Slashdot Mirror
CSS Support Could Be IE7's Weakest Link
Ritalin16 writes "Many web developers may be disappointed to hear that Microsoft decided to hold off on full CSS2 support with IE 7.0. As said by Microsoft-Watch: 'One partner said that Microsoft considers CSS2 to be a flawed standard and that the company is waiting for a later point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3, before throwing its complete support behind it.'" More commentary available from ZDNet. Generally related to the IE 7 Acid Test thrown down by Opera.
Support CSS 2.1. We're really not picky. Anything is better than nothing.
going to hold off on alpha transparency for another 8 years too.
"One partner said that Microsoft considers CSS2 to be a "flawed" standard and that the company is waiting for a later point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3, before throwing its complete support behind it." If MS were so concerned about quality standards, they would embrace the best thing we have: CSS 2. And then, when 2.1 or 3 came along, they'd support that promptly.
I Want To Believe
Well, it probably does *help* to be doing acid when trying to get IE to work properly ...
See, that's the problem. It's just like Microsoft to say "We'll wait til later ( point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3) before throwing our complete support behind it" I don't understand! You have to plan for the future, no plan after the fact!
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
Maybe they should have a look in thier own products.
Certainly not slashdot, it seems. In fact, they don't seem to be adhering to any standards at all.
Funny how that open source superiority give slashcode cruddy HTML code and horrible, outdated design.
Even when you design a standards compliant webpage you still need to use hacks to get things to work and validate correctly. And because of IE who refuses to fully support CSS it just makes life more miserable for web developers wasting time on figuring out how to hack together their code to display correctly on all web browsers. I hope companies start designing webpages for Firefox only and it will display a message when you try to access the site in IE saying please use firefox to access this website.
This specification defines Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2). CSS2 is a style sheet language that allows authors and users to attach style (e.g., fonts, spacing, and aural cues) to structured documents (e.g., HTML documents and XML applications). By separating the presentation style of documents from the content of documents, CSS2 simplifies Web authoring and site maintenance.
CSS2 builds on CSS1 (see [CSS1]) and, with very few exceptions, all valid CSS1 style sheets are valid CSS2 style sheets. CSS2 supports media-specific style sheets so that authors may tailor the presentation of their documents to visual browsers, aural devices, printers, braille devices, handheld devices, etc. This specification also supports content positioning, downloadable fonts, table layout, features for internationalization, automatic counters and numbering, and some properties related to user interface.
more here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
Microsoft has once again decided that it's going to go its own way, and I'm sure this means more crippled MS pages that other browsers can't read. I'm going to start making it very clear to my customers now that MS has no intention of playing nice on the web, and recommending Opera or Firefox.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What makes CSS2.1 better than 2.0 enough not to support either? Is there something in their code base that gets funky when handling CSS?
"Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold." -- Joseph Chilton Pearce
I guess that's not THAT bad.. Sure it would be nice to have CSS2 support, but security seems to be the #1 thing everyone bitches about around here and is probably more important.
Then again, I can't really see why they don't do both...
MS complaining about broken standards.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Agreed, CSS needs some work, but its a hell of a lot better than nothing at all (or flawed support, anyways.) What gives?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Yesterday I had to make a page.
I made it in firefox with no problems. Then, I looked at it in IE and it was terrible. If I code to standards why can't microsoft make their products support standards?
We consider the standard to be flawed. So instead we will continue with our flawed support of the previous standard.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
We don't want to support your flawed standard so we can have a chance to push our own flawed standards.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
People will use IE7 because windows update will automatically put it in place of IE6 one day. It will fix some bugs and create others. It will not change how web developers create sites, it will not derail Firefox, it will not make people salivate for Longhorn.
What a load of crap! CSS3 builds up upon CSS2.1, and even though CSS2.1 is still a candidate recommendation, it's being pushed as the standard by the W3C (as evidenced by the fact they are linking to CSS 2.1 in the navigation menu of their CSS page)
Of course, some people are actually in favour of IE not supporting CSS any better than it currently does - with IE7 being unavailable on platforms older than XP, and any attempted improvement to CSS being likely to add more than it's share of CSS bugs, it would just make another browser developpers need to work around. The evil we know might just be better...
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
Once upon a time, this would have worked. Take the emerging layout standard that doesn't use your bizarro extensions and strange layout tactics, decide not to support it, and force everyone who wants slick new layout features to write for either you or everyone else, or else write every page twice.
But I'm not so sure this is a good idea now. The fact is that more and more people are getting to the point that they would rather write for everyone but IE rather than just IE. I think falling behind on standards while steaming ahead with the next generation of crappy proprietary extensions just isn't going to work again. In fact, I think this might accellerate the death of IE.
Bottom line: bad move. The correct response to more competition is to compete, not to stick your fingers in your ears and scream "LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING!"
adam b.
I just hope all those people who "defected" to firefox wont go "back to daddy" because "they've fixed it all"...
Didn't MS introduce their own "standard" for stylesheets at one point? Perhaps they're just gunning to introduce a new "MS standard" to blow off browsers using the real standard?
Let's put two and two together:
Perhaps the new microsoft motto will be "IE's not done till Google doesn't run"
This won't be a huge problem since Google can simply update their code. However, I wouldn't be surprised if alot of JS functionality that would be very useful to google either now or in the future is simply "missing" on IE7
There has been alot of talk of Google launching a new era of computing with the web as the OS. But Microsoft controls the web (through IE), and they won't allow the web to become a competitor to Windows.
Rename CSS2 to CSS2.1 or CSS3
It doesn't matter what's inside the documents.
MS only supports what it want's to support.
Think about it!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
obivously im not going to do that. It was just said out of frustration. Of course it would be stupid to block out the majority web browser from accessing your site.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing "CSS2" into google.
I read the title and thought, "CSS will be IEs weakest link? Something doesn't sound right."
This sounds like typical Microsoft logic. "Just wait a bit longer and something better will come out." CSS2 is here now and people are using it. Support it instead of forcing web designers to put in loads of ugly hacks just to make your bloated software work as it should in the first place.
Yeah, I'm bashing Microsoft but it is deserved in this case.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Oooooooh, if you want to be possessive, it's just I-T-S but if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's I-T apostrophe S. Scalawag.
adam b.
"I'm Microsoft, and I'm a big monopoly, so I'm arbitrarily deciding not to support standards I don't like. For no other reason than I don't like them. Secretly, it's just because I don't want to adopt standards that compete with my own, but my managers have told me to tell everyone I just think it's a buggy implementation. I never make any of those..."
Someone should start an organization that publicly hands out awards to companies that severely hinder the progress of technology. Microsoft would win every year. The web has been held back for seven years now because IE won't properly support CSS2. That's like someone developing an improved version of gasoline that costs and pollutes less, and then none of the gas stations adopting it for close to a decade even though it's cheap and available. You look back and shake your head that all this time, people could have been saving money and polluting the air less and they have no idea.
