MSIE 4.0 and element boxes

   I posted this is c.i.w.a.s. as part of a longer message on the release
of MSIE 4.0 final for the Macintosh, but I thought I'd bring it up here as
well.  If you have MSIE 4.0 final for either Mac or Win95, try this:

   <P style="border-right: double red 10px;">
   This is a paragraph.
   </P>

On my Mac, the border appears all the way at the right edge of the browser
window.  Similarly, if you use the following:

   <P style="background-color: red;">
   This is a paragraph.
   </P>

...the red box will span the entire width of the browser window.
   This is just plain wrong, isn't it?  I mean, I read the specification to
say that the default padding on each side of an element box should be zero,
but MSIE seems to be generating something like 'auto' (not that such a
value is permitted for any padding property), or perhaps assumes that
elements default to 'width: 100%;' instead of 'auto'.  This is really
strange, especially since MSIE4.0b2 for the Mac seemed to be calculating
element boxes correctly...
   As an aside, MSIE4.0/Mac's CSS support is almost exactly on par with the
Windows95 version.  If only the Mac version supported 'text-transform', it
would actually exceed the Win95 version's support.  (I picked that property
because it seems to be one of the few which is supported on Win95 but not
on the Mac.)

--
Eric A. Meyer  -  eam3@po.cwru.edu  -  http://www.cwru.edu/home/eam3.html
  Editor, WebReview's Style Sheets Reference Guide
  http://style.webreview.com/

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 1998 17:26:58 UTC