Slashdot Mirror
MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7
Mike Savior writes "Eweek has a story stating that Microsoft is telling web site developers to prepare their sites for IE 7. From the article: 'One area that Microsoft has clearly articulated as being one in which developers can start work now to prepare for IE 7 involves the UA (user agent) string. First discussed in the company's Weblog in April, the code change prompted a reminder on Wednesday to developers, telling them that Microsoft continues to run across Web sites that are not expecting Version 7 of the browser, and urging them to test their UA strings. '"
please make this one understand CSS...
I'm not a web developer, but shouldn't sites use the user-agent string as a minimum value to check for? For instance, design a site that works with version 5+ of a browser, rather than *only* version 5 (or 6 or 7).
...the terrorists have already won.
Oh yes, gotta prepare all those sites out there so they don't shut out IE7, like they do non-MS browsers. Personally, I think it would be refreshing for IE7 users to see something like: "We are sorry, but we don't support your browser. Please upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer. We don't believe in standard HTML."
If you are depending on the user agent string, your web site design is flawed already.
Sure IE is broken... but you just have to format to fit the lowest common denominator.
Trying to detect the browser type for the majority of web designers is just silly.
"I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue, owner of Norwich, Conn.-based development firm KidoImages. "We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."
Same for me. Our website uses standard CSS and it needs a hack (csshover.htc) to make it work on IE. Maybe IE7 no longer requires it, maybe it does. Who knows?
Until then, the conditional stylesheet inclusion for IE has to remain there.
I really hope IE7 has improved its standards compatibility so I don't have to change to much of my code! (Hopefully none of it, if MS have done a good job)
We can only cross our fingers and hope it will pass the acid2 test (at the very least have improved some of its css)!
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
First off, anyone using the user agent for ANYTHING is stupid. It's so easily changed in browsers other then IE that I can get into sites intended for IE with any browser.
Second, why should this type of warning even be needed? Because Microsoft themselves are guilty of telling developers to ONLY code for thier browser....something no other browser asks developers to do. Microsoft has definitely shown yet again that they want people to ONLY use their stuff and they want a web that ONLY works in thier browser.
Gorkman
Why should we test the UA strings?
If it weren't for MS, we would be a lot closer to the "one design works on all" idea that standards support.
in other news, MS urges it's users to become more depended on it, and write unstandartized code. To once again tighting the hold on the IT word. Also. My person opion, i found it very time consuming to install IE in linux...
"Developers should ensure that their sites are ready for the IE 7 user agent string and treat IE 7 just like they would IE 6,"
I hope not. IE6 is not totally standard compliant, I would be more pleased if they ask web developers to treat IE 7 just like they would Firefox or Konqueror (at least for HTML, CSS and Javascript...).
my web site's been prepared for IE7 since 1996 or so.
Be prepared to face the customers as most of the standards are broken in IE7.
Thousands of bugs? Just when IE 6 is getting to be bug free.. (hahahah) They pull a new version of the browser on us... Time to pack up the bomb shelter for the new viruses... its going to be a long haul maw..
"I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue, owner of Norwich, Conn.-based development firm KidoImages. "We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."
Oh, so true, Firefox is also my main testing and QA platform, though I do try to code to standards then adapt to the quirks of a single application, even Firefox has the odd lack of compliance.
[sarcasm]Looking forward to IE7, Firefox has dominated the browser competition for too long [/sarcasm]!
As this article states, IE7 will not support CSS2. But come on! Give MS some slack! The CSS2 standard is only 7 years old. You must give them some time to implement the thing..!
Sites depend on user client? Show me a site manager who make his/hers site depend on user client, I show you a moron.
Valid HTML/XHTML..... Check
Valid CSS.... Check
READY!
at least from me you get a +1 funny & insightful
Any ideas what the "flaw" is?
The owls are not what they seem
TFA says it all:
"I don't use IE at all, but I'll test on it because I have to," said Web designer Donna Donohue...."We code to standards to be compliant with Firefox, and then hack for IE."
So if MS is standards compliant with IE7, there should be nothing to worry about. Of course we all know that that is NOT going to happen. IE7 might be standards based, but expect sweet and fattening IE7 only extentions in HTML pages that will break other browsers rendering.
I suppose this is why MS is calling for developers to pay attention to the new IE UA. IE7 might be rendering in a totally different way to IE5/6 and so will need to be treated differently to other browsers. In other words, MS wouldn't need to bother to mention this if IE7 was standards compliant. I'm smelling a hoard of compatability problems in the near future dragging us all back to the dark ages similar to the following.
However, Champeon added that he builds sites from the ground up to work in any Web browser, by following the set of principles known as "progressive enhancement."
