Right, this is a techy post so most people can switch off now. I have just discovered something that I should have known a long time ago. It concerns the inclusion of an XML declaration (ie. ) at the top of your page. It seems that this tiny line of code can have a serious impact on both IE6 and Opera browsers. Namely, it forces them back into quirks mode … which is a pain in the ass.
For those of you who don’t know “quirks mode” is a funnction of IE and other browsers whereby it renders content according to its own DocType and not to the one you set. This primarily means that in IE text will always be one point size larger than Mozilla (which is a Standards Compliant Browser). It also has some major knockon effects for CSS-P. So from here on, kiss good bye to the XML declaration. Fortunately it isn’t a required page element but it does mean that I will have to change all my pages … arse!