The general public doesn't even realize the web would look and interact much better than it does now. We should have been visiting more advanced websites years ago. But the web still looks and functions the way it did in 2000, because the majority browser IE doesn't adopt technological progress. It's times like these I wish I was rich enough to run public service commercials that stated all this, just to inform people how they're being hindered without even knowing it.
If they had made a more specific mention of their problems with CSS2. OK, it's flawed, would a little constructive commentary on how to fix it kill them? Is it not flexible enough? Too flexible? Too hard to extend in a proprietary way?
Insert pithy comment here.
When Firefox, Opera, and other browsers got burned by the support for IDN and phishing exploits associated with it, IE looked good for not having IDN support. It will be interesting to me to see if Microsoft noticed it and will offer users a choice to turn off IDN support.
Dicks.
If Bill had to wipe his ass with the TP the 'rest of us' use, we wouldn't have this problem. Unfortunately for us, he uses only the freshly washed hands of his underlings' children.
DAMN YOU, GATES!
Someone should make a ie "plug in" that handdles ccs. We have a couple open rendering engines (geko/khtml)..
Could this be done?
...CFS: Cascade Failure Sheets. These are CSS which cause IE to crash taking Explorer with it followed by kernel32 and then your sanity...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I call it plain incompetance.
This is how MS works, they ignore the standards and develop their own BS version that sucks. Of course the MS BSSS will require hacks and tweaks for web pages to look the same on other browsers. With the effect of customers rolling over on their back, and have their tummy's rubbed by MS's browsers.
This is F'd up. Kill MS
Why was I modded "flamebait?" Internet Explorer's broken support of CSS2 has hindered its full adoption for years. Microsoft now controls the standards of the Web unless web developers speak out VERY loudly to drown out their press releases.
What is there in CSS2 that is really needed/useful then? I am a pretty pitiful HTML coder (as you can witness on my website), so I need an expert to explain to me. :)
Get your own free personal location tracker
If everyone followed the standard it would be easy. /. readers would be out of work.
If it were easy then anyone could do it.
If anyone could do it then half of
So, this is good news.
My sigs offend the max # of people all over the world, regardless of race, religion, color, sex or creed. It's a gift.
CSS is only considered by M$ to be a "flawed standard" because they didn't have enough input in setting the standard in a way that makes it easy for them to take the standard in a narrow-minded direction. This is the rebellion of a netizen that is not happy when other bodies start setting the standards for once.
Can we get the parent modded up? It's ridiculous for any employee of Slashdot to be criticizing anyone for their lack of support for web standards.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Not ANY of the MSIE browsers supports ANY CSS, not even CSS1, none! You see the first C in CSS actually means CASCADING, no Microsoft browser has ever handled this (inheritance) properly, none!
So I'd say LET THEM FOCUS ON SUPPORTING CSS1 FIRST.
And yes, I'm really p#$%#%d off!
All this guy did is do a Google search on CSS2 and paste it here. That deserves +5 karma?
It's redundant, not informative. Any of us could have easily done a search for "css2."
I'm surprised it hasn't been said:
Wouldn't supporting CSS 2.1 or CSS 3 imply support for CSS 2? These standards are backwards-compatible, right?
I bet Microsoft loves it if people start saying CSS is the weakest link; because it'll distract people from the real issues.
If "css support" for IE will be considered its "weakest link", I guess microsoft finally did the right thing and started classifying "easy-remote assistance (from ex-kgb agents)" and "personal data proliferation" as browser features.
MS has 90% of the market on web browsers.
If IE displays things differently then other browsers which will most companies choose? The 10% or the 90%?
Now if IE were to adapt the standards then it would loose that advantage, so from their perspective a non-MS standard IS a flawed standard...
Wouldn't a company who owns over 90% of the market essentially dictate what is an what isn't a standard?
If Microsoft doesn't back CSS2 then CSS2 has no chance of becoming a standard.
Not even CSS2 support - what are they thinking?
Perhaps they are too busy trying to fix their extremely broken support for the standard HTML button element (*not* input type="button").
I dislike CSS because it makes the most common layout formatting (columns) hard to implement. I also dislike that it has no inheritance. Just as an arbitrary illustration, I get sick of writing:
instead of, say:
Great concept, mediocre execution. This "flawed standard" garbage, however, is just a lame excuse.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
Since when did Microsoft care whether something was flawed or not?
Unless by "flawed" they mean that if they were to actually implement an open and recognised standard it could threaten their business model of lock-in.
Microsoft seem to be abusing their position in the industry market place so flagrantly is amazes me how they continue to do so without anything being done about it.
The only thing flawed here is the system... Why is it that there is no-one with enough might to prevent big corporations from assuming so much power and control?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
and will not consider supporting it for a while ..
life in low-res
Everything Microsoft did to date, from word processor to compilers to full operating systems, has only become usable (and in some cases, barely) in the third version. Why then would they expend their hard extorted monopoly money on a version 2 of anything?
Many web developers may be disappointed to hear that Slashdot has decided to hold off on full CSS2 compatibility in the Slashcode product line....
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've decided that from here on out I will invoice my CSS time for IE seperately. Being that I create most browser interfaces in XHTML and all layout is 100% CSS, I will now isolate the huge chunk of time I must spend on each project for IE compatability. I will also make it clear UPFRONT by making an accountance in my proposol for just how my design time will be devided up and how much time I estimate to spend on IE compatability vs supporting the rest of the world.
Why single IE out on my invoices and proposols? To let companies know where that extra $2,000.00 went for 20-30 hours of my time. That's why. And in hopes that they will opt not to engage in that expenditure.
I'd urge all other UI designers and developers to do the same.
And if the client decides that they wish not to support IE, a small victory shall have been won.
It was fine 5-6 years ago to say "Ooops -- you're using that Netscape piece of shit, please come back using a real browser"
I say it's time we start doing this again, but for IE and for the exact same reasons.
My thoughts exactly.
Is it a technical flaw or just something which doesn't fit the current MS business model for IE?
quoted from the article: "'CSS 2.0 has a few nice features, but realistically, I don't think it being in there makes much difference either way,' said a Windows developer, who requested anonymity." nice... "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -BG I mean really, no out there is actually using CSS, why should Microsoft put so much effort into a non-standard? please don't kill me, I am being sarcastic...
Try it:
Wasn't that better?
It's "flawed" because (A) it isn't in their patent portfolio, (B) they didn't invent it, (C) they don't make money off of it, and (D) it doesn't improve their marketshare or "mindshare". In other words, it's "flawed" because it isn't a Microsoft product.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Who are they to talk about things being 'flawed'?
I am a webdesigner.
And I am SICK of IE having half- CSS support. It is a struggle to contstantly hacking CSS to fit IE needs. I like my layouts to have some fire, some pizzaz. But if IE can't display CSS right, all my simple CSS ideas turn into ugly hacks so they display right in IE.
