Hi Dylan,
While I might quibble with your suggestion that RC1 is not a beta, it is
beside the point. From what I understand the RTM version is set for release:
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090318/microsoft-ups-ante-with-new-browser/
I might also quibble with your expectation that Publisher webs should never
need to be tweaked. I doubt that there are any webs built by any program
that don't need to be tweaked on occasion. The advantage to Publisher is
that you tweak by changing formatting and layout, without getting into
coding at all. But once again this is beside the point.
I of course at this point can't tell you if Publisher webs will have the
same problems with IE8 RTM, but I suspect they will. I am also still
optimistic that a fix for these issues will eventually be provided by MSFT,
but I have no knowledge of when. With that said, since posting last time I
have done a bit more testing with RC1, and found at least a temporary fix
for the rendering problems I have found thus far, including the navbar
issue.
The Publisher wizard built navbars are built using a number of images, text
boxes etc and are by default grouped together. If you select the navbar go
to Arrange > and ungroup, you can ungroup those elements and the navbar will
render in IE8, and is functional. You must do this with the side navbars,
bottom and top if you are using them, and you must do it on every page of
your publication. What I don't like about the fix is that it also
disconnects the navbar from the navbar wizard. This means that if you want
to add a page, the navbar will not be automatically updated and that change
propagated throughout the site. You will have to rebuild the navbar under
those circumstances. This won't be a big issue for those who have already
finished their sites and won't be adding a page, but it will be a pain for
those who are building their sites and previewing and testing them in IE8.
A hopefully short term solution for those in the process of building their
sites and who don't want to disconnect the navbar from the wizard, would be
to test the site in FireFox. This is not necessarily a bad idea because you
should be at least testing the site in FF anyway. As I have said, if your
site works well in both IE and FF, it will generally work well with most
other browsers.
Now as to your other issues, I have also found that if you group *any*
design elements on the page, they also will not render when previewed with
IE8 RC1. By this I mean that if you group a text box with another text box,
an object, or an image, etc. then all those design elements will not render.
The fix is to ungroup those design elements. In this case you should ungroup
them anyway after you get your page laid out as grouping frequently causes
problems with the pages when viewed in FF.
At this point the problems associated with 'grouping' are the only problems
I am finding. If you ungroup everything, and are still experiencing
problems, I would appreciate it if you would post back and tell me what
specifically isn't working, and provide a link to the page where I can find
it.
Thanks.
DavidF
