how do i deal with internet explorers lack of functionality?

http://pastebin.com/FctZD1j8 this script makes a right 开发者_Python百科frame and a left frame with css.

in chrome and firefox, its normal, i have stuff in the left frame, stuff in the right frame, and stuff in the main content. but in IE the main content is in the left frame in kind of like a html Iframe. any suggestions?

It's probably the quirks mode that causes that. I tried it standards compliant mode in IE6, IE7, IE8 and IE9, and it works fine:

http://jsfiddle.net/Xugj4/1/

You might want to use an older HTML version if you want to support IE6, like HTML 4.01. IE6 doesn't know what XHTML is.

As far as I can see, my IE8 displays it just fine. Which browser versions are you referring to?

Have you tried using floats instead of your absolutes and fixed positioned elements.

Maybe explain a bit the rationale behind this strange positioning. What would you like to achieve?

Screenshot in IE8

This is how it looks like in IE8 on my machine. I can see content being displayed in the middle div just fine. It even scrolls as expected. Does it look right to you as well or should it look differently?