Template talk:IPA/Archive 9

MSIE/Win only version
After I wrote the proposal above, I got an idea. Template:IPA now looks like this:

< span class="IPA" style="font-family:Lucida Grande, Arial Unicode MS,

Lucida Sans Unicode, Gentium, Code2000; font-family:inherit; ">


 * The second font-family declaration overrides the first, in CSS-compliant web browsers.
 * MSIE/Win doesn't understand the  value, so it still applies the fonts.
 * The  attribute allows users to specify their own styles.  Add something like this into your style sheet, at User:XXX/monobook.css (where XXX is your user name):

.IPA { color: red; }

—Michael Z. 20:40, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)


 * The problem is that on IE6/XP the second font-family spec overrides the first, and so, unless there's an "inherit" font installed, it winds up reverting to whatever font is used in the surroundings of the embedded span (it inherits, in other words!). I've tried putting the special "inherit" tag at the beginning of the fontlist, but that didn't work either.  IE seems to function OK if the inherit tag is at the end of the fontlist (current revision), but I have no way of testing what it does on other platforms. A. Shetsen 22:31, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Aw crap—that browser's brokenness has cost me hundreds of hours of work. I read in my reference that it doesn't support "inherit", but never thought that the reference to a non-existent font would completely replace the previous declaration.  I'm going to try something else.  If I revert it temporarily it's because I'm doing some testing.  —Michael Z. 23:03, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)


 * Oops. Same diff as with font-family.  Seems a deeper solution is called for.  OK.  I'm installing MediaWiki on my Pentium 300 with 64 MB memory :). A. Shetsen 23:15, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Ta-dah!!! on IE6. Thank you, Michael.  Alex Shetsen.  A. Shetsen 23:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * [?] I tried something else, but it didn't work so I reverted the template.  Looks like it's back to plan A:, which should be quite easy to do if we can find a helpful admin.   —Michael Z. 23:27, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to try something else. I found two CSS filters to hide CSS from MSIE. I'll see if these can work. —Michael Z. 07:10, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

1. The !important property doesn't work in MSIE4, 5 and 6, so the second declaration should override the first in these browsers.

< span class="IPA"style="font-family:inherit !important ; font-family:Lucida Grande,

Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Sans Unicode, Gentium, Code2000;">

Inherits font-family in Firefox/Mac, but applies the second declaration in MSIE6/Win (good), Firefox/win and Safari (not what we want).

2. spaced empty comment in the property should hide the declaration from MSIE6/Win only.

< span class="IPA" style="font-family:Lucida Grande, Arial Unicode MS,

Lucida Sans Unicode, Gentium, Code2000; font-family /**/ :inherit; ">

Method 2 seems to work right. Inherits font-family in Safari and Firefox, but applies the IPA font spec in MSIE6/Win. YAY! Please look at some IPA and tell me if everything looks right to you. —Michael Z. 07:40, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)


 * Not any more, and your link is down. Yecril (talk) 22:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good!! I've tested it with and without my custom monobook.css file.  IPA and the rest of the conten display well on my XP/IE6 combo. Thank you!! A. Shetsen 19:02, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Phew! I was starting to get discouraged.  I'm still going to see about adding the   font declaration to a browser-specific style sheet, but it's nice to get it working as it should.  —Michael Z. 00:25, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

Looks very good on a common public computer with no particular extras added. This is a REAL improvement! Kudos! --Ruhrjung 13:41, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)