CSS 2 is flawed??? Since when is MS have the almighty power to judge W3C?? The Pot is Calling the Kettle Black...
ooh im steamed...
How the fuck is talking about Slashdot's lack of web standards in a story about web standards off topic?
Would the person who modded the parent down like to explain their actions?
Or shall we assume it was an editor and that no explanation will be forthcoming?
Used to be when looking at M$ products I'd say "wait for the point release". No way was I running dos 6, I waited for 6.1, windows 3, I waited for 3.1, etc. Now M$ wants to wait for CSS 2.1!
Everything old is new again!
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
What I do is build the site in Firefox so it renders perfectly. I know it'll likely render fine in Mozilla (obviously), Safari and Opera. But IE is likely to screw up positioning.
So I then add extra lines: * html div#content { top: 100px; /* hack for IE */
}
just after the correct code to move things
around on IE. IE is broken and interprets
the "* html", whereas other browsers correctly
ignore it.
In a very few cases I simply disable features in the IE version until it works - IE users get a slightly less nice looking site, but that's their problem.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
M$'s explanation as to why they're not supporting CSS2 seems unjustified, and in my heart of hearts -- which usually likes to see the good in the world before the bad -- makes me feel like they're trying to cover for what is in effect a back-door vendor lock-in to M$ products, if not just forcing submission through frustration.
eric http://www.ericdfields.com/
People tend to assume that every Microsoft action is part of some evil master plan. The truth is that they're stumbling around in the dark a lot. The software development effort is conspicuously out of control, and many of their projects are a total mess.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Okay, let's now start tossing out possible reasons Microsoft wouldn't want to support CSS properly.
I'm guessing it, in some way, has to do with Market edge. More specifically, since a great deal of web sites design their pages to work with [flawed] MSIE rendering, all other browsers might be perceived as broken or inferior by the end user. "It worked fine under MSIE... let's just go back to it."
Essentially, I believe this demonstrates harm to the internet community at large and an effective hijacking of internet standards. Perhaps it would be considered a frivolous lawsuit in the end, but perhaps the W3C should file some sort of suit against Microsoft over the matter. It's the only thing that they and the public at large seems to understand really. "Why is Microsoft being sued again? Breaking the internet? Crap!"
I've been a harsh critic of MS myself over the years, but I'm getting the feeling there's more to it than not having a plan.
I was just over at SDWest, in Santa Clara, on Wednesday for the only sessions I could tear myself away from the desk for and think this may have more to do with some actual forward thinking.
I'm not sure how they're implimenting style sheets in ASP.NET 2.0, but man, if you hated developing it in for all the crap you had to do with style sheets, you'll probably be impressed with how much less you have to fsck around with them with the level of style develpment to be present in VS 2005. Beta2 will be out on the 31st and I suggest having a lock at it.
I really HATED dependency on stylesheets in VS 2003, so I'm familiar with pain. As for IE 7.0, I haven't seen it and could care less. MS actually has WORKED to impreove FIREFOX support in ASP.NET (is it snowing in Hell, yet?)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Keep web sites simple and clean? Forget about the fancy crap and let me get to the information I need ASAP? Just a thought.
Isn't proper CSS support one of the weak links in all of the Internet Explorer browsers? Even simple things like:
used to create a navigation using list items for links (since the navigation is a list of links), displays fine in Firefox (anchors fill their block), but displays funny in IE (where the anchors fill their block, but with a gap on the left where the list marker would be)Bottom line is, Microsoft has just shown, once again, that the only standard they care about is their own. Hopefully, the sheep who continue to support them will be shown the light, and learn that there are alternatives.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
This is Slashdot! Forget CSS, Windows is IE7s the weakest link.
Long live Firefox! Long live Linux! Burn Bill Gates Alive!
or as now also exceptable
Long live Safari! Long live OS X! Burn Bill Gates Alive!
or not to forget the lynx or links people
long live lynx/21 long live sunos v.4.1/21 burn bill gates alive/21
No javascript, no ECMAscript - just jscript.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
It may or may not be built on a layer of shit, but it does look good in first impression. Quantum better than web develpment was in VS and VS 2003.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since we're talking about bringing old beasts up to date on CSS - how's Slashdot's CSS-isation coming about?
Please, no "do it yourself" quips - I have no intention of learning perl in the near future, and have other projects to attend to.
You pedantic bastard.
Companies don't come out and say 'we are trying to undermine the standard for strategic reasons'.
Instead they say
- the standard is flawed,
- the standard process is flawed,
- it isn't what our customers are asking for,
- we have created something better,
etc.
And sometimes there might even be some truth in some of these, but that's not the point. The reader must translate.
Hey, even Trolltech are doing it now.
IMHO, Microsoft is not the deciding factor in this. In the case of battles over standards, Netscape has been a willing participant. In this case, all that has to be done is to get the codebase to support all existant standards as far as humanly possible.
Instead of trying to fight Microsoft, shift the playing-field. Don't expect them to play fair, so don't let them play. Apache and PHP didn't become popular with Microsoft's blessing. They became popular because they did the job and they did it the best.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Same reason why companies write software for only windows box. Its called development costs.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I got the following unexpected response when trying to retrieve :
Is slashdot trying to hide something?403 Forbidden
Please make sure you have entered the URL correctly.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
CSS is related to open source... how?
This seems contradictory with comments by Chris Wilson, IE Developer, on the IE web log last week:
"We will continue to improve our compliance under strict mode even when it breaks compatibility"
and
"Microsoft does respond to customer demand; web developers are our customers."
See http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2004/10/15/243074 .aspx.
Even the devs want it to work right... if only they could get these ideas through to execs
(Sorry I think /. is breaking the link, you'll want to copy and paste)
here.
One of the major benefits of CSS is you can specify CSS files for differing display devices.
IE may be the master in the desktop browser market, but the more companies want to deliver their web applications to non-desktop platforms (cell phones, pda's etc) the more they will be coding using w3c standards.
MS can't fight innovation forever.
People have already done this for free - demonstrating huge file-size savings (translating directly to money for whoever runs this site, anyone there? !?), not to mention making it far easier to change the style of the site, adjust colours etc etc etc. I can't be bothered to dig up a link but there are several sites about it.
:
I imagine it's more to do with this
the code base could be such a huge mess
There is a reason that deadlines are pushed back (repeatedly). MS is at this point such a behemoth and so ambitious in promises/updates, that I can pretty much guarantee something will suffer.
If CSS suffers on IE in favor of a more secure browser, that's 100% fine with me. If XMLHTTP is modified significantly, I will take serious issue, because I can see that as the future. And no, web devs are NOT being held back by IE's quirks, but rather few know how to code good UI on the web. Coding C/PERL is one thing...developing an intuitive UI is quite another.
