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New IE7 Information Announced
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Apr 23, 2005 06:21 PM
from the the-web-has-standards? dept.
from the the-web-has-standards? dept.
Brandon writes "Looks like the IE team is trying to catch up to some of the major OS browsers. They have finally added proper PNG support and have fixed numerous CSS bugs. The full post is on The Official IEBlog." From the post: "We're doing a lot more than this in IE7, of course, and we're really excited that the beta release is almost here - we're looking forward to the feedback when we release the first beta of IE7 this summer. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to beta."
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The ones that I hope get fixed (Score:5, Interesting)
My pet peeves with IE that make my life harder when I write web pages:
Sounds like they are fixing the .pngs for sure. I hope the two css tweaks that I want make it in.
nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that mozilla did implement the proposed standard but put it in their own namespace for now because it isn't a standard yet and they didn't want to be accused of "embrace and extend" the way that Microsoft does.
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Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's that their support for the border module is terribly incomplete, so they're not going to suggest that they support any of it quite yet.
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Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:4, Interesting)
If they were actually going to support the proposed standard, surely anything other than naming it in the standard way is embrace-and-extend (or, in this case, embrace-and-rename)!
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Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:4, Insightful)
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min-width and hacks (Score:5, Informative)
select {
min-height: 100px;
_height: 100px;
}
IE will (mysteriously) ignore the underscore prefix and parse the second style, while compliant browsers only recognize the min-height style.
This shows that the important question is in fact not "how many CSS bugs will IE7 fix?" but "how many CSS bugs will IE7 keep?". These bugs are currently needed to make IE6 behave properly. If IE7 fixes the rendering bugs but keeps the parsing bugs, we'll have to figure out new bugs to update the IE6-only hacks with.
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
If IE7 fixes the rendering bugs but keeps the parsing bugs, we'll have to figure out new bugs to update the IE6-only hacks with.
That's why web standards should be followed, so you don't end up with spagetti code trying to support different browser versions. Admittedly I don't know everything that goes into creating a standards compliant website. Nor do I work on them other than my own, which I haven't worked in way too long.
Along the lines of web standards, I liked Jeffery Zeldman's "designing with web standards". I would of liked it if there had been projects to work on in it though. I only learn and retain by doing, if I don't do it I don't retain what I read. At least he includes references to other books some of which have exercises or projects.
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time, when I hack my way around browser bugs, I do it by taking standards-compliant HTML that validates at validator.w3.org but looks wrong in a particular browser, and changing it into different standards-compliant HTML that still validates but looks the way I want.
Please don't tell web designers to "just follow the standards". It's REALLY not that simple.
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
What I do is, I design a very simple design in Firefox, then I check it against IE that it renders "nicely" (nicely meaning, if IE renders it wrong, the mistake doesn't affect readability or anything). The idea is, my website designs are "so simple, not even IE could screw them up".
It really limits the possibilities, but at least the resulting pages are simple & elegant.
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Informative)
The latest trend is to use Javascript to set the styles, which (imho) is a much better idea - never rely on bugs to implement features.
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
If designers didn't rely on obscure parsing bugs like the one in your post, that wouldn't be a problem. There's nothing elegant or clever about exploiting parsing bugs [quirksmode.org] to fix another bug. In an ideal world the browser developers would fix both the parsing bug and whatever other bug the parsing bug is designed to work around. Since we're never gauranteed of this, why take the risk? If you're a professional developer with past projects in the hundreds when IE7 hits the streets, can you then afford to turn back the clock and revisit most of them because you relied on parsing bugs, rather than more concrete methods. (Ahem, conditional comment style sheets [microsoft.com]) You'd be completely screwed. If you don't fix your client websites, your reputation will go the way of the dodo. If you do you'll have weeks upon weeks of unpaid work.
IE may have miserable CSS support, but at least it provides some very clear, built-in work-arounds for its problems. (JScript, behaviors, conditional comments, all that propreitary garbage that we can use to fabricate something resembling standards support [edwards.name]).
