Although I have not used Internet Explorer 8, I hope it does not create more bugs for web developers like me. I was hesistant to install Internet Explorer 8 because I want to keep Internet Explorer 7 for testing purposes. I could keep Internet Explorer 7 on another PC and upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 on my main development PC. The cool thing about Internet Explorer 8 is the versioning feature that allows developers to emulate a previous version of Internet Explorer within Internet Explorer 8.

Microsoft has planned for the inevitable viewing problems their new software will create. Here’s a list of related web pages that might help you debug all the Internet Explorer 8 problems.

• Internet Explorer 8 Versioning
• Some Web sites may not be displayed correctly or work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 8
• Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility
• Internet Explorer 8: Defining Document Compatibility

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• Internet Explorer 8 Officially Releases at Noon EDT [Internet Explorer] (lifehacker.com)
• IE8 Automatic Update Starting Soon (sitepoint.com)
• Internet Explorer 8 Arriving on Thursday (technologizer.com)
• Microsoft Bids to Reclaim the Web with Internet Explorer 8 (wired.com)

Notice how my logo blends in with all the different backgrounds. Before I used this PNG logo technique, I had to create a JPG background image with my logo included in it for all the different sections of my site. Now, I have a PNG logo graphic image over a multiple background images without a logo integrated into it. This saves me a little bit of disk space even though the PNG logo file size is slightly bigger.

Won’t GIF Transparent Logos Work?

JPG and GIF logos just don’t look great if you’re trying to make it look good on all types of backgrounds. There might be a way to make GIF logos look good with transparency but I don’t think it would be worth the trouble when most modern browsers support PNG transparency.

As you can see from the pictures above, the one with the ugly grainy logo text is a GIF logo while the smooth and perfect one is a PNG logo. I could not achieve this look for my internet marketing blog with a GIF logo unless I saved the logo with the background image in 1 file.

Advantages of Transparent PNG Logos

• Looks great on different backgrounds
• Most modern browsers like Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera 9 and Firefox 2/3 support it
• PNG colours are nicer

Disadvantages of Transparent PNG Logos

• File size is larger than GIF and JPG logos of the same quality
• Does not work on older browsers like Internet Explorer unless you install a fix

How to Display Transparent PNG Logos in Internet Explorer 6

The easiest way I have found to force IE6 to display PNG images correctly is to install this IE 6 PNG Javascript. Just add the following code in between your head tags like this:

<!--[if lte IE 6]><script type="text/javascript" src="pngfix.js"></script><![endif]-->

Non-internet explorer browsers will ignore the code above. Only IE6 and below will read the file above. This fix isn’t perfect though. You will see a silver background on the transparent areas of your PNG image for a few seconds before it disappears. Furthermore, if you include PNG image files as a background image, this Javascript won’t display the PNG images correctly.