Background CSS image no showing in IE7 only

Question

The html is:

<div class="choose-os">
<p>
   <a href="someLink" class="windows">Microsoft Windows</a> 
   <a href="someOtherLink" class="macos">Apple Mac OS</a>
</p>
</div>

The CSS is:

.choose-os {
    margin: 20px 0;
    padding: 20px;
    background: #e7eefa;
}
.choose-os p {
    margin: 0;
}
.choose-os p a {
    display: inline-block;
    text-indent: -100000px;
    height: 56px;
    width: 308px;
}
.choose-os p a.windows {
    background: url(../images/button-windows-bg.png) 0 0;
}
.choose-os p a.macos {
    background: url(../images/button-macos-bg.png) 0 0;
}
.choose-os p a:hover {
    background-position: 0 -56px;
}

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as to have the background image also appear on IE7.

Answer 1

The text-indent: -100000px; in combination with inline-block is what's causing the two elements to not be visible in IE7, due to a bug.

You need to find some other way to hide the text for IE7 (or not use inline-block at all, see below for this more suitable fix).

Options include the method in the comment by @Sotiris, or:

.choose-os p a {
    display: inline-block;
    height: 56px;
    width: 308px;

    text-indent: -100000px;

    /* for ie7 */
    *text-indent: 0;
    *font-size: 0;
    *line-height: 0
}

Which uses the *property: value hack several times to hide the text in IE7.

---

The problem does seem to be related to the use of display: inline-block .

So, another workaround ( which I prefer to my previous one ) is:

.choose-os {
    margin: 20px 0;
    padding: 20px;
    background: #e7eefa;
    overflow: hidden
}
.choose-os p a {
    float: left;
    margin-right: 4px;
    text-indent: -100000px;
    height: 56px;
    width: 308px;
}

Answer 2

To display inline-block properly in IE7, add the following styles to .choose-os pa

zoom:1
*display:inline

(The star is important, It's ignored by modern browsers, but not IE6/7)

IE7 doesn't respect inline-block, so you have to do a little magic to make it work. There's a great description here: http://blog.mozilla.com/webdev/2009/02/20/cross-browser-inline-block/

[edit] If text-indent is also part of the culprit, you may be better of sticking with display:block and setting float:left on your elements. Probably multiple valid paths to take:)

Answer 3

IE7 has some serious limitations in CSS. I would recommend avoiding the shorthand notation and explicitly declaring each property, then validate the CSS sheet here .