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Re:min-width and hacks (Score:5, Funny)
Who says? The sites worked fine in IE6; that's what we got paid for. If they don't work in IE7, we can be paid again to fix them.
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Re: CSS (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The ones that I hope get fixed (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad to see Internet Explorer doing something right, even if inadvertently. See, I have this nice 19" monitor, and people who insist on making tiny little pages that fill the top-left corner of my screen make me leave their site as quickly as possible. I spent good money to have a lot of screen real estate - please don't try to take it away from me.
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middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:5, Informative)
Then I probably shouldn't tell you about Maxthon [maxthon.com] or any of the other IE wrappers that add tabs and retain all the ActiveX holes.
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video plugins (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little irritated at the overrated mods slapped onto this post. (if you think he's misguided, hit the reply button instead, folks!)
He has a point. Though FireFox is getting better and better, IE still is still the best supported out there. Sometimes I have to use IE from time to time due to lack of support for the browser I'm using. Admittedly, MS would have to do a hell of a lot of work for me to use IE7 exlusively, but I can certainly understand this guy's point of view.
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Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mmmm! Competition! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mmmm! Competition! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't really address the trust issue, however, even though some of the more abusive "features" of IE may be toned down due to competition and heightened user awareness. Microsoft still largely sees its end-user base as property that it owns, and to which it can sell access for commercial or marketing purposes. Firefox, on the other hand, being FOSS, is naturally more user-centric. IE users can thank Firefox for making the Beast a little kinder and gentler, at least for the time being...
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Suggest they un-integrate IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
shall (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:shall (Score:4, Funny)
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competition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many features to match. (Score:4, Insightful)
Repainting the Deckchairs on the Security Titanic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not trying to flame M$ but ... most of the reason I junked IE was security issues. Once I made the jump, the other improvements like graphics-handling were nice, but not critical.
Would putting better graphics on the Titanic's deckchairs have kept anyone on board?
Re:Repainting the Deckchairs on the Security Titan (Score:4, Interesting)
What did you switch to? Mozilla?
I don't think that Mozilla is exactly a model for security. At my company, we've had to deploy three complete updates since the release of Firefox 1.0.
It's clearly not "perfect".
Of course, IE is far from a model citizen, but IE6-SP2 is much better, and *security* is the focus of IE7 according to the developers.
I think that Microsoft can build a competitive browser. They just need an incentive to do so.
Now they have that incentive. Firefox has given it to them.
I, for one, welcome the new browser wars.
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IE7 would be perfect if... (Score:5, Interesting)
At any rate, Microsoft should put their resources into making one killer browser. Make it as lightweight as Netscape 2.0 was, yet support the latest CSS kung-fu. Implement all of the latest widgets and hoohaws as plugins so I can remove ActiveX support if I want. And above all, make it cross platform. Use a library like FLTK so it can be used just about anywhere.
Doesn't Microsoft realize they could easily make the end-all browser that'll end up running on almost every palmtop, cell phone, set-top-box, automobile, and personal computer?
Acid2 (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone know more details about this test and what browsers do pass it (I'm guessing IE6 doesn't, I don't have it so can't test it)? I'm surprised Firefox didn't, not because I'm a fan boy or anything, but because I presumed Firefox was in accordance with most of the standards.
This is the test [webstandards.org] and this is what it should look [webstandards.org] like. Here's some info [webstandards.org] about how it works.
Re:Acid2 (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Interesting)
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the rest of the story (Score:4, Funny)
This feature should be easy to deal with, so long as pages are designed with it in mind. Unfortunately this will cause some confusion when trying to use the expression "O.K." or the boxing term "K.O.".
The new feature that causes the letter "e" to appear as a tiny version of the explorer logo is now slated for version 7.1, it had to be delayed due to technical problems. Consumer research shows that people think that the explorer logo is cuter than the letter "e".
