Toolbar "Howdy, " message CSS broke in IE

[bhwebworks]

I noticed this when helping a client with their website, and they were using IE 9. The "Howdy, " message forces their display name down to the next line, causing problems if they try to click the "Screen Options" or "Help" tabs. Plus it just looks bad. (see attached screenshot)

I logged in with IE 11 and saw the same issue, and I chased the bug down to wp-includes/css/admin-bar.css, line 126.

#wpadminbar .quicklinks a,
#wpadminbar .quicklinks .ab-empty-item,
#wpadminbar .shortlink-input {
	height: 32px;
	display: block;
	padding: 0 10px;
	margin: 0;
}

If you change display to inline-block rather than block, it fixes the problem.

Looks like the same code is in admin-bar-rtl.css, and I'm assuming that would have the same issue, but I don't know for sure.

[bhwebworks]

Screenshot of IE toolbar "Howdy" message issue

[bhwebworks]

Suggested code change:

#wpadminbar .quicklinks a,
#wpadminbar .quicklinks .ab-empty-item,
#wpadminbar .shortlink-input {
	height: 32px;
	display: inline-block;
	padding: 0 10px;
	margin: 0;
}

[SergeyBiryukov]

Could not reproduce the issue on a clean install neither in IE8 nor IE11. Tried both 3.8.1 and current trunk.

Does it still happen with all plugins disabled and a default theme (Twenty Fourteen or Twenty Thirteen) activated?

[bhwebworks]

After further research I found that it's only happening on a few of my sites. I disabled plugins but I didn't go so far as to switch to a default theme.

What I did notice is that it was only happening on sites that were loading (enqueueing) farbtastic.css and media-views.css in the admin.

I wasn't able to determine what those styles had to do with this though.

I do some admin CSS tweaking on my sites, so I just added the fix I mentioned above to that stylesheet, specifically changing display to inline-block, and it's "fixed" for me now.

[jeremyalzona]

#27809 was marked as a duplicate.

[5um17]

This only happen in IE when Avatars are disabled. Seems like text is being wrapped around the floated user icon instead of being wide.
In place of adding inline-block to all elements, i made inline-block to this element only, it will not effect on other browsers as it is a floated element and this fix the problem in IE.

[5um17]

Updating patch in favor of better approach to handle this IE bug. Actually IE is not respecting floated icons thus having width: auto only expend the div to fit the text but not the icon.

In this case we can also add overflow: hidden; to a tag, which will not reflect any change on other browsers.

[5um17]

Patch with overflow: hidden

[swissspidy]

Is this still an issue with latest versions of WordPress and Internet Explorer?

[sabernhardt]

#40374 was marked as a duplicate.

[sabernhardt]

display:inline-block only when avatars are not shown

[sabernhardt]

It does still wrap in IE. I had uploaded two options with absolute positioning to ticket #40374, but adding display: inline-block works for me.

In 26933.3.patch​, the display property is adjusted only when there is no avatar image.

[desrosj]

@sabernhardt Can you clarify which versions of IE you are able to reproduce this issue in? ​WordPress currently only supports IE >= 11. If the issues is only in versions 10 and lower, we should close as a wontfix.

[sabernhardt]

@desrosj I only have version 11, so yes, it does still happen with the latest version of IE (and WordPress 5.6 trunk).

[sabernhardt]

While Internet Explorer 11 will not be supported soon, this bug is on the front end, too.

If the patch doesn't make the experience worse in any other browser(s), I think it's still worth considering for the next major version. (If it's not committed for 5.8, though, we probably ought to close the ticket as "won't fix")