Update on Standards and CSS in IE7

brajesh writes "Chris Wilson has posted on IEBlog about the Standards and CSS in IE7. According to the post, "In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2". Further,"we will not pass this (Acid2 browse) test when IE7 ships.""

Comments

This is good for all the browsers

[edyu]

Although there will be Microsoft bashing in this thread, I believe this is good for all browsers because almost all the other browsers are standards compliant. Therefore, as IE becomes more standard compliant, the common denominator between the browsers will be bigger thus more web pages will be displayed correctly in all the other browers. I appauld Microsoft for this effort although it might be a result of necessity rather than goodwill. ;)

Re:This is good for all the browsers

[StrawberryFrog]

Except of course that "almost all the other browsers" aren't standards compliant, either.

But at least the other browser vendors chase standards more consistently than IE does. You don't need to genius or to achieve perfection immediately in order to get there, you just good test cases and continual bug fixing.

After years of inactivity, it looks as if IE is about to put on one heck of spurt though. Reading the article, they are talking about "ramping up" the team, and are well aware that they will not catch up to Firefox's level in IE 7.0. I have a nasty suspicion that after IE 7.0, they won't stop or slow down, but will speed up. It's what MS does: crush the opponent.

And this is not bad news, the browser-using public wins. Web developers will be happier too.

Re:This is good for all the browsers

[Nasarius]

I have a nasty suspicion that after IE 7.0, they won't stop or slow down, but will speed up. It's what MS does: crush the opponent.

I don't know. I'm truly surprised at how little has been done with Longhorn/Vista. There's a shiny new interface, a slightly improved version of IE, and some neat developer technologies. Oh, and desktop search. This has taken them 4-5 years? If they plan to crush the competition, they're going to have to pick up the pace quite a bit.

Re:This is good for all the browsers

[edyu]

There is idealogy and there is practicality. I use Linux on my two workstatations at work but people I know that use IE because it's always there and it has the big blue E that people associate with web browsing. I believe in choice and sometimes people do choose to use IE (for example, some people like to use the MSN toolbar with IE).
We know Microsoft is the virtual standard in this respect and they have two options: 1. Make it more standard compliant. 2. Make it less standard compliant. I rather have them choose 1 regardless of where they started. I applaud them because I see in the long run, it will only be good for the other browsers that I do use myself (such as Firefox).

Re:just give up

[jav1231]

Simple. M$ isn't going to concede that they can't keep up; not even to technologies they don't even have yet. They will buy technology, mimick it, or simply continue to bastardize. The thought, "You know, this software from Acme is filling the niche well. There's no reason for us to go into that segment" never occurs to them. Let alone, "You know, we've wrestled with standards and security and perhaps we should exit the browser market given the great alternatives out there." They want it all and they want it now.

Re:just give up

[d2_m_viant]

Microsoft doesn't care who they're upsetting. It's the companies who have websites who are forced to comply with how IE renders pages, or they won't get any visitors.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't care about Slashdotters and their ideological reasoning.

It's a sad (but true) reality that when you own 90% of any market...people have to play by your rules...

If the fix their bugs they'll break web sites

[LemonFire]

If the fix their CSS bugs they'll break web sites that is heavilly dependant on IE CSS.
Too many developers have gotten dependant of the IE CSS quirks already.

A really sad situation, however it's the right thing to do though.

-- This SIG was created without the help of CSS

A Feature Request

[fm6]

"... we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well."

Dude, the "feature" most developers are requesting is standards compliance!

Re:A Feature Request

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck standards.

No, seriously. Fuck them. The best things on the web have come because someone building a browser decided not to bother sticking within the lines of the standards and innovated to create something new.

Things like image transparency, opacity, JavaScript, vector graphics, and others all started out as non-standard applications created to use the web. They eventually had standards come and made to match them, but they weren't standards at the start.

If Microsoft actually innovates and makes IE7 more usable as a web platform, I'm all for it.

Now that's NOT to say that they shouldn't implement the standards and make sure they're standard compliant. But they shouldn't RESTRICT themselves to the standards.

Mozilla has a ton of non-standard compliant features, but I don't see anyone complaining about sites that make the most of them.

Re:A Feature Request

[GlassHeart]

I don't code to W3C standards, I code to IE

May I suggest a slight modification to your statement? How about "I code to W3C standards, except where what I need to accomplish can't be done within W3C, or the standard solution won't work in IE, in which case I code to IE and document the deviation"? IE is the poster boy of non-compliance, but IE6 with the proper DOCTYPE is usable, so the far more interesting question is why you might disagree with my version.

Also, which IE? I have written pages that work correctly in Firefox, Safari, Opera, and IE6, but not in IE5.5.

Re:Face it.

[someonewhois]

Well, there's a typical anti-Microsoft remark. The only thing it's missing is the dollar sign on the S.

Let's go over a few logical fundamentals:

• Firefox doesn't pass the Acid2 test either. Neither does Opera. That's virtually an irrelevant point at the curernt time.
• Bill Gates isn't the one coding the browser.
• The browser wars were like the cold war. It kept both sides trying to get the upper edge on each other in any possible way. As a result, you get garbage output.
• Microsoft is clearly saying they're working on standards, and they ARE.
• At the time that the codebase of IE was starting, the w3 standards weren't as hyped as they were today. As a result, it's no surprise that Microsoft didn't listen to them.
• Name one piece of software that doesn't crash. I know I've had all sorts of non-Microsoft software crash.