Uhhhgghh!! I've met "progressive enhancement" once before. You've never seen such ugly, malformed, duplicitous code. Non standards compliant web site code that tries to be cross-browser is most of the reason I decided not to get into web development.
May the Maths Be with you!
Let's see, IE7, SQL Server, Longhorn, new versin of .NET, etc -- we developers have a lot to prepare for.
It's a wonder we can get any work done. Looks like we'll just spend all of our time getting ready for 27 new versions of Microsoft products.
HP To Lay Off 15,000 Workers
I hope.
This just makes no sense. A website that is properly designed should not have to get ready for any version of a web browser, since it should already support most browsers on the maket, including, but not limited to: Safari, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, IE and Konquerer. Sounds like MS is encouraging the development of shody sites, which are IE centric, which is VERY bad.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A Cross Compiler for MS products. You write you stuff according to standards, compile with the MSXCompiler, and BOOM! you're done - it'll work on MS platforms.
We can do it together! You don't mind going into business with someone named "Karma_Fucker_Sucker" do you?
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Friggin' troll.
Validate with the World Wide Web Consortium . If the site breaks on IE7... put a disclaimer on the main page, telling your viewers whose fault it is, and that there are other, better, standards-compliant browsers out there!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Microsoft really thinks that the billions of existing web pages will be re-coded to comply with some non-standard stuff in IE7?
Actually, I could even see a world-wide class-action suit, where companies could take MS to court, if MS IE7 will render useless their existing web site investments, by flooding the PC market with a browser, which is not complying with existing standards.
Any lawyer second opinion on this?
IE6:
Mozilla_4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0)
IE7:
Firefox_1.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0)
I8-D
I think that if a major PC buyer - read government, decided not to let systems with non compliant browsers be marketed in the country, M$ would listen to some extent. However, for this approach to succeed, many governments must do the same...not just one. The EU could do this. So could Russia and China. Is it time to lobby these governments on this just like was done on the software patent issue? But again, as an individual, I want more...ie...to be able to completely remove all traces of IE on my PC and let any browser specific component be handled by a browser of my choice. What about that?
oh my
you certainly are brainfucked
Global warming is a cube.
The headline should read:
MS informing developers that IE7 will not be standards compliant, get hacks ready now
Software Wars
QUOTE: "We're not going to waste our time specifically addressing any one browser when we can address them all instead, using faster development techniques that don't favor one platform or browser over all the others," Champeon said."
Many websites check the browser version from the UA string to account for older browsers(browsecap). Poorly wirtten code would not account for newer browser versions. This could also impace Mozilla.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Is Microsoft aware that Slashdot is using its IE logo on its website that some people *pay* to read? What about the Sony logo? The PS2 gamepad? Nintendo's GameBoy? Etc., etc.
It seems to me that if written permission isn't granted to use copyrighted logos to get people to read a story on a website that some people *pay* to read (that Slashdot and its owning entities (whomever that may be this month) profit from) isn't really above board and honest and screams "sue me!!" at the top of its lungs.
From TFA:
Currently IE's user-agent string defines itself as a browser compatible with "Mozilla/4.0". I wouldn't doubt that line means they're changing to some new format (directly specifying it's MSIE rather than saying it's compatible with an old browser, just like Opera). That then could be what broke so many websites into not recognizing it as IE.
But as the article is too vague on this aspect, we can't really be sure.
Say 7.0 is standards compliant and every XP user will upgrade to 7.0, thus 90% of IE users use 7.0. Most webdevs will stop supporting IE 6.0, as it's not worth supporting that few per cent (because it is a lot of work). Then 98/ME/2000 (I think) users will be doomed because they can't view those sites. They blame the browser and download something better. Then IE's market share will decrease - and Firefox's will increase even more!
Microsoft should be urging developers to follow standards, so long as people adhere to accepted guidlines such as those laid out by w3c consortium people *will* be prepping themselves for IE7. That is of course unless Microsoft are planning to ignore them and produce another browser that has a crapped out implementation of the DOM with added non-standard extensions.
...
Nearly *all* the web developers I know that are worth their weight curse regularly at the bag of bile that is IE. Firefox is just a better browser , plain and simple. Just what does IE offer (that is not a proprietary IE only extension) that is going to change things for the better?
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
i bet web developers are going to screw IE 7 and code sites that work on ALL browsers like they should be.
we don't want a netscape vs IE situation where you need both browsers to do anything on the internet.
Web site developers urge microsoft to prapare their browser for the web.
Release a half-decent, complient browser and stfu already. Developers shouldn't need to jump through hoops because you can't be arsed into writing a non-broken product.
Most /. readers already know not to use user-agent string evaluation to conditionally server content (it's lame to do so).
