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MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7

Posted by Zonk on from the the-end-times-are-coming dept.

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. '"

5 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. user agent by BoldAC · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Let them release first, then we'll see by pe1chl · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.

    1. Re:Let them release first, then we'll see by tilk · · Score: 3, Informative

      CSS fanatics always claim that you should not use tables for layout, but I find that CSS lacks some basic features for alignment especially at the bottom edge of the content area, which are very simple to implement when using a table.

      You are wrong. Have you ever read the specification? CSS has these features, it's just IE that doesn't implement them. Display: table and friends
  3. All browsers != standards by Linus+Torvaalds · · Score: 3, Informative

    "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.

  4. Re:The difference in User Agents by DeadMeat+(TM) · · Score: 4, Informative
    I never really got it, why does the IE UA have Mozilla_4.0 in it?
    Long before Web developers started blocking browsers without the IE UA, they blocked browsers without the Netscape UA. (Mozilla was the code name for Netscape long before the open-source Mozilla project started, which is why "Mozilla" was in the Netscape UA.) Microsoft countered by using the Mozilla/x.x part of the Netscape UA, and then embedding the fact that it was really IE in the parentheses (which nobody really parsed at the time).