Simon Willison’s Weblog

Moving forward from Internet Explorer

25th June 2003

Dave Shea is advocating moving forward from Internet Explorer, enhancing pages for more advanced browsers (Mozilla, Opera, Safari) using additional style rules that are hidden from IE by using selectors it doesn’t understand. Essentially it means adapting the approach we’ve been taking to Netscape 4 for the past few years to work around flaws in the current browser generation’s backwards cousin.

It’s a fun idea, and one I’ve seen quietly taking off over the past few months in various corners of the web. Naturally, the trick is to only use it for enhancements that would not be missed by the IE using masses. Sticking to standards compliant enhancements (such as the hover pseudo selector on non-links) is a good idea as well (no matter how tempting Mozilla’s curved border support is) as it means that when IE catches up in 2005 or so its users can enjoy the enhancements as well.