However I tried to persuade the readers of the original forum where the article was posted with a post. I adopted a rational argument and hopefully it will influence the non-slashdot audience with what I hope is an eloquent statement against this inane (but perfectly understandable from the vendor's perspective) advice.
original article
And here's my post there:
the web should prepare itself for the new browser?
shouldn't the new browser prepare itself for the web?
--
bs
It's only a model.
"Coding for all browsers is expensive and increases our development and support costs".
That's the BS I usually hear from people who develop only for one browser - typically the "corporate standard" browser.
Interestingly enough, I have the opposite experience. We reuse our proven code to make sure that our sites work properly with all modern browsers. Pretty standard stuff for all serious software development professionals.
We use a lot of fancy features, support a fancy text editor, calendar widgets, hierarchy controls... basically, everything that people want out of a modern browser interface. And do you know what? Our resulting software works and looks great with IE, FireFox, Opera, Konqueror, and more.
We have tens of thousands of "very active" users per day, and we never get a complaint about our software not working with a less popular browser.
We have a very small software development staff. As the manager of this organization, I can say with confidence that supporting all browsers versus just one costs us zero dollars.
It's all about good design and management practices. If you do some planning for the future by making good, solid, reusable code the first time, you actually end up saving a ton of money. Save time, money, and sanity.
Sadly, most software development organizations just can't handle doing their job right. They don't bother to build good reusable code, resulting in a tedious, unreliable, never-ending tweaking effort whenever the next service pack is released.
No wonder why so many companies have outsourced their development to the 3rd world. Lousy software development practices, such as coding for just the one corporate standard browser, is prohibitively expensive.
if MS would just make exploder work properly and not force web page developers to write custom HTML for each and every version of IE so things display consistently.
MS made this mess, and now they're freaking out because the whole world isn't going out of its way to cover for MS's mistakes.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Every, and I mean EVERY website I've designed since 1993 has been fully standards compliant. I have had to hack around IE since the mid-1990s and I'm sick of it. If IE7 is not standards compliant, TOUGH! I'm not changing a damn thing in my websites. I've checked my web server logs, a major percentage (more than 50) of browsers that hit my sites are standards compliant browsers. If users can download the latest FREE version of IE, then they can just as easily download the latest FREE standards compliant browser, and blow me! I'll quit before I have to change the SIX different websites, with over a thousand pages, that I built and maintain. IE users can get bent. Bitter? DAMN RIGHT! and with good reason too.
Meh.
Why do I need the UA string?
This simple statement fromk Microsoft indicates to me that IE7 will be no more compliant than IE6!
I think I will use the UA string, code a simple kludgy interface for IE7 that states that it would look much better in FireFox and could look better in IE if only Microsoft would listen to the very standards that they helped create!
IE -> Mozilla (to be compatible with netscape only sites)
Opera -> IE -> Mozilla (to compatible with IE only sites)
Now that IE7 will have problems with user-agent, what will Opera spoof? Firefox?
And would even Safari have problem if IE is going to change user-agent string?
No, I am not trolling. It would be interesting to see those 'prentending' to be IE will have to upgrade to prentend to be either 'new' IE, or something else, or themselves.
Sometimes, web world is even stranger than the real world!
...will obviously be: developers can start work now to prepare for IE 7 involves the UA (user agent) string, just so you know. I would be much happier if they had ever began warning web "developers" to change their codes to conform to html/xhtml and css2 standards. Instead they warn to check for the new IE version string, probably to be able to write yet another customized hack for your pages to work.
:] G'Kar if your friend ] drive MS as a company, and how lame-proof they want to make their OS and software. Make software that 1). is good, 2). that works, 3). isn't bloated [does it's function, nothing more, but does it well], 4). doesn't cost a fortune [at many places on this planet].
Hell, last time of such a hack [regarding IE6] happened when I rewrote a javascript menu into a quite simple and clean css version: it was pretty in firefox, konqueror, mozilla and opera, but it didn't even look like a menu in IE6 (w/ xpsp2). It took me 2 hours and about a dozen customized lines of code especially for IE, to make it look like it did elsewhere, in real browsers.
I don't care how high levels of enlightened self-interest [
Sometimes MS reminds me of good old OCP from Robocop movies: it's so big and it's so alone that you have no choice but to live with it.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The reason websites were forced to add user agent string testing in the first place was because Microsoft went out of their way to be incompatible with Netscape, including completely non-standard stuff like ActiveX.
Now Microsoft is afraid that the UA testing is going to bite them back, by making the new IE release appear to be broken, just like they tried to do to Netscape.
The land of corporate rulership and bottom dollar worship. Microsoft and IE can only survive with the backing of OUR government. Anywhere else they'd have been cast out ages ago. As can be seen by various places switching away from Windows (overseas of course, M$ owns the 3 major north american governments).