I'm frankly more worried about MyLifeBits as far as privacy and Indigo for security. But, with feature creep undoubtedly underway, this may be an issue in 2010 or so...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
MS have hardly ever embraced or complied with any common standards. They always plagiarise the original idea and make an MS-specific non-compliant product.
I don't see why they would change now.
I suppose you think
his hers theirs
should be
hi's her's their's
Please tell me you were one of the anonymous, mouth-breathing troglodytes that sat in the back row of my public school English classes. I would hate to think that your parents wasted their hard-earned money sending you to a private school.
As a web developer, I am sick and tired of Microsnot knocking the standards instead of embracing them.
Other browsers have embraced Web Standards, the developer community has united and pushed for browser developers to embrace web standards, and yet Microscrap still doesn't get it. And so, I have to include in my CSS code "hacks" to get around IE's disobedience to the Box Object Model, etc.
So what do we do about it?
Boycott IE.
The Technical How-to:
Developers can exclude IE altogether by using Javascript to sniff-out IE, and only render CSS tags in non-IE browsers. Site visitors would still see content, but they would also see a "...this site boycotts IE because..." message that is normally hidden to non-IE browsers.
The Business How-to:
Show your project managers how much time is wasted trying to get an ordinarily simple design to work with CSS in IE. Then show them how easy it is in Firefox, Safari, and other "compliant" browsers. Then slam a copy of "Designing with Web Standards" by Jeffery Zeldman on their desk and tell them to read it. (While we're at it, send a copy to Bill Gates and tell him he should read it too, the big fat...ahem....)
If sites everywhere were suddenly replaced with bland layouts for IE users only, and a message stating why, both Microsnort and users would get the message.
I know this will never happen because of business rules, because so much of the corporate world kisses Microshafts' butt, and for a gazillion more reasons, but still -- it feels good to get it off my pasty-white chest.
I love your qualifier of "quite reasonably" when talking about how well Slashdot adheres to HTML 3.2. Since we can't check at the W3C's Validator due to the fact that Slashdot doesn't want us to check, we'll have to use something else like Validome.
And what do you know, it fails even 3.2 validation.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Fuck you
MS fully realizes that the CSS facilitates the development of weblications, like google's gmail/maps/suggest.
MS fully realizes that rise of weblications does no good to the Windows world.
MS won't fully implement CSS standard.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Oh shut up please. Maybe your clients will come back and say, "Hey! I dont really give a fuck about the browsers with 5% of the market, I want this working on IE and you better fucking make it work on IE FIRST, or I'll find somebody who can. $2000 more huh, well fuck YOU right back."
For years, all we've had are the same widgets for web development:
textbox, textarea, select box, radio button, checkbox, file, etc.
Where are the new standard widgets? I want a select-box that I can both type into, and choose from pre-filled options. I want smarter select-boxes with columns as the standard. I want lockable columns and headers without having to do DHTML trickery.
Evolve! It's great to have all of this backward compatability, but it's time for some of these elements to become standard browser elements instead of relying on 3rd party implementations to meet the needs of users.
What a great way to make sure nobody ever hires you.
If you were working for me as a web developer and came back with a site that did not work correctly with 90% of web browsers, I certainly wouldn't pay your invoice. I'd also probably try to find a way sue your ass for delaying whatever business initiative I had going.
Microsoft had better be joking. After all, even if they see a version of CSS as flawed, a ton of web sites use it, not having compliant support for the standard would make unnecessary trouble for many web developers. This sort of thing sounds really arrogant coming from the same team that introduced the non-standard Microsoft way of doing things into just about virtually everything. (They put in a hack for IE to have it evaluate JavaScript expressions in CSS for example. Using this feature is one way to work around their non-existant support for the max/min-width properties in CSS. HMM.)
Kudo's to you -- Modd this one Way UP!!!
The beauty of this is its simplicity. It is a great way to show PHB's the fact the IE is flawed, and not all the other browsers out there. I would just add that you may want to have a plan for the PHB's arguement over the extra charge.
PHB: What is this $2,000 charge for?
Developer (pulling out 2 images of page without IE hacks): here is what your page looks like in IE, and here what it looks like in all other browsers.
Developer: (pausing for effect) And this would have only cost you X dollars.
I design webpages as a hobby, as an activity for enjoyment. (I am a High School Math teacher by trade) I have created (what I find) to be some wonderful designs, only to have them F'ed up by I.E. when I try to show them to a friend or colleague. Then spend hours fixing it in IE and trying not to break it in everything else. I have mostly given up on IE.
They will build IE 7, and when it's done they can rewrite the standards they came close to supporting to be exactly what their browser does.
It's the easiest way to be standards compliant, otherwise they have to read and implement support for a whole lot of stuff the competition has already embraces.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if alot of JS functionality that would be very useful to google either now or in the future is simply "missing" on IE7
...Or perhaps you just need to take your 'paranoid episode' medicine. Really, go outside and take a deep breath of fresh air.
But Microsoft controls the web (through IE), and they won't allow the web to become a competitor to Windows.
Microsoft controlls JACK on the web. A lot of people just use their browser to view it with. Other than getting people in the habbit of using MS products, that is the extent of any control they have. If they don't keep up, people will just bypass them. Look at tabbed browsing. MS didn't impliment it, and now they are playing catch up. The web cannot compete with windows. One is an operating system. The other is a collection of pr0n, egomanical blog rants, and photos of peoples cats. And since a photo of 'mr. snuggums' won't boot my damn computer, I don't see any competition between the two.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Should be: Microsoft Could Be IE7's Weakest Link
could be they are unable to make ie7 compliant . the mish mash of secutity patches and how it was bolted onto windows itself may require a complete re-write of the OS and that may be the real reason why they say they wont support CSS
If a page doesn't adhere to standards, but renders well in popular browsers, what's the problem?
Slashdot is adhering to the ad hoc standard of "if it renders well, it's good enough". And quite honestly, I can't see that standard dying for a long, long time.
It's not on the same plane as the world's most popular web browser not supporting standards.
Last post!
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
See ''CSS considered unstylish''.
If you ask me, the biggest problem is the lack of reference implementations. Seven years (or whatever) after the final release of CSS2, nobody, and I mean nobody, has provided a 100% working implementation of CSS2. Firefox et al come close, but it looks like implementing CSS is just too damn hard.
The problem may lie in the W3C approach: ''specs come first, implementations can follow later''. Compare this to the IETF approach where working implementations are required for a standard to be approved.
With the current approach that the W3C is using, you can end up with things like CSS2 that take years to implement properly even though we're just talking about a system for applying styling to HTML.
IE7, or just IE6 with tabbed browsing and some setting tweaking?
Oh yeah, and integration of Microsoft's anti-competition software. I can't wait to get my hands on this.
There are RUMORS people. The fact is, MS hasn't made any definite statements about IE7, except for announcing that there will be one. They've been very tight lipped about it, even within our internal-only IE discussion lists. Lets not waste our breath discussing this 'issue'.
