nasty suspicion that this may no longer be the case for a good while.