Just found that some of the pages in my site will not display correctly in IE8 without compatibility mode being on. I have spent ages looking at the page source and cane see no differences in the main layour div classes between those that work and those that don't.

A page with 3 columns displays as 3 even columns leaving extra space to the right.

A page with just the 2 columns displays with the centre column squished into a narrow column.

But most 2 col pages display fine in IE8 normal mode. 

My skin was based on andreasviklund-02-alt1 and all works fine in all other browsers I have tried.

I suppose I could use a meta tag to force compatibility view but am worried that might cause other issues.

This content div works as expected

<div id="ctl01_divCenter" class="art-layout-cell art-content center-leftmargin cmszone">

but this apparently identical one displays as a narrow col that is even narrower than it would be if content was added to the right column.

<div id="ctl01_divCenter" class="art-layout-cell art-content center-leftmargin cmszone">

Identical div same skin same css - must be looking in the wrong place. Caching not an issue.

I also have one example of a 3 col page where the center col is narrow (the same as the sidebars) leaving unused space to the right.

What's the best way to fix this? If it was consistent then I would go for the Meta TAg fix but as it's only some pages I guess it must be something to do with the content. (HTML and Shared Files modules only)

Altogether now - I hate IE!

This problem persists -  any time I add a shared files module to a page in the center column - the center column of all content on the page becomes very narrow in IE8 - all fine in all other browsers inculding IE9 and IE8-compatibility mode. Very weird - tried to reproduce it on the demo site but could not reproduce it.

MP 2.3.6.7

Skin from Artisteer 3 using andreasviklund-02-alt1 as the base

The column actually becomes narrower than it would be if there was some content in the right column.

It must I guess be in my CSS but I cannot see where or why this is happening.

What is the correct Meta Tag to add to force IE7 mode on IE8?

John 

I just came back to this issue - it is not really a skinning issue but I will continue the conversation here

Any page that has a Shared Files Module added will not display it's columns properly in IE unless running in compatibility mode.

The Meta tag to for EmulateIE7 can only be added globally in layout.master and if I do that then other pages using the JQuery Accordion are broken - anyway I do not want to force IE7 for the whole site. 

Ideally if the meta tag could be inserted using the page settings Add Meta feature that would be great but unless I am being dumb this can only be used to insert tags in the form <meta name ="" content="" /> not <meta http-equiv="" ....

So as far as I can see my only option is to create a separate skin including the force IE7 tags just for pages with SF modules .. does that sound right?

Regards

John