I read the article as "We can't control open standards and prefer to use a proprietary one instead". Watch for an MS version of CSS
Anyway that is just speculation.
But instead of playing catchup and waiting forever for IE7 why dont we add support for CSS via a plugin for IE?
Webmasters who use shockwave automatically refer Firefox and IE users to shockwaves website for a plugin. Why can't an OSS CSS plugin be written for IE? Then webmasters can finally start using modern CSS features that the other browsers support.
http://saveie6.com/
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. When you show them what it looks like in IE without the hacks, they assume that it's your fault, that you are crap at coding, and that you are wasting your time and their money by not coding for IE in the same amount of time as other things.
PHBs will never understand. Some bosses do, like mine for example, but many, many don't.
I think that the latest incarnation of CSS may be the "standard", but since IE is by far and away the most popular browser its method of rendering pages is actually the de facto standard.
I don't know how many times I've read this statement from other people - "I like Firefox/Mozilla, but it doesn't render my bank/news/etc site correctly so I have to use IE." Or "I would use another browser but I support IE at work." A lot of people are stuck with IE because of its poor interoperability.
Now why would MS decide to spend money on extra development effort on a project that earns no revenue in order to increase interoperability, thereby incouraging web developers to fix their web sites so that competing browsers can render them correctly? This loses them both dollars and marketshare.
Just make sure that the target platform wasn't IE all along before you go and do that. Charging extra for compatibility with the primary target platform would be a bad move. ;p This would be like me writing an application for MacOS X then charging the client to port it to Win32 when the target platform was Win32 all along.
Since when has Microsoft been concerned about using something that's flawed?
Look at Microsoft's track record, Microsoft usually implements things whether they're flawed or not.
Obviously this is just because it wants to retain the ability to screw sites up for everybody that's not using IE.
One partner said that Microsoft considers CSS2 to be a flawed standard and that the company is waiting for a later point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3, before throwing its complete support behind it
But CSS 2.1 is already out?
It separates the content from the formatting. View source on a few pages, some formatted with tables and some with CSS, and see for yourself. (Hint: The website you're reading right now is a table formatted nightmare.)
What they only support their own flawed standards?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
MS wants to push ASP and .net. I can't belive nobody gets the hint. MS has their own standard, why embrace the competition?
Once Gmail has gotten a significant share they can retaliate via that. Include a few nifty features and make a link to FF, stating you need this to use it. Once FF is a 20%+- MS can no longer dictate anything.
Help fight continental drift.
I guess this explains why you think it's a good idea to snub customers. As important as web standards are, cross-browser site compatibility is NOT the customer's problem to solve. It's the developer's problem. To give an analogy, let's say you were paying a moving company $2000 to move your stuff from Chicago to LA. Then they say that it will take a month instead of 2 weeks unless you pay $1500 extra because one of the stretches of highway is rough and doesn't have nice rest/gas stations. Are you going to start lobbying and writing to state officials for highway improvements or simply find another moving company? I think the latter is more likely.
I don't do freelance web development anymore, but if I did I'd be happy to compete with the original poster for his business by using internally available and re-usable tools/techniques to solve the compatibility problems. Yes, I've had frustrating times in the past trying to resolve differences in, say, the IE vs Gecko event model or the box model. But solving these things once, re-using the solution, and smiling nicely when the customer comes back for another project is good business.
Even if they wanted to support thin clients and make IE better, they would not want to support standards. Why? Well as soon as they support a standard that allows websites to do more good things, then there will be websites that do these good things. If more websites do more good things based on standards, then suddenly it becomes a lot easier to switch from IE to Firefox or Opera, or for that matter from Windows to Linux or OSX. However, if websites can only get some "cool" functionality by using either ActiveX/DHTML/MSXML or by using CSS 2, then of course they will pick the MS option because there are so many more IE users. And of course that will make it impossible for users of said website to switch from Windows/IE to anything else.
They can't do it in a reasonable time frame. That browser is so tied up with intricate Microsoftisms it would take a complete rewrite to make it work properly and if they're going to do that, why not just buy opera and make it IE? At least they'd have a decently secure browser.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
there is no reason that anybody doing a major overhaul of a browser at this late date would fail to support CSS , other than they are a monopoloy trying to prevent the emergence of competition.
This is exactly why so many of us were concerned about bundling IE with windows, all those many moons ago. By allowing them to leverage their desktop monopoly into a browser monopoly, the courts have allowed them to establish another monopoloy in the browser arena. By distributing IE with windows, they destroyed the possibility of outside innovation in the commercial sphere. Now that innovation switched to the open source arena, they will try to kill that by torpedoing standards.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You have to put in INCREDIBLE amount of effort to do make even the simplest things work. Ever tried centering a block object on the page _without_ using tables? I use CSS2 in my work, and it's suitable for simple things like borders, colors, fonts, etc. Unfortunately, for a lot of design tasks it's more pain than it's worth, even if you code for just Firefox.
"he only reason Microsoft doesn't support CSS properly is that they don't OWN it."
Considering Microsoft has sucessfully patented CSS, I don't see how they don't "own" it. Even if they have given W3C a license to it.
Burn Hollywood Burn
So the one feature that most of their customers really, really want, Microsoft isn't going to implement. What was it that Jackson said - 'many innovations that would truly benefit customers never happen becuase it isn't in Microsoft's interest to do so'. Jackson had these guys pegged as the unrepentant criminals that they really are. It is unfortunate that some indiscreet comments to a writer allowed them to get off scot free.
Fuck that, i'd rather have a flawed standard followed to the letter on all major browsers than 10 totally incompatable half-hearted implementations of the same format making even simple tasks such as positioning a box on the screen a fucking nightmare. Microsoft should follow the standard in their 'strict' mode and do whatever they want in the other modes.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Its called fire fox. There simply is no reason to use IE.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
How about fixing persistant connections? HTTP 1.1 is probably also flawed, so you shouldn't fix that, right Microsoft?
This would be like me writing an application for MacOS X then charging the client to port it to Win32 when the target platform was Win32 all along.
Not really. In your analogy, you are writing an application for MacOS X. What he wants to do is write an application that works on every platform. Right now, that would be possible if it wasn't for Microsoft continually sabotaging the standards.
It was fine 5-6 years ago to say "Ooops -- you're using that Netscape piece of shit, please come back using a real browser" I say it's time we start doing this again, but for IE and for the exact same reasons.
It was never "fine." Simply because it became a common practice, doesn't make it right. It wasn't even a matter of time or cost; it was a matter of developers with lousy skill sets and a tendency to trend-hop to the latest browser technology. It's tu quoque fallacy to suggest that such practices in the past justify their revival, and ultimately it hurt the actual users.
Which brings us back back to the matter of your scheme for highlighting IE development cost. It makes more sense for the company to hire a developer with the required skill set to support the majority target browser from the beginning at a fraction of your transition cost. If you're already under contract for such work, and pull such a stunt, you seem to be pushing your employer toward hurting their users in the immediate future. It's incredibly unprofessional, and not your place.
