New IE7 Information Announced

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."

Comments

middle-click for tabbed browsing

[SpecialAgentXXX]

The only reason I use Firefox and not IE is due to middle-clicking for tabbed browsing. Once MS adds that into IE, I'm going back. All of my video plug-ins work instantly with IE, but not without some tweaking for Firefox. I already switched from Thunderbird to Outlook 2003, so I'm excited to see what bells & whistles MS can put in IE7.

Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing

[tepples]

Then I probably shouldn't tell you about Maxthon or any of the other IE wrappers that add tabs and retain all the ActiveX holes.

Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing

[NetNifty]

It wasn't the tabbed browsing, or extensions like adblock, or better standards compliance that I switched to Firefox. It was getting infected by a piece of spyware that used the same security hole I was pissing about with THREE MONTHS BEFOREHAND that I saw it on a security bullitin, and despite being fully up to date on my patches it still infected me.

nuts to -moz-border-radius

[rebug]

Instead of implementing a vendor-specific tag, why not support the proposed CSS3 border-radius property?

Competition is a good thing

[CyberZCat]

Without software like Firefox, their would be no reason for Microsoft to ever make a better product, just look at how long IE's been in version 6! Now that Microsoft's starting to feel their browser dominance threatened they're playing for attention to their own product. Clearly competition benefits the end-user.

min-width and hacks

[UnConeD]

Internet explorer actually treats width and height as min-width and min-height. Very annoying if you don't want it, but you can use it like this:

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.

Re:min-width and hacks

[falconwolf]

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.

Falcon

Re:min-width and hacks

[Feztaa]

This is exactly why I never use those stupid parsing bugs to "trick" IE into rendering the right thing... I'm scared to death that the resulting non-standard "tag soup" will break some obscure browser somewhere -- like IE7.

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.

Re:min-width and hacks

[richard.york]

IE will (mysteriously) ignore the underscore prefix and parse the second style, while compliant browsers only recognize the min-height style.

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 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) 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).

Re:Too little...too late

[Husgaard]

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.

I think you overestimate the general population of browser users. Most of those who have not switched have nothing else to compare MSIE with, and thus think that MSIE is the best browser that ever existed. And even among those who got burned there is the general problem of short memory (ie. most will forget if they see something acceptable from MS).

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.

Remember winsock?

[xtal]

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.

Re:They want feedback? I'll give em FEEDBACK

[rpozz]

Third, could you actually put something in there to block ads and popups, and any other crap that I don't want on my screen. Al least temporairly. Eg NO AD.DOUBBLECLICK.NET !!!!!

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?

Re:I look forward to IE7.

[RichM]

In my experience IE7 will transform wireless relationships, repurpose frictionless models, harness visionary infomediaries and furthermore iterate end-to-end experiences.

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 ;)

Scrolling TBODY

[eGabriel]

It's the only thing in the whole world I want. Why IE doesn't support it, I don't understand. IE generally does pretty well with a lot of things.

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.