Who gives a damn about IE anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
Their only hope is to keep making deliberately flawed products - and keep their consumers hooked. The consumer knows their products are bad, but nobody else (at least, nobody with a sense of self-worth and pride) is willing to produce a broken product.
For example, if IE 7 and Firefox supported the exact same standards, people would use Firefox because it does the things that Microsoft dare not do - free source code, cross platform (they're still stuck on IE 5 for the Mac), platform neutral plugin support and far faster turnaround for bugfixes since the community has so many eyes on the code. Small wins for Firefox, but they are wins nevertheless.
The only good version of IE was version 3. It was going up against the well-established Netscape. They manged by making it leaner, faster and better. They had no legacy customers hooked on their product - and had to prove that they were worthy. Today they are lazy and their main goal is to maintain their supremacy and suppress the peons - not to wow them back into the fold.
The worst example of this would be, as far as I'm concerned: ActiveX. The tech might have sounded cool on paper - but in practice it was a disaster. It introduced a new type of executable to uninformed and uneducated users who were simply unable to comprehend how dangerous it was, and a raft of thieves and liars who were trying to take advantage of it. As far as security goes: Worst. Feature. Ever.
Putting ActiveX in a browser capable of accessing the internet is like storing apples in a bucket of medical waste: you'll be infected with something nasty and be completely fucked within a very short space of time. But Microsoft didn't care, so long as they had more corporate buzzwords to achieve platform lock-in with clueless customers.
And this corporate character oozes out their products. If Microsoft was a person, he would be a compusive liar, thief, bully and control freak. He would be unable to hold a conversation without trying to take something, and would be instantly hatable.
I use Microsoft Windows XP because I am forced to and am held hostage by the platform - but I am a bitter, angry hostage with brutal vengeance on my mind. Unless Microsoft makes a radical change to it's corporate attitudes, I will never willingly use IE again.
Consistent support? (Score:4, Funny)
Scrolling TBODY (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess there are two things in the whole world I want. The second is for IE to show me a big nasty error instead of my web page if it is not compliant with the DTD. If browsers worked that way the whole web would be in better shape.
There is only one update they need... (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to abandon zones, put the application in charge of the security of a window, and NEVER let a window open, launch, link to, or reference a "more trusted" object than the one the link, embedded object, what have you is referenced from.
That means IE would be a hard sandbox. If you want to use ActiveX components that aren't sandboxed, you need to run a separate program.
Yes, that means that Windows Update would need to be a separate application shell around the HTML control. That's a teeny tiny problem compared to these sneaky damn zones.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that improving a product to maintain one's marketshare, even if it is the vast majority, is in fact competition already. There's no reason that Microsoft can't make IE7 good. During the browser wars I used Explorer instead of Netscape because I really did like it better. Certainly they have the hackers and the resources to make the best browser if they want to. If Microsoft really does release a product better than Firefox, it will be sad to see the underdog lose, but really the consumers will win.
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would disagree with this. There are problems to be found in Firefox and other new browsers to be sure. The way things look it will be Firefox if anything that ends up with significant market share. To date, almost every Firefox vulnerability has still been related to the broken windows zone-based security model (read IE security model). The two big issues are ActiveX and that model. I believe that without ActiveX and that security model to ride on, NO BROWSER would ever carry the sort of spyware overhead we see today again. That includes IE, but I do not see Microsoft dropping their biggest market lockin 'features'.
I think Firefox will always be safe from spyware when compared to any browser with ActiveX. However, spyware was only one thing I mentioned. Everything else mentioned was a feature.
Big features from a user perspective.
-Spyware free weather status(any idea how many weatherbuggers there are?)
-Popup blocking that works (IE popup blocking does not 'work', largely thanks to popups launched by spyware.)
-Flashblocking (flash ads are notoriously annoying)
-Tabbed browsing. After browsing a link heavy site for two days with tabbed browsing, nobody will ever use a browser without this again.
