Browser compatability IE6

[Firecom]

Our site does not view the best in IE6. Around 6.45% of visitors use IE6.

Pondering whether to optimise towards it?

Was wondering, can I offer the site in two different designs? ie the option to click ie6 compatabile design on a page?

so basically i have the exact same content on the same server linking to the catalogue, but the ability to display it in two seperate designs?

can this be done or would it simply be too difficult?

[leehack]

6.5% sounds quite low, I am still seeing around 20% of people using IE6. Ask yourself this, if you ran a shop where 6.5 people in every 100 had yellow faces, would you put a sign on the door saying no people with yellow faces.

It is not about creating different sites for different people, it is about creating one design that works for all browsers. It's a PITA, I have 7 seven browsers I now take a look at, but I don't see any other way round it, unless you use the yellow face sign.

[Darren B]

Lee i see around 18% but this is 18% of the 70% of ie users, but still not as low as 6%

And to make it worse, IE8 will be along soon to mess it all up.

[TraceyHand]

I recently looked at this an found almost identical %age of visitors using IE6 as using Firefox. I would certainly not rule it out for compatibility for a good while yet. (interesting to note, I bought a brand new Dell laptop the other day that came with IE6 installed and I bet some others still do too!)

[Firecom]

The main prob is we use png (for transparencies) files in a few places so they have the old blue background, i can maybe live with that. its the header that buggers up. ie6 won't allow it to float the way it does, it drops the contact image below the logo.

anyone know if there are any hacks to combat this? i'm presuming ie6 is adding space/pixels maybe to the padding or margins.

oh yes, btw, my mistake, its 6.45% of IE users are on ie6 for us according to google analytics. I thought this was low too as everywhere I look I see averages of 25-33% being mentioned for 2008/9.

[leehack]

There's a fix for IE6 and PNGs on the web, but just use GIFs instead IMO.

[Darren B]

I have applied png fixes and they do not always work, i never had it tried the other week, a couple for different ones and still nothing

so will stick to gif's for now.

on a side not i have just installed ie8 rc1 and it has fixed just the broken layouts i have been seeing with previous sites and the beat version.

[TraceyHand]

I have applied png fixes and they do not always work, i never had it tried the other week, a couple for different ones and still nothing

I've never found this.
Where have you tried it and it isn't working?

[Darren B]

it was probably a combination of png files and layout but the simple fix was save it as a gif.

I could not be arsed to look any deeper.