Tags: ie11

Dropping Support For IE11 Is Progressive Enhancement · The Ethically-Trained Programmer

Any time or effort spent getting your JavaScript working in IE11 is wasted time that could be better spent making a better experience for users without JavaScript.

I agree with this approach.

With a few minor omissions and links, you can create a site that works great in modern browsers with ES6+ and acceptably in browsers without JavaScript. This approach is more sustainable for teams without the resources for extensive QA, and more beneficial to users of nonstandard browsers. Trying to recreate functionality that already works in modern browsers in IE11 is thankless work that is doomed to neglect.

A Non-Business Case for Supporting Old Browsers « Texte | ovl – code & design

Supporting Internet Explorer 11 doesn’t mean you need to give it the same experience as a modern browser:

Making sure (some of) your code works in older browsers, does not mean all functionality has to work everywhere. But, mind you, ninety percent of web development means putting text and images in boxes.

And to be honest, there is no reason to not enable this everywhere. Same for form submissions. Make it boring. Make it solid. And sprinkle delight on it.

The “P” in Progressive Enhancement stands for “Pragmatism” - Andy Bell

With a Progressive Enhancement mindset, support actually means support. We’re not trying to create an identical experience: we’re creating a viable experience instead.

Also with Progressive Enhancement, it’s incredibly likely that your IE11 user, or your user on a low-powered device, or even your user on a poor connection won’t notice that they’re experiencing a “minor” experience because it’ll just work for them. This is the magic, right there. Everyone’s a winner.

How to Kill IE11 - What the Deaths of IE6 and IE8 Tell Us About Killing IE | Mike Sherov

An interesting look at the mortality causes for Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 8, and what they can tell us for the hoped-for death of Internet Explorer 11.

I disagree with the conclusion (that we should actively block IE11—barring any good security reasons, I don’t think that’s defensible), but I absolutely agree that we shouldn’t be shipping polyfills in production just for IE11. Give it your HTML. Give it your CSS. Withhold modern JavaScript. If you’re building with progressive enhancement (and you are, right?), then giving IE11 users a sub-par experience is absolutely fine …it’s certainly better than blocking them completely.

Should I try to use the IE version of Grid Layout? Revisited for 2018

Rachel follows up on my recent post about CSS grid in old IE with her thoughts.

As Jeremy notes, the usefulness of a tool like Autoprefixer is diminishing, which is a good thing. It is becoming far easier to code in a way that supports all browsers, where support means usable in an appropriate way for the technology the user has in front of them. Embrace that, and be glad for the fact that we can reduce complexity based on the increasing interoperability of CSS in our browsers.

When I was in Boston, speaking on a lunchtime panel with Rachel at An Event Apart, we took some questions from the audience about CSS grid. Inevitably, a question about browser support came up—specifically about support in Internet Explorer 11.

(Technically, you can use CSS grid in IE11—in fact it was the first browser to ship a version of grid—but the prefixed syntax is different to the standard and certain features are missing.)

Rachel gave a great balanced response, saying that you need to look at your site’s stats to determine whether it’s worth the investment of your time trying to make a grid work in IE11.

My response was blunter. I said I just don’t consider IE11 as a browser that supports grid.

Now, that might sound harsh, but what I meant was: you’re already dividing your visitors into browsers that support grid, and browsers that don’t …and you’re giving something to those browsers that don’t support grid. So I’m suggesting that IE11 falls into that category and should receive the layout you’re giving to browsers that don’t support grid …because really, IE11 doesn’t support grid: that’s the whole reason why the syntax is namespaced by -ms.

You could jump through hoops to try to get your grid layout working in IE11, as detailed in a three-part series on CSS Tricks, but at that point, the amount of effort you’re putting in negates the time-saving benefits of using CSS grid in the first place.

Frankly, the whole point of prefixed CSS is that is not used after a reasonable amount of time (originally, the idea was that it would not be used in production, but that didn’t last long). As we’ve moved away from prefixes to flags in browsers, I’m seeing the amount of prefixed properties dropping, and that’s very, very good. I’ve stopped using autoprefixer on new projects, and I’ve been able to remove it from some existing ones—please consider doing the same.

And when it comes to IE11, I’ll continue to categorise it as a browser that doesn’t support CSS grid. That doesn’t mean I’m abandoning users of IE11—far from it. It means I’m giving them the layout that’s appropriate for the browser they’re using.

Remember, websites do not need to look exactly the same in every browser.