.net
Those few outsiders to the browser wars will be treated as inconsequential, much as opera was back in the 5.0 days. Despite the fact that it did a better job of rendering standard HTML than IE ever would. All corporate pages came up broken in Opera, not IE. Strange?
The first step to being web compliant, and casting out M$ is to use Java or JS instead of ActiveX and
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Scrap Java too if need be, Perl, PHP, Python, plenty of other scripting and programming languages out there... all opensource, most of them either somewhat or MUCH cleaner than Active X.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Though you havent used it yet, and so can't possibly code your pages to display correctly on IE7, please modify your code to pretend it does, and thus garantee that it will look awful when people switch to IE7, rather than defaulting to a non-fancy format for unknown browsers.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'm prepared for IE7! How? I made a safe choice: I've choosen Firefox :-))) I even choosen Firefox as a base for all my websites I will do... and Firefox helps my XUL CMS (http://demo.webdevelopers.cz/ )to be prepared for all tricks including IE7 ;-)... Thanx -moz!
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
"Coding for all browsers is expensive and increases our development and support costs".
That's the BS I usually hear from people who develop only for one browser - typically the "corporate standard" browser.
No, it's true. Try developing a website using CSS 2. It'll work in Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Safari just fine. Now check it in Internet Explorer. Whoops!
If you want your website to work in all browsers, then you have to either forget about CSS 2 (meaning slower development) or hack around Internet Explorer's problems (meaning slower development). Slower development == costs more.
How many tutorials have you seen with different methods of achieving multiple column layouts? Did you know that you just need a couple of lines of code to do it (display:table-cell etc) in all the major browsers except Internet Explorer?
We have a very small software development staff. As the manager of this organization, I can say with confidence that supporting all browsers versus just one costs us zero dollars.
I'm in a similar situation, and I can say with confidence that Internet Explorer slows us down, which costs us money. Coding to standards is not the same thing as making it work in all browsers.
MS: "Dear Developers. We would like to thank you for the bastardisation...uh...continuing effort towards open standards. Thanks to you, most sites will only render correctly with IE. That pesky Netscape is now rarely used. Alas, our work is not done! In our ongoing effort to push open standards (author chuckles) we now have to turn our efforts to stamping out Firefox. To this end we strongly encourage you to start coding to IE7 standards. We understand the temptation to code to Firefox as it's the hip new thing. Failing to code to IE7 would make you a traitor, an outcast! We know you will want to do that right thing and as such we have NO plans to have your employer encourage you at this time. Have an innovative day!"
Scrap Java too if need be, Perl, PHP, Python, plenty of other scripting and programming languages out there... all opensource, most of them either somewhat or MUCH cleaner than Active X.
Did I also mention that they aren't forcing users to use only ONE browser, by ONE greedy and recklessly dangerous company that is well known mostly for the ammount of security holes they fail to disclose or admit? And nobody ever holds them accountable...
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I've been working on web stuff as of late and am always utterly amazed at the strings that come out of browsers. Why is it that in the land of arguments over standards on HTML, CSS, etc there is never any gripe about standardizing the UA string? (Yes I know that most browsers are forced to lie because of moronic web sites, but can't we spoof a standardized string?)
.NET CLR version, all of the spyware that's installed itself. What a mess!
d -I'm just-going-to-break-down-and-serve-different-pages is fine, as long as you just default to something over than "You must have IE 6 to view this page"
Take handhelds to start. Blazer, on the Treo 600, for the most part claims that it is Windows 95, with handy addition of tacking on the screen size a the end (i.e. Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 95; PalmSource; Blazer 3.0) 16;160x160)(wow, that would be nice to see in a spec, no? Rather then the "This best viewed at" crap.) Jeers for saying you're Win95, but big points on the screen size. But it goes on. Even ie is never just ie, oh no, there's your
It's a catch 22. Smart websites are nice in the case of handhelds if they are done like say Google, they give you the handheld version of the site and let you opt into the normal view. Great! I'd argue that *all* browsers should send the current window size. I can't tell you how many sites I've been on on my PC and had to stretch the window just to read the text. The other one where they detect your device and send you to a page... and don't let you go elsewhere. (T-Mobile bundles hotspot software with the Palm LifeDrive, but just try and go to T-Mobiles homepage on a LifeDrive... just try it.)
So, standardized strings to UA, good. Helping out small screen users, good. Hell even the I've-worked-for-3-days-to get-this-to-display-the-same-in-FireFox-and-IE-an
I would not mind after spending several days per week of dealing with the dreck IE in reality is, that somebody sues them into the ground for neglecting the standards.