The minority of designers actually work from standards, and fewer have the required comprehension level to understand them in a meaningful way. They develop for target browsers, and if their browser of choice happens to claim full standard support, they sing it from the hilltops. Some will validate their code, though even the W3C's validators don't adequately pick out IE's potholes. If you start pulling out big bills for IE support, your potential employers will start pulling in cheaper IE-centric developers, and risk aggrivating the situation.
I don't like what Microsoft is doing. I don't like Internet Explorer. I really wish people would switch, but I'm not going to target the user, either directly or indirectly. The user shouldn't be the one to suffer simply because some people hold a religious view regarding web standards. What you're suggesting is negative re-enforcement, rather than positive re-enforcement. Like running a political campaign on the dark private life of your opponent. The user should decide what their computer runs, not me, and hopefully not you.
Re-ignite the browser wars! Freedom to code to real standards! Viva La Revolution!
Here's the thinking, don't ban IE for business customers. Just sniff out MSIE on public sites and redirect to an informational page as to why MSIE is crap. Then give them a FireFox link.
If this starts happening on enough sites, it will snowball into a rather large revolution and it will promote FireFox adoption.
I would love to see this on popular weblogs, sites for downloading WAV's, MP3's, etc., etc.
The average users will simply start using FireFox, the market share will jump quickly and then businesses will begin to follow.
Time to take a stand and stick it to MSIE! I am really fed up with the security problems that lead to viruses, trojans, and spyware!
Make the entertainment side of the Internet FireFox only and literally block out MSIE! It's useless to try to appease businesses, but if their users start loading FireFox and use it, eventually, they will need to adapt themselves.
Taco basically responded that they should submit the code as a Slashcode patch, and he would consider it. I guess that didn't pan out. Basically what they did was use already rendered HTML output from Slashdot and used it to craft a CSS for. What will actually require changes, however, will be that underlying, godawful, horrible mess of Perl code that powers Slashdot.
Taco has been hyping a new layout for Slashdot for years, along with that mysterious new moderation system we've been hearing about that never comes. I won't get my hopes up.
The real reason why Microsoft does not fully embrace W3C standards is because they want to move away from browser-based application. This is also the reason why they let IE development go into the tank.
In the browser-based application model, MS does not control the desktop. They have competitions from Firefox and Opera. More importantly, MS also does not control the server. They have competition not only from Apache, but also Google, Amazon, eBay, AOL, and anyone who publishes a web application.
Microsoft's aim is to control both ends of a network application. And the way they are going to do this is to replace HTTP web servers with IIS and Exchange Server and to replace web browsers with Outlook. The .NET platform is just a step towards that goal. If you accept IIS/Exchange and Outlook as a server/client network application platform, there is no need for W3C standards. It also eliminates any competition, or at least make the competition dependent on Microsoft technologies.
Therefore, any effort that Microsoft expends into making "the web" more usable, such as CSS compliance and updates to IE, only enhances the browser-based application model and hurts Microsoft in the long run.
Yeah, I'm bashing Microsoft but it is deserved in this case.
It's deserved in most cases. Their track record is abominable, whether your referring to their vaporware products that never materialized but kept people from buying the products of early innovators who were thus driven out of business and the retrograde consiquences on technological development in IT, their habit of intimidating their own customers into locking themselves into their products ("if you standardize on Netscape we'll charge you triple for every copy of Windows!"), their habit of obsconding with the ideas and concepts of others and claiming it as their own "innovation," their habit of violating anti-trust law, their patenting of every trivial idea under the sun, their dirty tricks in ramming software patents down the throat of Europeans (better get used to being on your knees, folks), or their habit of producing appallingly shoddy hardware.
Just because Microsoft is being bashed nearly all of the time doesn't mean they haven't earned almost every bit of it the old fashioned way, by being unbearably despicable and discovering new, innovative ways to behave badly.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I guess this explains why you think it's a good idea to snub customers.
In what way is he snubbing them?
As important as web standards are, cross-browser site compatibility is NOT the customer's problem to solve.
It becomes their problem when they have to pay extra to have a website that works in Internet Explorer. They have to pay extra because it's more work. It's more work because Internet Explorer is extremely deficient in a number of areas.
To give an analogy, let's say you were paying a moving company $2000 to move your stuff from Chicago to LA. Then they say that it will take a month instead of 2 weeks unless you pay $1500 extra because one of the stretches of highway is rough and doesn't have nice rest/gas stations. Are you going to start lobbying and writing to state officials for highway improvements or simply find another moving company?
If the analogy were accurate, the other moving companies would simply charge the extra without telling you why.
Other web developers don't magically take less time to work around Internet Explorer's problems just because they don't list it as a separate line item on the invoice.
I'd be happy to compete with the original poster for his business by using internally available and re-usable tools/techniques to solve the compatibility problems.
You can't solve the compatibility problems, only Microsoft can do that. Things like Dean Edwards' work goes a long way, but is dependent upon Javascript, which is unacceptable for many purposes.
Beautiful CSS. www.csszengarden.com
I mean honestly, there comes a point..
Quack, quack.
I'd be just as happy to see IE7 fully support CSS1... let's not take things too quickly, guys. *sigh*
I guess we should just step up evangelizing other browsers. We should compare IE to paint, and other browsers (like firefox, opera, etc) to programs like photoshop and psp. If IE had under 50% market share, I'd bet 10 to 1 they'd be supporting CSS, and IE7 would have been out by now.
The company is waiting for THEIR markup language to be ready.
They will downplay the use of css until they can finish and implement their 'browserless' longhorn OS's 'super-html language'
If they can keep developers from fully embracing the css/wc3 standards long enough they can slide their proprietary language in with an OS upgrade, and walla, the defacto standard for viewing/displaying the web on all (MS) machines is now their personal design... (I don't rememebr the acronym for the language 'extension' they're planning, something like xa-html i think, but its a building block, along with trusted computing/vault technology, in their push towards 'leased' software )
Obviously, just a guess/opinion.
And so the employer would promptly reply "2,000$ to support IE? well, 80% of our visitors use it, so forget about CSS".
So maybe the lost the source code to IE 6 (in a crash maybe?). So IE 7 is just going to be IE 6 with the filed hex edited to show a different version...:-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Excellent rebuttal to the grandparent, who's naysaying somehow was modded +5 insightful. (Of course, I forgot. This is SlashDot, where acrimony is valued more than contribution, critique more than the critiqued.)
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
The Emperor has made a critical error and the time for our attack has come.
The data brought to us by microsoft-watch.com pinpoints the exact location of the Emperor's new web browser. We also know that the CSS systems of this Internet Explorer are not yet operational. With the Imperial Lawyers spread throughout the country in a vain effort to engage us, it is relatively unprotected. But most important of all, we've learned that the Emperor himself is personally overseeing the final stages of the construction of this Internet Explorer.
