[css] IE8 css selector

To target elements only in IE browsers i'll use

IE6:

* html #nav li ul {
    left: -39px !important;
    border: 1px solid red;
}

IE7:

*+html #nav li ul  {
    left: -39px! important;
}

Does anyone know how to target IE8?

This question is related to css internet-explorer css-hack

The answer is


In the light of the evolving thread, see below for a more complete answer:

IE 6

* html .ie6 {property:value;}

or

.ie6 { _property:value;}

IE 7

*+html .ie7 {property:value;}

or

*:first-child+html .ie7 {property:value;}

IE 6 and 7

@media screen\9 {
    .ie67 {property:value;}
}

or

.ie67 { *property:value;}

or

.ie67 { #property:value;}

IE 6, 7 and 8

@media \0screen\,screen\9 {
    .ie678 {property:value;}
}

IE 8

html>/**/body .ie8 {property:value;}

or

@media \0screen {
    .ie8 {property:value;}
}

IE 8 Standards Mode Only

.ie8 { property /*\**/: value\9 }

IE 8,9 and 10

@media screen\0 {
    .ie8910 {property:value;}
}

IE 9 only

@media screen and (min-width:0) and (min-resolution: .001dpcm) { 
 // IE9 CSS
 .ie9{property:value;}
}

IE 9 and above

@media screen and (min-width:0) and (min-resolution: +72dpi) {
  // IE9+ CSS
  .ie9up{property:value;}
}

IE 9 and 10

@media screen and (min-width:0) {
    .ie910{property:value;}
}

IE 10 only

_:-ms-lang(x), .ie10 { property:value\9; }

IE 10 and above

_:-ms-lang(x), .ie10up { property:value; }

or

@media all and (-ms-high-contrast: none), (-ms-high-contrast: active) {
   .ie10up{property:value;}
}

IE 11 (and above..)

_:-ms-fullscreen, :root .ie11up { property:value; }

Javascript alternatives

Modernizr

Modernizr runs quickly on page load to detect features; it then creates a JavaScript object with the results, and adds classes to the html element

User agent selection

The Javascript:

var b = document.documentElement;
        b.setAttribute('data-useragent',  navigator.userAgent);
        b.setAttribute('data-platform', navigator.platform );
        b.className += ((!!('ontouchstart' in window) || !!('onmsgesturechange' in window))?' touch':'');

Adds (e.g) the below to the html element:

data-useragent='Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C)'
data-platform='Win32'

Allowing very targetted CSS selectors, e.g.:

html[data-useragent*='Chrome/13.0'] .nav{
    background:url(img/radial_grad.png) center bottom no-repeat;
}

Footnote

If possible, avoid browser targeting. Identify and fix any issue(s) you identify. Support progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. With that in mind, this is an 'ideal world' scenario not always obtainable in a production environment, as such- the above should help provide some good options.


Attribution / Essential Reading


\9 doesn’t work with font-family, instead you’d need to use “\0/ !important” as Chris mentioned above, for example:

p { font-family: Arial \0/ !important; }

you can use like this. it's better than

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="css/style.css" />
<!--[if IE 7]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="css/ie7.css"  /><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 6]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="css/ie6.css"  /><![endif]-->
-------------------------------------------------------------

<!--[if lt IE 7 ]> <body class="ie6"> <![endif]-->
  <!--[if IE 7 ]> <body class="ie7"> <![endif]-->
  <!--[if IE 8 ]> <body class="ie8"> <![endif]-->
  <!--[if !IE]>--> <body> <!--<![endif]-->

div.foo { color: inherit;} .ie7 div.foo { color: #ff8000; }


I have a solution that I use only when I have to, after I build my html & css valid and working in most browsers, I do the occasional hack with this amazing piece of javascript from Rafael Lima. http://rafael.adm.br/css_browser_selector/

It keeps my CSS & HTML valid and clean, I know it's not the ideal solution, using javascript to fix hacks, but as long as your code is originally as close as possible (silly IE just breaks things sometimes) then moving something a few px with javascript isn't as big of a deal as some people think. Plus for time/cost reasons is a quick & easy fix.


Take a look at these:

/* IE8 Standards-Mode Only */
.test { color /*\**/: blue\9 }

/* All IE versions, including IE8 Standards Mode */
.test { color: blue\9 }

(Source: David Bloom’s CSS hack for IE8 Standards Mode)


There aren't any selector hacks for IE8. The best resource for this issue is http://browserhacks.com/#ie

If you want to target specific IE8 you should do comment in html

<!--[if IE 8]> Internet Explorer 8 <![endif]-->

or you could use attribute hacks like:

/* IE6, IE7, IE8, but also IE9 in some cases :( */
#diecinueve { color: blue\9; }

/* IE7, IE8 */
#veinte { color/*\**/: blue\9; }

/* IE8, IE9 */
#anotherone  {color: blue\0/;} /* must go at the END of all rules */

For more info on this one check: http://www.paulirish.com/2009/browser-specific-css-hacks/


2013 update: IE10+ no longer supports conditional comments.

Original answer:

Some people seem to be confused because this does not answer the letter of the question, only the spirit - so for clarification:

There is no such thing as a browser selector. There are hacks that take advantage of bugs and/or glitches in specific browsers' CSS parsers, but relying on these are setting yourself up for failure. There is a standard, accepted way to deal with this:

Use conditional comments to target IE only.

Example:

<!--[if gte IE 8]>
<style>
(your style here)
</style>
<![endif]-->

Everything inside the two <!--> will be ignored by all non-IE browsers as a comment, and IE versions that are less than IE8 will skip it. Only IE8 and greater will process it. 2013 update: IE10+ will also ignore it as a comment.


