How does one target IE7 and IE8 with valid CSS?
I want to target IE7 and IE8 with W3C-compliant CSS. Sometimes fixing CSS for one version does not fix for the other. How can I achieve this?
Answer
Explicitly Target IE versions without hacks using HTML and CSS
Use this approach if you don't want hacks in your CSS. Add a browser-unique class to the <html> element so you can select based on browser later.
Example
<!doctype html>
<!--[if IE]><![endif]-->
<!--[if lt IE 7 ]> <html lang="en" class="ie6"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7 ]> <html lang="en" class="ie7"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]> <html lang="en" class="ie8"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 9 ]> <html lang="en" class="ie9"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if (gt IE 9)|!(IE)]><!--><html lang="en"><!--<![endif]-->
<head></head>
<body></body>
</html>
Then in your CSS you can very strictly access your target browser.
Example
.ie6 body {
border:1px solid red;
}
.ie7 body {
border:1px solid blue;
}
For more information check out http://html5boilerplate.com/
Target IE versions with CSS "Hacks"
More to your point, here are the hacks that let you target IE versions.
Use "\9" to target IE8 and below.
Use "*" to target IE7 and below.
Use "_" to target IE6.
Example:
body {
border:1px solid red; /* standard */
border:1px solid blue\9; /* IE8 and below */
*border:1px solid orange; /* IE7 and below */
_border:1px solid blue; /* IE6 */
}
Update: Target IE10
IE10 does not recognize the conditional statements so you can use this to apply an "ie10" class to the <html> element
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<!--[if !IE]><!--><script>if (/*@cc_on!@*/false) {document.documentElement.className+=' ie10';}</script><!--<![endif]-->
<head></head>
<body></body>
</html>