Conditional Comments
Conditional comments are a special HTML comment syntax, introduced by Microsoft, that allows targeting of specific versions of Internet Explorer [on Windows]. These proprietary tags will allow you to do specific things for users of Internet Explorer, whilst being safely ignored by other browsers [as they parse it like a standard HTML comment].
It is for this reason that they are truly useful in web development: when fixing IE-only bugs. All those CSS problems you had only in the Special Browser can now be solved by supplying a style sheet of IE fixes! This will make your standard CSS cleaner and probably help improve world peace.
Examples of the syntax
Note: the explanatory text in each example would be replaced with whatever you want your target to receive.
<!--[if IE]> I target all IE versions <![endif]--> <!--[if !(IE 7)]> I target all IE versions except IE7 <![endif]--> <!--[if IE 7]> I target IE7 only <![endif]--> <!--[if gt IE 7]> I target all IE versions newer than IE7 <![endif]--> <!--[if lt IE 7]> I target all IE versions older than IE7 <![endif]--> <!--[if gte IE 7]> I target IE7 and all newer versions <![endif]--> <!--[if lte IE 7]> I target IE7 and all older versions <![endif]--> <!--[if (gte IE 5) & (lt IE 8)]> I target all IE versions from IE5 and up to [but not including] IE8 <![endif]--> <!--[if (IE 6) | (IE 7)]> I target either IE6 or IE7 <![endif]-->
Further reading and sources
- MSDN's About Condtional Comments article
- Petr Paul-Koch's Conditional Comments article
