Using Twitter Bootstrap 2? Want it to look half useable in IE6? Use these quick wins…

Posted by on Feb 2, 2012 in CSS, Projects, Twitter Bootstrap IE6 Support | 9 comments

After seeing how amazing Twitter Bootstrap has become, i decided to write in some IE6 compatibility fixes. If i have any hope of getting to use it for a project at work then it must be IE6 friendly (bloody educational institutions!)

Some very non magical CSS:

/* IE6 'Compatability' fixes */
body {background:#ffffff;background-image:none;padding:0;}

/* Nav Fixes */
.navbar {background:#333333;}
.nav-collapse {width:auto;}
.nav li {display:inline;}
.nav li a {padding:10px;display:block;width:auto;float:left;color:#cccccc;}
.nav li a:hover {color:#ffffff;}
.nav-pills li a {color:#08C;}
.nav-pills li a:hover {color:#005580;}

/* Grid Fixes */
.row {margin:0;}
.span1, .span2, .span3, .span4, .span5, .span6, .span7, .span8, .span9, .span10, .span11, .span12  {float:left;margin:0 30px 0 0;}
.last-child {margin-right:0;}

And that all important bit of jQuery to ladle on last-child support:

$('.row div[class^="span"]:last-child').addClass('last-child');

This is by no means a finished solution, but it deals with some critical layout issues with the navigation and grid layout.

Once i get some time i’ll work on it properly and will work out how to get it onto GitHub for others to fork/contribute to!

  • Dave Ferguson

    Pretty cool.. but at some point we have to stop catering to a browser that has been replaced 3 times over and has more issues then windows vista.

    I point anyone using IE6 here… http://www.ie6countdown.com/  and tell them to stop being part of the problem.  

    • http://www.jonathonjoyce.co.uk/ Jonathon Joyce

      I whole heartedly agree, but there are some of us that are stuck with the problem, IE6 still represents a huge portion of our users so if we want a decent interface starter, like bootstrap provides, we need IE6 support for our client base, mainly education institutes and large companies with ageing IT setups.

      I cant wait until the day microsoft officially stops supporting IE6, so we can to!

      • David Boyer

        I’m in the same boat so thanks for having a go at IE6 support, will definitely be trying this out at some point.  Bring on April 2014 :P

      • http://www.jonathonjoyce.co.uk/ Jonathon Joyce

        Well this only addresses a few problems, will be going through the bootstrap site page by page fixing what i can. Need to work out how to use git/github so others can get involved :)

        • http://www.learningtitanium.com Sharry

          We are in the same boat too. Govt / Police computers still insist on use IE6. Thanks for providing this!

          Sharry

        • http://www.learningtitanium.com Sharry
  • Cemen

    Fix for navbar really useful, thanks!

  • Ddouble

    You can try bsie, the bootstrap IE6 compatible library, http://ddouble.github.com/bsie/