Abu Dhabi Science Festival 2012
The Abu Dhabi Science Festival, organized by the Abu Dhabi Technology Committee (TDC) was first held in 2011. The festival features many exhibitions, workshops, shows and signature events, as well as school tours for children around the city.
The Challenge
For the festival's second year, we were tasked by the Abu Dhabi Technology Committee (TDC) with developing an engaging, interactive portal filled with science themed quizzes and educational mini-games. One challenge given to us: the website portal must be feature complete and compatible with government desktop PCs, which at the time ran Internet Explorer 7.
The problem
Meeting the client's requirements using conventional implementations would have required maintaining dual code bases: one for modern browsers and another for Internet Explorer 7.
Lateral Thinking
To bridge this gap, our developers used an "attached behavior engine" library - PIE.js - which leverages Internet Explorer's DirectX Media API to simulate CSS 3.0 properties. This script allows for the rendering of advanced visual effects such as rounded corners, drop shadows, and gradients, which are otherwise not possible in IE7.
Project outcomes
The use of PIE.js enabled our developers to maintain a single codebase while ensuring the site looks consistent across all browsers, old and new. We delievered a modern HTML5 website portal with all the requirements achieved. Supporting IE 7.0 was an important requirement of the client, not finding a solution would have forced the team to cut back on features in order to meet the client’s required spec.