So they have been promting use our way, ignore the W3C standards, use blink whatever, but stay away from CSS because it is so nasty cross platform. And myriads of webdesign lemmings followed them and now will get a smack on the head. I really would not mind Microsoft being sued for Billons for their total ignorance of the W3C standards and trying to take over the web by not doing anything and costing costs of billions worldwide because developers constantly have to workaround their quirks.
So if someone wants to sue them, I would not mind!
Use the standards.
You find them at http://w3c.org/
I'd say if someone needs preparing here it's Microsoft. Please prepare your browser by following the standards.
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
Is it just me, or does anyone find this to be deliciously ironic? For ages the UA string has been used to lock out non-IE browsers, and many sites still use that method despite growing complaints.
Now the same mechanism that was used to leave non-IE users out in the cold from some sites will leave IE7 users out in the cold. Care to think about how many won't make the change because their favourite website doesn't work under IE7? How could we grab this opportunity and have people move to Firefox while at it? If they're going to change to a browser that is barred from some sites, they may as well do a good thing for once and change.
"I don't mind God, it's his fan club I can't stand!" E8
I'm getting excited about the upcoming release of IE7. I've been using IE6 for so long now I can't really remember how long itsbeen since an update LOL! Anyone know what some cool new features are?? I heard a rumor they were integrating msn messenger so you could chat ON websites! LOL that would be so cool!
I am of course referring to the fact that ASP.NET by default excludes any browser not explicitly recognized from being sent any javascript.
And it's not even a graceful degradation, the mechanism just breaks the page by referring to non-existent script.
When microsoft made the IE 6 Beta, I foolishly downloaded it and found I could not get to 99% of the pages on microsofts own website! (saying I could ONLY get to that page with IE 5.5)
Then give them a list of browsers to download.
What is truely unfortunate is that most "users" I know do not know what a "browser" is.
The blue "E" is the "internet".
many users will not use any other browser unless someone else installs it for them.
And so, IE7 will soon become the default "standard", like it or not.
I like microcars
>> Opera using it's own UAS (~Opera/8.01 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en)) usually has no trouble displaying anything
Some banks, etc deny me access till I come back with an "approved" UA string. I don't understand why web developers look at http_user_agent for anything except statistics. It's too unreliable to use on host specific basis.
for one, everyone and their dog can fake HTTP_USER_AGENT. Opera and Konqueror have got spoofing built in and changing your UA string in Firefox is trivial.
For two, sniffing HTTP_ACCEPT gives you the actual capabilities of the browser - or at least the ones advertised. http_accept typically doesn't get faked. Even if I change the UA to Lynx or whatever, the HTTP_ACCEPT value is reported correctly.
I've got some info on spoofing http_user_agent here. The main site has more on http_accept, etc. and a cgi script to view values from your request header. Check it out.
http://request-header.info
Bingo. Tell a user you don't support him/her, and they'll go elsewhere to someone who does.
Don't say a word and maybe a few floats look a tad odd or overlap, and they'll stay with your site.
Why bother displaying that message?
Who gains? You're a FireFox user. You've been a firefox user for a 12 months now. You have your preferences and bookmarks in firefox. You have never had a problem before.
Yet "Bills Corporate Web site" tells you to switch browsers. Why should I listen to you? Why are you telling me what to use? Imagine you said "You're using a PC- go out and buy a Mac and then come back"- who would do it? The solution is to move on to the next company/bank/business/person who has a web site that does display- loss of business, loss of clients, loss of money.
Not to mention those who have no choice (corporate environments where the IT manager installs browser choice).
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I was just about to post and ask why anyone pays someone so incompetent, until I noticed your final comment. I would have thought dropping the company/firing the individual without any pay whatsoever would be completely justified if they were specifically asked to produce standards-compliant code as part of the spec.
The facts that they fobbed their employer off with "it's unimportant", didn't know about Mozilla, and ripped copyrighted code just demonstrate that they were incapable of doing the job they accepted and were acting in bad faith throughout; this was no accidental misunderstanding or legitimate ambiguity in the agreed specification. If anything, the company/employer whose time and resources they wasted should be suing them to recover losses through wasted time and effort, though sadly this probably isn't how it's going to work out in practice.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Everbody knows 4 is the minimum number of browsers to check, which you would know if you weren't such a wannabe.
Stuff like this is only a good thing. It's keeping food on your table, you know?
Get back to work.
What is the name of this "website design bureau"? Please let us know their exact name so we can all avoid them in the future.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Could you provide us with the name of this web developer, so we can make sure we all avoid him in the future?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Change absolutely nothing. Your strategy is as simple as that. Continue to develop for W3C standards, and make the usual pragmatic concessions to allow for IE 5 and 6. Make no special attempt to accommodate IE7 whatsoever.