Many nerds died, sweaty, alone, and virgins to bring us this information. Admiral Ackbar, please.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
CSS2's primary flaw (and really the only thing that gives me the red ass) is how it handles the box model. IE's nonstandard method is just plain better, ESPECIALLY when working with liquid layouts. (And before anyone gets on my case, my browser of choice is Konq, so blow me.)
:after) and attribute selectors ([type="text"]) I'd be happy! The selectors REALLY HELP keep things contextual and reduce the need to use classes for very much. And while I'm whining let me include... GET YOUR FUCKING PNG SUPPORT WORKING YOU MONOPOLISTIC COCKSUCKERS!
It works like this, in CSS when you create a div and give it a width/height of 100px, a border of 2px and padding of 10px you get a box that's actually 124px wide since padding and border are calculated on top of width. In standard CSS2 "width" applies to the width of content and not to the box as a whole. In IE width is the total width.
Standard CSS2 becomes really annoying when you want, say, multiple columns set at a liquid width with padding and borders. If you want two columns at 50% (not a good idea for web design anyway, but a simple example) there's no good way to do it in CSS2 if you want to give the divs padding or a border of any kind. (I don't consider container divs a "good way".) Give them 2px borders and suddenly their width is 50% + 2px which breaks the layout. No one doing design thinks in terms of content width. We think in terms of total width. (Unless you've worked with CSS for a while, then your brain becomes miswired.) In IE you can use 50% and then go ahead and add padding and borders and life is peachy and there's no need for any container divs or other annoying workarounds.
In theory, CSS3 will let you define which method you want to use for boxes in a stylesheet. So by about 2010 none of this will be an issue anyway. *sigh*
Honestly, I like CSS a lot. The box model is my only real beef with it. Most of the other issues I have aren't with CSS but with the differing implimentations.
Seriously, if IE would just support fucking selectors ( > and + ), a few more of the pseudo classes (:active), pseudo elements (:before,
Ahhh...
Also, any developers interested in having some fun with getting IE to work in a standards compliant way, take a look at this:
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
Well, I think I'll wait for the point-release of IE7 that supports CSS properly then!
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
You charge $2k for 20 hours of work? For... web design? I must be working in the wrong market if you can get away with those prices.
I think the CSS working group are not focusing on CSS achieving it's full potential.
Take a look at the display properties
Why would anybody want to use display: inline-block. The article I link to says "The real use of this value is when you want to give an inline element a width. In some circumstances some browsers don't allow a width on a real inline element, but if you switch to display: inline-block you are allowed to set a width." How many times are people going to run into a situation to need this? The typical solution would be to have a
and make it float left or right. The only benefit of this is that you can make the block appear where the span starts, but regardless it's almost useless because the text around it wraps in that weird way.They keep on developing useless things like this, when they really should be focussing on making the stuff that everyone does super simple easy to do, and super clean.
For a long time I've been trying to get a list that will appear like a table. You can make a list set them to display as inline. It works, but then you can not set a width, which then makes it useless. It works in IE, but not firefox. Or you can do all the "HACKS" can you believe that people actually call it __HACKS__, which is to make them float:left. This works, except that if your elements text-wraps, and god forbid that they do, then your whole display gets messed up.
Again, useless.
CSS could be sooo damn good, it's so close to being so unbelievably good, except it falls flat on it's face.
Personally I agree with you. We should have css and html totally seperate. CSS is currently focusing on the elements of a layout. This is not full control of the layout which people keep on claiming it is. It is an improvement over plain old html. But they need to focus on elements and also the full layout.
Ideally I would imagine html being only used for grouping information. Then using CSS you can manipulate those groups of information into columns, lists, floating elements, etc, etc...
Let's get away from exploiting "hacks" until they become the standard way of doing something and make something that works from the start.
I would gladly write up a spec and make some illustrations, but I don't have the time to argue my ideas with the CSS working group, because I'm pretty sure most would disagree with me. Plus, I've already spent to much time on this subject.
Disclaimer: This is not a rant saying that microsoft is right in not using CSS2. If anything it's the opposite, we are so despeartely in need of standards across the board.
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
Inconpetence in corporate scale.
- Pardon sir, bow down and scream alone.
-- Am I dreaming? Damn coloured pill. Why it was window shaped??
Good luck with that. Seriously.
Would you please post your client list? Thanks.
News at 11..........
*yawn*
Slow news day?
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Generally, if you need that much justification to make your point, you're straining something. Not that your troll was particularly well crafted, but jeepers, don't be so obvious next time.
I know, CSS2.1 is still a candidate recommendation, but since the excuse for M$ is that there's no good standard, why not W3C put some oil in their bureaucracy and it a standard as soon as possible? Make it a standard NOW! Months before M$ releases IE7.
Here are some interesting things to consider:
So, if Microsoft is refusing to attempt proper support for a standard that's been around for close to 7 years, and is waiting for a standard that's already been floating around for a year, why should anyone expect them to support anything whenever it's actually released?
I know this isn't a big suprise, but it's further evidence that they could honestly care less about standards unless there's something they can get out of it. When CSS3 is eventually released, we probably won't get support for another 5 years!
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Absolutely. Writing code to match standards is just good practice, and down the road there's a good chance it will save the client money when more work needs to be done or they do a redesign of a part of the site.
I don't remember reading anywhere that the overall charge would be any more than another designer would charge, I just saw that the bill would be more detailed. The designer may have a hard time explaining that bill to the customer, but it's not as if they're being overcharged.
This doesn't work, and that was my point exactly. :0)
They should release five hundred million copies of the browser supporting the shitty CSS2, and then when CSS2.1 or 3 comes out they should somehow persuade their Joe Sixpack customers to upgrade? I'd rather see them skip CSS2 altogether and go for a more mature standard. Remember, in best case scenario IE7 will come out towards the end of this year.
Having said all of the above, I'd rather see them implement CSS2 correctly than nothing at all in IE7.
Ever tried centering a block object on the page _without_ using tables?
So use tables already. Sheesh.
Why would anybody want to use display: inline-block. The article I link to says "The real use of this value is when you want to give an inline element a width. In some circumstances some browsers don't allow a width on a real inline element, but if you switch to display: inline-block you are allowed to set a width." How many times are people going to run into a situation to need this?
*snip*
For a long time I've been trying to get a list that will appear like a table. You can make a list set them to display as inline. It works, but then you can not set a width, which then makes it useless.
I find it funny that the example you used to document CSS's failings is solved by a modification that you profess nobody needs.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Fact1: CSS2 and CSS2.1 have parts that are incompatible with each other.
Fact2: There is no way to tell the browser which one of the standards it should follow in this case.
Finding the flaw is left as a exercise to the reader.
Of course, browsers can just try to guess or ditch either of standards but is that really good way to go?
