Strategy for Fixing Layout Bugs in IE6?

Question

Generally, what's the best way to tackle a layout bug in IE6? What are the most common bugs or problems that one should look for when trying to figure out why your page suddenly looks like a monkey coded it?

Answer 1

First Things First

Get yourself the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar. It's a life saver and works great with IE6 and/or IE7. It's no replacement for Web Developer Toolbar or Firebug for Firefox, but it's better than nothing.

Know Thy Enemy

Read up on the quirks of IE — particularly hasLayout and overflow and the like. There are also many CSS niceties that you'll have to either do without or find alternatives. Look into how many of the popular JavaScript toolkits/frameworks/libraries get around different issues.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

The more you have to work with it, the more you'll remember off hand and won't have to lookup as often. There's just no replacement for experience in this. As several have pointed out, though, there are great resources out there on the net. Position Is Everything is certainly up there.