Honestly I believe Favortism is the next biggest problem. The truth is that end users do NOT install functional software on their computers (although they will install cute little holiday related crap that breaks functional setups). Techs install software on their computers. If the local tech shop is still using IE, all of their customers will be using IE.
I once worked for a shop with a Microsoft bias. We were slammed with spyware problems and when doing a spyware cleanup I would routinely install firefox with a standard set of extensions. I showed people how to "open this page in IE" if they needed to and off they went.
If someone else did work for the user after that point I would get a call everytime regardless of the problem. The good ol' boy Microsoft techs would claim they couldn't work on these funky 'firething' setups. This included the boss. Finally I just gave up.
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Re:Too little...too late (Score:5, Insightful)
And Microsofts PR machine has a history of successfully turning around 180 degress. Just thinks of the events that lead to the first browser war.
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Remember winsock? (Score:5, Interesting)
No... Microsoft burned quite a few bridges with alot of people and unless they can turn that PR machine around 180 degrees, people will continue to see them as bullies who are looking out for nobody but themselves.
They got caught with their pants down in 1993-4 with the internet and TCPIP revolution, too. "It's good enough" certainly does sound framiliar. This was a multibillion dollar company that somehow MISSED THE WHOLE INTERNET THING. They pulled that one off and came out of it smelling like roses.
They got caught with their pants down AGAIN in 1997 with the widespread acceptance of Java and the beginnings of true cross-platform computing. They pulled turning that event into a stillbirth and came out of it smelling like roses.
So, here we are in 2005, and they've been caught again with a stagnant product in IE. Not just caught, but being actively made to look stupid by comparison by the third party browsers, and on top of all this, they have OSX and Apple breathing down their necks. I think the wake-up call has been heard.
I'm not a betting man, but I know where I'd be putting my dollars.
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Re:They want feedback? I'll give em FEEDBACK (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting an ad-blocker (pop-ups are fair game) on something as popular as IE would cause very serious disruptions to many, many websites (ie their revenue stream gets completely cut). Not to mention the inevitable lawsuit if doubleclick.net was in by default.
I think the request for it being GPL'd is wishful thinking too. Maybe you need to calm down?
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Re:So long, Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be an ammendment to Godwin's Law for people who resort to accusing others of working for the bad guy.
Though I don't believe it's "Goodbye FireFox", you cannot honestly say to me that IE7 doesn't have the potential to disrupt FF's market share.
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Re:Thank you, Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
In this IE6 world a webdesigner cannot use transparent pngs.
This is not completely true. PNGs with 8-bit alpha channels render correctly. Google maps uses this trick to create the push pin drop shadow.
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Re:Thank you, Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Your assertion is misleading.
Firefox, Opera, Safari, and other "niche" browsers render PNGs correctly, with the use of the 8-bit alpha channel. IE6, on the other hand, ONLY recognizes boolean transparency in PNGs -- in other words, it treats them like GIFs. It is possible to force IE5+ to recognize the full alpha channel, but only with the use of a Direct3D filter command.
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Re:I look forward to IE7. (Score:5, Funny)
I think I speak for us all when I say that we can look forward to an exciting new e-technology era where we can deploy plug-and-play e-services and engage mission-critical e-commerce at the click of a button, which will serve to enhance scalable e-business and orchestrate bleeding-edge content.
-- This post was brought to you by the Web Economy Bullshit Generator [dack.com]
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Re:IE will always be behind (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you an idiot?
It took the Mozilla project nearly five years to build what Firefox is today. Hell, Mozilla didn't even surpass IE4 until 2002, five years after IE4's release.
Microsoft went from not having a browser to having the *best* browser in two years.
If they have to, they will build a standards-compliant, fast, extensible browser.
The only question now is whether they will have to. But it already looks like the popularity of Firefox has answered that question.
The Mozilla Foundation has a lot of great talent. But they don't have 300 full-time developers. Microsoft has plenty of bright people - and plenty of money. Don't sell them short.
They are complacent, not stupid.
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