This strategy is a clear winner for one simple reason. The only reason MS gets a lot of developers to code for IE is because it's big. When you have 90% market share, you don't follow the standard, you define it, regardless of what the W3C and its supporters might wish were the case. As a corollary, when you have 90% of market share, a lot of ill-informed cheaposoft developers will code for your software because they don't know any better.
However, when IE7 comes out, it will not have 90% market share. It starts at 0% like everyone else, and if it isn't directly compatible with either the W3C standards or Microsoft's previous one (the now-well-known quirks in IE 5/6) then it gets a category of its own.
Moreover, since MS were making a big point of how IE7 will only be part of Longhorn and won't be available as a retrofit onto the previous versions of Windows, they are almost condemning it to be a minority player for several years. Just look as how many home users are still running ME, and how many businesses are still on 2000, never mind XP. (As an aside, I heard rumours of this policy changing, though I've not personally noticed anything official from Microsoft about it yet. I'll be amazed if there isn't an IE7 upgrade for WinXP available the moment it releases, though.)
If critical web sites like banks and the big e-shops don't immediately work reliably with IE7 -- and that information will probably spread very fast -- then this will hurt Microsoft's sales and market share. Microsoft will not sell as many copies of its new operating systems as long as they rely on IE7, so they will either have to fix IE7 or drop it and advise users to switch to something that works. In the meantime, big players like Dell will not be selling as many new PCs, or they'll be stuck with the overheads of supporting multiple OS configurations at supply time. After they had to do that with Win2K, when many major customers said they just didn't want the untried-and-untested WinXP installed on their new systems, I suspect they'll be very reluctant to do it again because of something as stupid as a web browser.
In summary, Microsoft only bullies the dev community right now because it has huge market share. IE7 will not start with a huge market share, and if Microsoft does restrict it to Longhorn only as they threatened in the past, IE7 will not develop a huge market share either. Thus IE7 is not a tool with which to bully the development community, it is a tool that must comply with the will of the development community. If it does not, Microsoft and the customers and business partners it most cares about will lose money, and that is the one thing they will not allow to happen.
Of course, Microsoft are well aware of this risk, which is why their legendary PR machine is now trying to mitigate it. All that is necessary to defeat this ploy is to see the PR for what it is: an attempt to trick the dev community into helping Microsoft, not the other way around.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
What they should say is simply...
"Go to www.w3c.org to prepare your site for any browser."
I usually use tons of "* html" css hacks to in order to add workarounds for IE.
Does anyone know whether "* html" styles will still apply to IE 7?
Is there any CSS way to apply IE 7 -specific rules?
{{.sig}}
All this twaddle reminds me of an old comic book called WWIII. In this comic, there were cows in a slaughterhouse who believed that if they were really good and upstanding, the rancher would be merciful and spare them. They couldn't see the killing zone, so they couldn't be sure, but most of them believed that if they were really good citizens, there was a chance they would move through the killing zone and on to a better life.
Or it's like Maus, the comic that depicts the nazis as cats and the concentration camp inmates as mice.
There's nothing accidental about this! You don't get to shovel billions of dollars per month into your horde by accident. This mess is a well-crafted policy, purposely intended to keep you off-balance. It doesn't even target the other browsers. They've already been defeated (Firefox's ten percent will be dealt with). It's you who are the problem. If you don't have to dick around with this stuff, you, Joe Sitedeveloper, may become a threat, as unlikely as that sounds.
The web may have originally been created to allow sharing, but its current purpose is to extend M$ from the desktop so it can maintain growth suitable for its shareholders. They will NEVER play nice with you because that would free you to create value independent of reaction to M$ policy. If YOU THINK YOUR JOB IS TO CREATE INDEPENDENT VALUE, YOU ARE IN THE M$ CROSSHAIRS.
Remember, in the world of software, you're either a threat or a former threat. M$ doesn't know about any other types of people. Instead of whining about why can't they play nice, you should work to actively undermine them. It's really your only chance for long-term survival, even if you work using only their products. If you are loyal to them, you will eventually find your value captured by new products and you will be replaced by a younger, more loyal $oftie who doesn't have any of the ancient baggage of old, dropped M$ technology.
Why can't there be some Firefox extension that puts a button somewhere so that if a web site seems to be fucked up, clicking the button sends an email to webmaster@siteyouarelookingat.com complaining about their lack of compliance to standard?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Now i got time to enter the following (pseudo) code to my website:
I don't think the issue is about compatibility or IE7 adhering (or not) to W3C standards.
It's about the lame banking sites out there that look at User Agent string and say something to the effect of, "You must have Internet Explorer 5 or better..."