In the ASP.NET world, I've tended to use the built-in BrowserCaps feature to write out a set of classes onto the body tag that enable you to target any combination of browser and platform.

So in pre-render, I would run something like this code (assuming you give your tag an ID and make it runat the server):

HtmlGenericControl _body = (HtmlGenericControl)this.FindControl("pageBody");
_body.Attributes.Add("class", Request.Browser.Platform + " " + Request.Browser.Browser + Request.Browser.MajorVersion);

This code enables you to then target a specific browser in your CSS like this:

.IE8 #nav ul li { .... }
.IE7 #nav ul li { .... }
.MacPPC.Firefox #nav ul li { .... }

We create a sub-class of System.Web.UI.MasterPage and make sure all of our master pages inherit from our specialised MasterPage so that every page gets these classes added on for free.

If you're not in an ASP.NET environment, you could use jQuery which has a browser plugin that dynamically adds similar class names on page-load.

This method has the benefit of removing conditional comments from your markup, and also of keeping both your main styles and your browser-specific styles in roughly the same place in your CSS files. It also means your CSS is more future-proof (since it doesn't rely on bugs that may be fixed) and helps your CSS code make much more sense since you only have to see

.IE8 #container { .... }

Instead of

* html #container { .... }

or worse!


CSS style only for IE8:

.divLogRight{color:Blue; color:Red\9; *color:Blue;}

Only IE8 will be Red.

first Blue: for all browsers.

Red: IE6,7,8 Only

Second Blue: IE6,7 Only


So Red = for IE8 only.

For a very complete summary of browser hacks (including Internet Explorer (IE), Safari, Chrome, iPhone, and Opera) visit this link: http://paulirish.com/2009/browser-specific-css-hacks/


OK so, it isn't css hack, but out of frustration for not being able to find ways to target ie8 from css, and due to policy of not having ie specific css files, I had to do following, which I assume someone else might find useful:

if (jQuery.browser.version==8.0) {
   $(results).css({
         'left':'23px',
         'top':'-253px'
      });
}

This question is ancient but..

Right after the opening body tag..

<!--[if gte IE 8]>
<div id="IE8Body">
<![endif]-->

Right before the closing body tag..

<!--[if gte IE 8]>
</div>
<![endif]-->

CSS..

#IE8Body #nav li ul {}

You could do this for all IE browsers using conditional statements, OR target ALL browsers by encapsulating all content in a div with browser name + version server-side


Building upon image72's excellent answer, you could actually have advanced CSS selectors like this:

<!--[if lt IE 7]><body class="IE IE7down IE8down IE9down IE10down"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]><body class="IE IE7 IE7down IE8down IE9down IE10down IE7up"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]><body class="IE IE8 IE8down IE9down IE10down IE7up IE8up"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 9]><body class="IE IE9 IE9down IE10down IE7up IE8up IE9up"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte IE 10]><body class="IE IE10 IE10down IE7up IE8up IE9up IE10up"><![endif]-->
<!--[if !IE]>--><body class="notIE"><!--<![endif]-->

so that in your css you can do this:

.notIE   .foo { color: blue;   } /* Target all browsers except IE */
.IE9up   .foo { color: green;  } /* Taget IE equal or greater than 9 */
.IE8     .foo { color: orange; } /* Taget IE 8 only */
.IE7down .foo { color: red;    } /* Target IE equal or less than 7 */

.IE8 .foo, .IE9 .foo {
    font-size: 1.2em;            /* Target IE8 & IE9 only */
}

.bar { background-color: gray; } /* Applies to all browsers, as usual */

/* Maybe show a message only to IE users? */
.notIE #betterBrowser { display: none;  } /* Any browser except IE */
.IE    #betterBrowser { display: block; } /* All versions of IE */

This is great because:

  • It's perfectly standards compliant (no ugly/dangerous css hacks)
  • No need to have separate stylesheets
  • You can easily target any version of IE as well as complex combinations

I realize this is an old question but it was the first result on Google when I searched and I think I have found a better solution than the highest ranked suggestion and what the OP chose to do.

#nav li ul:not(.stupidIE) { color:red }

So technically this is the opposite of what the OP wanted, but that just means you have to apply the rule you want for IE8 first and then apply this for everything else. Of course you can put anything inside the () as long as it is valid css that doesn't actually select anything. IE8 chokes on this line and doesn't apply it, but previous IEs (ok I only checked IE7, I have stopped caring about IE6), just ignore the :not() and do apply the declarations. And of course every other browser (I tested Safari 5, Opera 10.5, Firefox 3.6) applies that css as you would expect.

So this solution, I guess like any other pure CSS solution would assume that if the IE developers add support for the :not selector then they will also fix what ever discrepancy was causing you to target IE8.


I'm not going to get in a debate about whether or not this method should be used, but this will let you set specific css attributes for IE8-9 only (note: it is not a selector, so a bit different than what you asked):

Use '\0/' after each css declaration, so:

#nav li ul  {
  left: -39px\0/ !important;
}

And to build off another answer, you can do this to assign variou styles to IE6, IE7, and IE8:

#nav li ul  {
   *left: -7px    !important; /* IE 7 (IE6 also uses this, so put it first) */
   _left: -6px    !important; /* IE 6 */
    left: -8px\0/ !important; /* IE 8-9 */
}

source: http://dimox.net/personal-css-hacks-for-ie6-ie7-ie8/