[SOLVED] Is there a way of using different DOCTYPEs for different browsers

[almightyegg]

I have a really irritating page that will only work in 1 of either Firefox and IE but never both no matter what Doctype, so I was wondering if there was a way to use 1 doctype for IE and another for FF??

[rhodesa]

um...i guess you could use a server side script to determine their browser from their HTTP_AGENT...but what i think the better option is to get it working for all browsers. what problems are you having?

[Yesideez]

The only way AFAIK to make the pages appear in all browsers is to make sure the CSS and/or HTML is written properly and where IE is concerned, you may have to add a minor "hack" to get it to work at all.

 

You can add this into the HEAD part of your document to load an extra CSS file if IE is used.

<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie_hack.css" />
<![endif]-->

[almightyegg]

It's actually Firefox that's the problem...

 

I have a chatroom script and it uses this code to show the latest posts:

<!-- <textarea id="chatwindow" rows="19" cols="95" readonly></textarea><br>

IE reads it fine in the DOCTYPE that I'v used for the rest of my side.

In FF it displays:

<!-- and then a big white square...

 

Where it's meant to be black and have text in it :S

[Yesideez]

This is a comment:

<!--

 

If you remove it - what happens?

 

Where there's a <!-- there's usually a --> with it so you'll have to remove that as well.

[almightyegg]

there is no -->

 

IE shows the correct thing plus a big white square and FF shows a big white square without <!--

[Yesideez]

Can you post the HTML making this please?

 

I'm intrigued!

[almightyegg]

// above here is just general tags not to do with this (and the doctype etc..)
<div id="content">
<p id="chatwindow"> </p>
<!-- <textarea id="chatwindow" rows="19" cols="95" readonly></textarea><br>

<input id="chatnick" type="hidden" value="<a href='/player/view.php?id=<? echo "$mem[id]'>$mem[username]</a>"; ?>"> 
<input id="chatmsg" type="text" size="60" maxlength="80"  onkeyup="keyup(event.keyCode);">
<input type="button" value="Post" onclick="submit_msg();"></div>

<br><br><br><br><br>
</div>



<? include 'stats.php'; ?>


</body></html>

<script type="text/javascript">

/* Settings you might want to define */
var waittime=0;		

/* Internal Variables & Stuff */
chatmsg.focus()
document.getElementById("chatwindow").innerHTML = "loading...";
var xmlhttp = false;
var xmlhttp2 = false;


/* Request for Reading the Chat Content */
function ajax_read(url) {
if(window.XMLHttpRequest){
	xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
	if(xmlhttp.overrideMimeType){
		xmlhttp.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
	}
} else if(window.ActiveXObject){
	try{
		xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
	} catch(e) {
		try{
			xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
		} catch(e){
		}
	}
}

if(!xmlhttp) {
	alert('Giving up  Cannot create an XMLHTTP instance');
	return false;
}

xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4) {
	document.getElementById("chatwindow").innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;

	zeit = new Date();
	ms = (zeit.getHours() * 24 * 60 * 1000) + (zeit.getMinutes() * 60 * 1000) + (zeit.getSeconds() * 1000) + zeit.getMilliseconds(); 
	intUpdate = setTimeout("ajax_read('chat.txt?x=" + ms + "')", waittime)
	}
}

xmlhttp.open('GET',url,true);
xmlhttp.send(null);
}

/* Request for Writing the Message */
function ajax_write(url){
if(window.XMLHttpRequest){
	xmlhttp2=new XMLHttpRequest();
	if(xmlhttp2.overrideMimeType){
		xmlhttp2.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
	}
} else if(window.ActiveXObject){
	try{
		xmlhttp2=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
	} catch(e) {
		try{
			xmlhttp2=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
		} catch(e){
		}
	}
}

if(!xmlhttp2) {
	alert('Giving up  Cannot create an XMLHTTP instance');
	return false;
}

xmlhttp2.open('GET',url,true);
xmlhttp2.send(null);
}

/* Submit the Message */
function submit_msg(){
nick = document.getElementById("chatnick").value;
msg = document.getElementById("chatmsg").value;

if (nick == "") { 
	check = prompt("please enter username:"); 
	if (check === null) return 0; 
	if (check == "") check = "anonymous"; 
	document.getElementById("chatnick").value = check;
	nick = check;
} 

document.getElementById("chatmsg").value = "";
ajax_write("w.php?m=" + msg + "&n=" + nick);
}

/* Check if Enter is pressed */
function keyup(arg1) { 
if (arg1 == 13) submit_msg(); 
}

/* Start the Requests!  */
var intUpdate = setTimeout("ajax_read('chat.txt')", waittime);

</script>

 

Also, I forgot to mention, they work fine when there's no doctype but my DIVs don't work at all then :S

[rhodesa]

i'm confused on the <!-- are you trying to print those characters? if so it should be:

<!-- <textarea id="chatwindow" rows="19" cols="95" readonly></textarea><br>

 

or is this some sort of html trick?

[Yesideez]

Now that's got me stumped! The <!-- is definitely a comment so I'd say that the browser would be sort of ignoring the rest of the file because there's no closing --> but stranger things have been known to occur.

 

Have you got Firebug installed for Firefox? The only thing I can suggest is use that to examine the page in the browser and see how things are being constructed as Firebug will remove anything that isn't valid.

[Yesideez]

I just found this little gem elsewhere on here that you might find useful...

 

http://www.phpfreaks.com/blog/testing-legacy-versions-of-internet-explorer

[almightyegg]

The <!-- is being used as something else, don't ask me what, it was a premade script...

 

By that link you sent, this should work:

<!-- [if IE]>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
<![endif]-->
<!-- [if !IE]>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<![endif]-->

 

Yet IE doesn't work now, FF does

[almightyegg]

GOT IT!

 

There was an extra space in the <!--[if IE]> thing

 

Thanks for the help