I was looking into some CSS/HTML related issues today and came across a weird but apparently quite useful trick for working around IE related problems. IE supports something called "html conditional comments", like this:

One variant allows HTML to be embedded that is ONLY seen by IE. IE will magically uncomment the group if the conditional is true. The comment like construction causes non IE browsers to treat the whole thing as a normal comment. 

<!--[if IE 5]>
<p>This will only show on IE 5.</p>
<![endif]-->

[download]

The second variant will NOT be rendered on IE browsers (IE will magically remove the block if the expression is true), but WILL be rendered on NON IE browsers: 

<![if !IE 5]>
<p>This will only show if NOT on IE 5.</p>
<![endif]>

[download]

The problem obviously is that our square bracket linking mechanisms will b0rk this totally. As I think this could be a really useful way to work around a number of IE related oddities I think its worth seriously considering the changes required to NOT bork it.

Anyway, just thought i should bring it up.

---
demerphq

In reply to Should we change linking so that conditional comments for IE are not destroyed? by demerphq

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.