Does everyone here include this meta tag as standard practice in their scripts?

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

If not, I suggest you do so.
I saw first hand today how sometimes IE8 will render a page in IE7 mode if you do not use the above declaration.


Scary stuff.

A good explanation of it here:
http://www.evotech.net/blog/2009/03/ie8-css-support/

From MSDN:

When Internet Explorer 8 encounters a Web page that does not contain an X-UA-Compatible header, it uses the <!DOCTYPE> directive to determine how to display the page. If the directive is missing or does not specify a standards-based document type, Internet Explorer 8 displays the page in IE5 mode (quirks mode).
If the <!DOCTYPE> directive specifies a standards-based document type, Internet Explorer 8 displays the page in IE8 mode, except in the following cases:

• Compatibility View is enabled for the page.
• The page is loaded in the Intranet zone and Internet Explorer 8 is configured to pages in the Intranet zone in Compatibility View.
• Internet Explorer 8 is configured to display all Web sites in Compatibility View.
• Internet Explorer 8 is configured to use the Compatibility View List, which specifies a set of Web sites that are always displayed in Compatibility View.
• The Developer Tools are used to override the settings specified in the Web page.
• The Web page encountered a page layout error and Internet Explorer 8 is configured to automatically recover from such errors by reopening the page in Compatibility View

Illustrates the importance of using a PROPER DOCTYPE.

Standards mode is the default for IE8.
From the IE Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2...lity-view.aspx

Well according to that, even with a correct DOCTYPE there is no guarantee that it is going to display in standards mode in IE8. That's the point.

Internet Explorer 8 is configured to display all Web sites in Compatibility View.

If Compatibility mode were a true IE7 rendering perhaps it's something I could live with but in fact it's not. Microsoft didn't quite get it right and there are some differences between true IE7 rendering and IE8 in IE7 compatibility mode.