Your post should be marked as a troll. You haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

I wonder...

[RoadkillBunny]

..how much troube will the pages that use the current bugs to their advantage have.

Re:just give up

[anotherone]

Firefox still doesn't pass that test...

Re:just give up

[WebHostingGuy]

I mean, if you can't maintain and be compliant with the standards, then why even try

The reason is simple. With 90%+ market share in the browser world Microsoft just figures whatever they do *is* the standard. I don't agree with this but I can understand their thought process. If almost everyone is using my software product then what do I really care what the small other percentage is doing?

Mod parent up.

[merreborn]

... I was waiting for someone to point out the fact that no real browsers pass acid2. And lord knows firefox not only crashes on me once every week or two, and chews up ungodly ammounts of ram, and doesn't garbage collect in a timely manner.

give web developers a break

[LodCrappo]

As a part time hobbyist web developer, I have to applaud any move by any browser towards correctly implementing standards. Sure yeah it's Microsoft and I think I share a pretty negative view of alot of things they do with many of you. BUT... have you ever tried to create a page that uses even moderately complex CSS and have it look the same in IE and Firefox? It's practically impossible. I usually find it easier to just serve up different pages based on the user agent.. that sucks! So any move regardless of motivation that makes it possible to create a single version of a page and have it look normal is a good move in my book. For once, and just this once, good job MS.

Thank You Firefox!

[blueZhift]

Thank you Firefox! Without competitive pressure from Firefox, I doubt that we would be seeing such effort to fix longstanding issues with Internet Explorer. IE 7 won't be perfect, but it will likely be a lot better than it would have been if the Mozilla project and Firefox had never existed. I suppose in some small way this is a bit of revenge from the grave for Netscape.

A question of labor?

[Bronz]

What does it say when google and yahoo are creating brain drain hiring good developers that push the limits of standard-incompetent browsers, while Microsoft does not seem to be able to get qualified people to just make the thing work right in the first place? I know there are some brainy people in the ranks of Microsoft. At this point can ultimately determine it isn't a question of "can't fix" but "won't fix" ... or "afraid to fix" ? It's been hypothesized that Microsoft is afraid to fix IE for fear of losing their application monopoly to web applications.

Moaning about IE's standards compliance

[93 Escort Wagon]

IE's hit-or-miss CSS/DOM support drives me nuts, since it tends to add a significant amount of work to almost every project for me. But until Firefox ships a browser that passes Acid2, it seems rather silly to complain about IE's problems with the test.

Acid2 is dumb.

[Anonymous Coward]

The acid2 test is stupid.

It seems to me that if all browsers handle bad CSS in the same way, we'll end up seeing a lot more bad CSS.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Someone Please Explain This

[keot]

From the about page of the Acid2 browser test site:-
Note: some 827 people (rough estimate, contents may have settled during shipping) have written to point out that the CSS used in the test is invalid. This is deliberate, as a means of exposing the ability of user agents to handle invalid CSS properly.

Invalid CSS in ACID2

[Spy der Mann]

Yes, it DOES contain invalid code. CSS standards not only say what valid code is, but how browsers should fallback when they encounter INVALID code.

Actually, they mention this in the FAQ too.

This is why I don't use box model "hacks"...

[venomkid]

This is why I never used things like the box model "hack" or any other browser bug-dependent CSS for cross browser compatibility. It's begging to have the site start blowing up in users' faces as soon as a new browser is released.

Even the terrible implementation of CSS in IE6 is usable enough to make sites to standard. Sure it requires a bit of cheesiness, but I'd rather do that than *depend* on their browser continuing to not only have bugs, but to react to those bugs the same in every new release.

There is a middle "standard".

Re:just give up

[Bander]

I've decided to stop giving a crap if my pages don't look right in IE. Okay, I might spend 15 minutes to work around a problem, but other than my resume, my pages are things I build for fun.

Figuring out why IE doesn't work with a page that looks good in every other browser is just not my idea of fun. It's not even an interesting challenge, since the solutions are never elegant or satisfying.

And this is not a matter of spite, or retaliation, it's just a simple matter of spending my time on things I find enjoyable, versus working around someone else's brokeness.

Thankfully, I don't do web development to put food on the table.

Change list

[Deviant Q]

Man, all you flamers: look at the change list! You lowered my expectations a lot, but when you actually look at it (gasp! RTFA), it's pretty nice. I'm impressed!

They are right

[h2d2]

It's good that they are focusing on fixing the problems that web developers actually face. I am one, and all I ask from them is to fix rendering issues so I don't have to use hacks to make my site render the same way across browsers. Oh and fuck the Acid Test, as the IE developers said, it's a "wish list" for the future.

freedom to innovate

[pjrc]

Ok, they're making progress. But did anyone notice what's "innovative"?

but innovative stuff like the anti-phishing work and low-rights IE.

Using any other browser would be running all that browser code without admin privs. Yeah, they're making a "broker" that handles all the system interface. Pretty much the architecture most unix-based server programs have been using for years. Except at the client/browser level it's unnecessary... unless you're building on previous poor design decisions.

The anti-phishing... yet another thing others have already been doing quite well for quite a while.

It's plainly obvious they're playing catch-up on many fronts. That alone isn't a reason to bash them, as least as far as I'm concerned. But calling "innovative" the features that have been implemented for over a year or more in other browsers or as third party add-ons is pretty cheap.

Or did I miss some new features, anything really, that's truely innovative in IE7, rather than just implementing features already available from competitors and third parties?