See, this "detection" routine is not detecting IE7, and the above message would confuse and/or infuriate most web users. Likely M$ will lose market share, get complaints via their support lines, have bad press, etc.
This has nothing to do with M$ saying that they will or will not produce a standards compliant browser. My guess is M$ cares very little about truly being standards compliant. They have the attitude that they will adhere to standards if it benefits them to do so.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
if ( document.getElementById ) {
var obj = document.getElementById("id_here");
} else {
document.writeln("Your browser is not supported!");
}
This type of coding, has worked for me to be able to support, Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape6.1+, Opera, IE4+, in almost all my JS needs.
Oh and to do stuff even better, do it on the server side where possible.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
I wish web developers didn't go out of their way to make hacks so IE will display their page. By continually coding workarounds for IE, it is making MS think, "Well, $%^# the standards, everyone is going to make it work in IE anyway." I think that as long as the code is 100% standards compliant, it is the browser's responsibility to make sure things display correctly. I can see why developers would want to support broken browsers, but if they didn't we would see either A) Microsoft make IE standards compliant, or B) more people switching to Firefox or other standards compliant browsers, both of which are positive results.
I make my living partly by deploying stuff on the web. We develop our codebase to W3C standards, then port it to the browsers if need be.
Mostly, our code runs great in Gecko and KHTML/WebKit. We have to spend the most time porting the sites to IE. Almost as much time as we spend writing the standards compliant codebase itself. This extra work has cost my company easily over $100,000 in the last year and a half.
So Microsoft: You don't get to tell me how to code until you give me my fucking money back. I don't care if UA string is a standard - I'm not going to let you push me around. If I implement it, I'll be doing it for my own reasons. I'm not going to listen to a word you say until your impotent boobery stops costing me extra money.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
...your just a bunch of whinny babies who spend all your time complaining and if put in charge of IE's division at MS, couldn't do half the job. ..Come on, reply with Firefox is more secure and better..yada..dada.da - you're an idiot.
Wow, what an attitude. You're a big man, take on the evil empire. Dude, making things work is what your paid for. If you think that if MS was wiped off the face of the earth today, that you would no longer have these same types of problems, your diluted and will always have this attitude no matter what industry or what company is dominant.
Just add a note at the bottom of your page saying something along the lines of "This page uses standards compliant code and works properly in (slew of browsers except IE). Use of Internet Explorer is unsupported and not suggested."
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
I just updated the hacks on my site so they run if IE 6 or IE 7 is detected!
...if MS won't conform to the net standard they will find more and more people are using Firefox instead of IE. I code for Firefox and test in IE.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
It used to be that I'd often see the message "your browser sucks, you need to be running IE or this site won't work for you." So in Opera I'd have to go to Quick Preferences, check "identify as IE", then reload the site to use it. As any Opera user knows, most of these 'IE-only' sites are completely full of shit and work just fine if they think the browser knocking on the door is IE.
Lately though, I've seen a different sort of message, which amounts to: "you're using IE, which sucks. Here's a link to FireFox and Opera. Both are free." So now I go into Quick Preferences to swap back to "identify as Opera".
For the first time since I started using Opera, it's actually been more beneficial to me to identify as Opera as the default rather than to identify as IE. It makes me wonder about the 'reception' that IE7 will get if IE once again tries to break standards.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Back in the day when Netscape ruled and IE was struggling to gain marketshare, MS decided to make IE masquerade as Netscape, hence the "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE x.x)" opening.
This set a precedent for Opera presenting itself as IE, and Apple inserting "Gecko-like" into Safari's UA string. Nothing is compatible with Mozilla 4.0 anymore, and the only browsers that present a correct UA string are the Mozilla browsers.
Add to this that it is possible for the user to change the UA string in any browser (whether via a provided UI or by manually editing files), and the UA string has become completely devoid of purpose, leaving developers with no choice but to fish for internal features using Javascript to ID the browser.
XP SP2 fixed the parsing error which was the basis for the Tantek hack (probably the most widely-used CSS hack), but few developers who use it realize this. This is just one more example of MS creating needless work for developers. Obviously Ballmer's monkey dance (Developers, Developers, Developers!) only applies to those who only work in the vacuum that Microsoft tries to create.
IE7 is purely reactionary, and hopefully they sat on their ill-gotten throne long enough to be deposed by the standards they thumb their nose at. I'll certainly continue telling everyone I know not to use any version of IE.
I agree with you in principle, but I'm not sure you have it entirely correct with your last statement. Well.. not to say that Microsoft wouldn't love much of the web to continue to depend on MSIE. What they're doing now, though, is positive for everyone, even if it's not their own motivation.
Microsoft's broadcast will have all of the online banking application developers, for example, checking their code, and updating the browser strings they recognise.