If it only replaced the MS HTML control when launched via the "Internet Explorer" and "Outlook Express" front ends, that could also be a major security improvement.
"One partner said that Microsoft considers CSS2 to be a flawed standard and that the company is waiting for a later point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3, before throwing its complete support behind it.'"
Sure.
We'll support standards Real Soon Now...
Bullshit.
This release is just to counter FireFox's rise and has absolutely no other purpose but to give people any excuse to stay attached to IE.
Typical MS crap.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
MS wants Avalon to replace HTML+CSS
RFC1925
Who would have thought bitching on /. could lead to a fix for a problem? That worked very well.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Having spent the last couple MONTHS trying to get a Web site to:
1) Load external content using iframes or object tags in four different browsers;
2) use CSS to emulate frames in four different browsers (all current - forget about the older ones entirely);
it is clear to me that the Web industry is screwed up beyond all recognition.
Big surprise - it's a part of the IT industry...
First, the Web was never intended to be either an application platform or a desktop publishing platform - which seems to be what a lot of Web site designers and standards committees want to achieve.
Sorry, the technology simply isn't there in HTML, CSS and JavaScript to do this.
Second, the industry has as usual spent all of its time producing dozens of browsers - NONE of which support the standards in their ENTIRETY and ALL of which are incompatible with every other browser in existence in at least some respects.
Microsoft of course, as usual, is the worst offender. Web designers talk about the "IE factor" - the incompatibility and bugginess of IE with respect to virtually every standard which adds twenty percent or more to the development time for a Web site.
The industry has a LONG way to go to get the same functionality as client-server approaches to app implementation.
And as long as Microsoft is in the game, it ain't ever gonna happen.
My advice:
1) Stop trying to make your Web site FANCY (which is not the same as making it LOOK GOOD) and start trying to make it USEFUL to people.
2) If you want a "Web app", use other technology than HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
fsck Microsoft!
realkiwi
IE chokes on "application/xhtml+xml", which is the problem, because for XHTML 1.0 you're supposed to send it as "application/xhtml+xml", but you can send it as "text/html" if you really want (and most people seem to) and it'll still be OK.
With XHTML 1.1 DTD, you have to use "application/xhtml+xml", and IE is too shit to handle it, which means you either revert back to XHTML 1.0 Strict and send as "text/html", or you incorrectly send XHTML 1.1 with the wrong mime type. To be honest, it's not a massive problem since there are very few differences between the two, so you won't really have to change your code, but still it's rather annoying because neither solution is ideal.
However, using 1.1 and "application/xhtml+xml" is good for the newer browsers, since certainly with Firefox (and probably with others too) it uses the XML engine to render the page, and from my (limited) testing, does seem to be a bit quicker, as well as guaranteeing your page is well-formed, because you will know if it's not!
I use the following piece of PHP to switch between them depending on browser capabilities (note: this is content negotiation, which is very different to evil browser sniffing), and it works perfectly. Unfortunately Slashdot doesn't preserve indenting (and messes up some of the spacing in the strings I'm testing on - weird?), but this should work OK with a minor bit of re-adjustment:
The $doctype variable can be used later if there's anything else you need to change based on the type of the page being sent. Feel free to modify the code to suit your needs. Perhaps you want UTF-8, but I like my ISO-8859-1, dammit!
This page also has some useful info on the subject.
Organic free-range music... yum!
Well, for starters min-width and max-width would be incredibly useful, as well as easy to implement. There are work arounds for those, but they suck and often don't work very well.
All the other stuff like attribute selectors and so on would be really great, but if they could just add support for min-width and max-width and fix the bugs in the stuff they've got nearly-implemented (peekaboo bug, 3px jog etc.), as well as add proper support for XHTML 1.1 as "application/xhtml+xml" it would be a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, Microsoft don't even care about fixing the bugs that have been documented since forever.
Still, I hear they'll finally be adding proper support for alpha-transparency PNGs, thank the heavens.
Organic free-range music... yum!
Give that poster back his 10 points and take 10 away fromn you.
According to the CSS2.1 document, page 1:
Note that the editors of the specification are representatives from Opera, Microsoft, and W3C.
the only flaws i've ever seen with css are the differences between IE and other browsers in how they render it, which is the fault of the browsers.
-- lol pwned
I concur... and then I conquer.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Not only has CSS 2.1 been out for a year (and CSS 2 for 7 years)... but Dean Edwards has been steadily shoring up CSS support with his IE7 javascript extension for over a year now.
I can't understand why MS might have trouble at least doing work that a single individual working for free in his spare time is apparently able to accomplish.
Tweet, tweet.
Flawed standard, what you mean like SOAP developed with Microsoft...?!
Microsoft:Pot.. you're black
...Interesting, that's the same way I feel about new verions of MS OS's. I wait unti the SP2 is out before migrating.
This is exactly what we've seen time and time again.
1. a standard exists
2. good products support the standard
3. Microsoft creates their own proprietary "standard" and uses it instead
4. because IE has the largest marketshare, websites are designed to render properly on IE
5. customers try a standards-compliant product, only to find that their sites don't render 'properly'
This is deliberate anticompetetive behavior, plain and simple.
I've moaned early and often about the W3C box model, but I disagree regarding your definition of 'width'. It's one area I think MS implemented in a more intuitive way than the W3C: width = content width + padding + borders (margin is added to the width). Conceptually, that's about right: the 'margin' is an offset, not part of the element itself. Practically speaking, it's about right too: the one bit that tends to be set in different units than the rest (the border) is contained in the width declaration, so you don't have problems like having to leave a few percentages of the parent width blank and hope the borders will fit in there. In practice, I find margins tend to be set in the same units as content width (be they ems, pixels, percentage or whatever) so they're much easier to accommodate with a little simple arithmetic.
Microsoft Wins Patent on Web Standard
Another benefit is that all other user-agents won't even download it. Unless you're putting all your css inline, but then that's just a huge waste. Link your styles in the head and CC out the ie.one(s). No muss - no fuss.
first, basic styles:
NS4 doesn't understand media="all":if IE, grit your teeth...I lay out in FF and give it a second pass with IE (it is truly joyful to be able to continue checking in FF when i boot into the dark side). And a lot of IE's rules are pretty much obvious from the beginning, so it's not always a complete shock when checking it in that.
OT - I keep seeing these pages where the same bloody css & js stuff is on every page. I figure whoever's put it together thought they were 'templating' because they stuck it in to head.php or something, not realizing that the browser never has a chance to cache (and thus save on both bandwidth and rendering time). All they needed to do is put some link tags in.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
The Acid2 Challenge
It isn't Opera doing the test -- I know; I'm on the dev list for it.
Some Opera employees are helping a lot, but it's WaSP's test.
Some IE folks may end up lending a hand, too. And I'd love to get some Moz folks, and Dave Hyatt (or anyone else at Apple or the KHTML project) to pitch in as well.