It seems that Internet Explorer has some problems when it comes to cut-and-pasting form code. One of our clients, which has a Joomla-based site, has found some errors that may cause them to switch over to Firefox.

The client is using Paypal to take payments and registrations for monthly events. They have an “events” module installed on their site that uses the Paypal buttons, as well as normal content pages. They’ve found that after repeated tests on different computers, they can’t seem to get the Paypal buttons to work. After asking us to put the buttons in the pages/events for them several months running, we finally tracked down the problem.

The problem stems from a combination of Joomla trying to clean up code and IE (version 7 and below) refusing to show FORM data inside an input box – thereby corrupting the Paypal button(s). For our clients that are using Joomla (or pretty much any CMS – though IE+Wordpress doesn’t seem to have this problem), we suggest utilizing Firefox, Safari, or even Opera, as all should have no problems if you are trying to put paypal buttons into individual CMS articles.

The client has updated to Internet Explorer 8 (available for free download), which we are suggesting to all clients. However, be aware that the rendering engine will likely make many sites look “funky” and possibily broken. This is due to Microsoft not fully embracing the W3C’s web standards and developers having to code IE-specific code for years. Unfortunately, the new version still doesn’t come up to par on the standards, but there is now the additional problem of a lot of that previous IE-only code not working well in IE8. Thankfully, you can browse pages in “Compatibility View” which should take care of your viewing experience while  you browse the web in a much safer, partially more usable fashion.