Last time Microsoft made an IE release, browsers like Mozilla/Firefox, Opera and Konqueror were hardly above the radar for a lot of businesses, and they weren't even considered. This time around, though, it'll make sense for a lot of providers to actually re-assess their site's compatibility with the competition just as much as MSIE --- especially if they realise that it's just a change in the browser ID strings that'll make it work. Microsoft's statement will convince a lot of PHB's to allocate the resources for someone to make these types of changes.
Once IE7's market share starts approaching that of Mozilla or IE6, I'll start working towards supporting it. Until then, end-users who choose to IE7 can suffer the consequences, if it's not compatible with code that works in both IE6 and Firefox.
Mod parent up, he makes a good point.
If God manifested Himself to us here He would do so in the form of a spraycan advertised on TV. -- Philip K. Dick
If IE complied to standards, then there would not be any 'prep work' to do.. It would 'just work'...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When my server sees an IE7 User Agent string, I'm going to reply with a message saying, "Sorry, your browser is broken." and redirect them to Firefox.
By nipping it in the bud early, we can prevent the proliferation of this IE 7 garbage.
The user will complain to the tech support people that, "It was working before you made changes to my computer, so it's not the website that's the problem, it's the changes you made to my computer - now change it back."
If enough high-value sites did this, it would stop IE7 dead in it's tracks because I don't believe you can edit the User Agent string in IE. Yes there may be hacks, but hacks are exactly that - hacks.
So, thanks for the heads up MSFT, I'll prepare my server now.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
IE7 will continue IE's ways of non-standardization. Expect IE7 to break your site.
Fight back! I run a little personal website. It's standards compliant (XHTML 1.0 Strict) and looks great in every browser - except IE. If you visit the page with IE, your browser will just happen to crash. Every time. Perfect! This was unintentional, but, really, I couldn't be more pleased.
Not that I post on slashdot or anything.
$ diff index_old.htm index_new.htm
1c1
< <!--[if ! lte IE 6]-->
---
> <!--[if ! lte IE 7]-->
Why should developers check for MSIE specificly? Wasn't the basic idea of the web to have one standard? Did you know that MSIE is a clone of NCSA Mosaic? Did you know that MSDOS is a clone of CP/M? Did you know that Bill is a clone of - come on, not the sheep!
I agree with you on CSS and server-side. Unfortunatly one browser dosent properly support CSS and breaks most sites. And it is the browser with 80% of the market.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...that they're not improving the CSS (at least, for senses of the word "improving" that would strike a harmonious chord in the hearts of standards-oriented web developers), but the unofficial-unofficial word is that some of the less-self-important people involved will have finessed some improvements anyway.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Submitted for your approval: Mr. Andy Clarke, creative director of his own web and media design firm, Stuff and Nonsense. He has designed, among other things, the web portal for Disney UK, the WWF (that's Wildlife, not Wrestling) UK, and the British Heart Foundation.
Mr. Clark is also a member of the Web Standards Project, and as such has a good deal of weight in the evangelism of web standards.
Of particular interest is his own blog site, And All That Malarkey, which takes on a dramatically different appearance depending on whether you use (a) anything else, or (b) Internet Explorer. This summer, if you can only look at one page in two different browsers side-by-side, let this be the one. You won't be disappointed.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
It is a sad fact that different browsers (and even different versions of the same browser) often render the same code in different ways. It is not always because Microsoft doesn't follow standards. Some web site authors query the browser for who it is so they can point the user to the correct version of their web site optimized for that browser. Since it is unknown how IE7 will render any given site, those sites may not have code specifically for IE7 and the code that queries for the browser type and version may not recognize IE7 as a legitimate browser.
Developers should ensure that their sites are ready for the IE 7 user agent string and treat IE 7 just like they would IE 6,
Damn. And here I thought they were going to be making IE 7 more standards compliant.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Best preparation for me is running and screaming.
What unbelievable balls: "Dear Internet... please rewrite your content to work with our upcoming non-standard software release."
On all other planets in the universe, interoperability is the responsibility of the software developer.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
My site already redirects users to the "unenhanced" version for IE users while everyone else who uses a standards-compliant browser can see my real site.
>even a few percent are still using old browsers, your complaints department will be swamped by annoyed users
Not if you're contact page isn't accessible either.
Yes, that was my first thought. Aren't browsers supposed to attempt to be as compatible as possible to enhance their appeal? Isn't that why people change browsers? This is what happens when a company simply assumes they own the market.
Poor Microsoft. Having co-erced webmasters into looking for specific versions of IE and excluding everything else (not only old versions of IE but non-IE browsers altogether), they're now sobbing about how many sites won't work in IE 7 for these exact same reasons.
They're so hard done by, that company...