I don’t like to use css hacks. I do use them. In point of fact, I maintain a small list of css hacks so I can easily reference them. But I don’t like them. Except for the last one on that list, which I think I’ve used twice total, all those “hacks” are actually valid css that simply hook into Explorer’s irregular DOM and different levels of selector support to target cases that only exist in one browser or another.

Enter IE8 several months ago. Setting aside the fact that I can’t even get the damn thing to run without going through an initial “start -> erase all preferences -> close -> start -> close the ‘you need to customize!’ window by clicking the X not the ok or it blows up -> open a new tab -> close the first tab” route (yes, I’ve done a clean install and tried trashing my prefs), once I finally get to it for testing, I find that its “Compatibility” and “IE7” rendering is occasionally off of IE7, and the IE8 rendering is different from IE6, IE7 or Firefox…

And so far, all I’m seeing for css hacks is invalid css code. Anyone out there yet found a css hack that targets only ie8 that’s valid css? Any way to target its modes in a way that would distinguish IE7 from IE8 Compatibility or IE8’s version of IE7?