It’s been coming up for 2 years since the great unexpected new site and forum incident of Christmas 2008. In that time we’ve been tweaking the site here and there, and leveraging in the Premier system. But the time has come that we need to do a bigger revamp to make the code more performance friendly and be able to add new site features – for both standard users, and Premier users.
These changes will happen in a staggered fashion (we all know how you lot react to change 🙂 ) as we have to make sure things are working for us and we’re not inundated with issues that need dealing with. There’s no set timeline, just that it will all begin in the coming weeks/months.
I’d like to announce right here right now that we will be dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 (you know the browser that came out in 2001 and has been superseded by IE7, IE8, and soon to be IE9). That is not say we will go out of our way to make it not work, but neither will we go out of our way to make it work. Facebook, Youtube, and various other sites have already sowed these seeds of defiance.
There are two types of IE6 users. Those who don’t even know what a web browser is – they just double click the ‘E’ logo on their desktop (and avoid all Windows updates because they’ve been told to say no to everything in case it’s a virus) – and those who are forced to use it in a work environment.
I have great sympathy for those in the work environment, but the times they are a’changing. And just because our own government can’t see the need to upgrade doesn’t mean we should support it.
If you’re a singletrackworld user and have no choice but to be hindered by IE6 then there may be a few options out there for you. One is Firefox portable that lets you run Firefox from a USB key. If you know of other workarounds then feel free to post them in the comments.
If you are baffled by what a web browser is then have a look at www.whatbrowser.org to get an explanation.
P.S. You’re better off using Chrome or Firefox or even Opera anyway. IE9 will apparently sort all of IE’s issues with its standards, HTML5, and CSS3 support.
Errrr, the forum hack was Christmas 2008 so it’s coming up to 2 years not 3 🙂
oh yeah… edited. 2 years is a long time on the web, feels more like 3.
You can also install Firefox to a local user account (ie your user account on your work PC), which gets round the problem of not having sufficient use priveliges to install software
The most reliable workaround is hitting the screen of any browser with IE6 really hard with a hammer. After that, the internet is a far more enjoyable experience.
Will the New and Improved Web Site include better support for mobile browsing?
Will I still be able to view the forum using links in a unix terminal so it looks like I’m working? 🙂
@mogrim > potentially. There’s no mobile specific stylesheet in the works but it is something we’d like to offer. But alas we are just a few.
@krag > the forum isn’t changing (yet) so I guess so.
I’m running IE7 and I have ‘Display a notification about every script error’ enabled (because I need to for my job as a software tester 🙂 ) and I am now finding that every page I navigate to on the website brings up the following IE Error:
Line: 72
Char: 46
Error: Expected identifier, string or number
Code: 0
URL: http://www.singletrackworld…
Any chance you could fix it?
Thanks
i am one of the ones forced to use it at work, along with Office 2000. Great being a computer programmer and working at the cutting edge of technology…
It’s not looking to hot in Lynx? It’s a bit better in Mosaic, mind.
😉 (I realised I’d better add this as some forum users can be rather, um, special)
Just found out that IE9 won’t work on XP! Boo…
@HeathenWoods.
Ha, good call, Lynx was pretty much my first thought too.