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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.""
I thought they had to start with a new code base since the IE6 base had reached its end of fixabilities (like add an extra fix, and something else breaks again, and so on and on and on).
Apparently they went on on the IE6 base anyway???? Well, good luck with Vista, and your updated IE6 browser. I am off to buy a spyware firm & an anti spyware firm and get filthy rich from Vista.
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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. ;)
Why? Because they ARE the standard and they know it. In a perfect world, they would conform to the standards that everyone else is striving to hit. But MS knows they own the market. They know that there are a bazillion web pages written specifically for IE. They know there are lazy coders out there that don't bother checking for web standard conformity and only care that their pages work on IE. So why should they rethink their IE development? It's much easier this way (for them). It's a shame, and maybe some day it'll kick 'em in the ass, but for now, they know they're in the driver's seat.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
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.
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 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
However, all of the other painful bugs for everyone else will remain in place.
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
This was with reference to CSS standards and web development, not exploitable vulnerabilities in the browser's security.
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They are trying to be standards compliant? Anyway, also keep in mind the rumors that even FF was not acid compliant out of the door...
On a different note, I agree with you, IE ought to toss in the towel on the W3C complience thing, they need to bite the bullet and just admit they plan to march to their own drummer.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Ballmer: Before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this code base operational. No web developer will dare oppose the Emperor now.
Linus: The more you tighten your integration with the operating system, Ballmer, the more exploits will slip through your firewall.
Let's go over a few logical fundamentals:
Your post should be marked as a troll. You haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
..how much troube will the pages that use the current bugs to their advantage have.
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RoadkillBunny
Firefox still doesn't pass that test...
Username taken, please choose another one.
To be honest, ACID2 isn't that important - it tests some extreme corner cases in CSS usage. If you are 100% CSS compliant then it should work, but if you are 80% compliant then there are more important things to implement than passing ACID2.
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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?
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Since the Webstandards site has been /.ed, here's a mirror of the Acid2 test:
t ml
http://whereswalden.com/files/webdev/acid2/test.h
Now, open IE up and look at the Acid2 test. IE completely fucks it up beyond recognition. I could render the picture better by shitting out paint.
I'm curious to know how other browsers like Opera and Safari handle the Acid2 test. Are there technically any browsers out there that can pass it?
... 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.
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.
-Lod
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.
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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.
Funny how quickly the MS bashing begins, yet when I just tried the Acid2 test with Firefox (my browser of choice btw), the results were far from impressive. And correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Acid2 isn't an officially accepted standard, it's a *proposed* standard.
Acid2 is a test of the CSS standard, not the standard itself. And no, Firefox doesn't pass. But the Firefox team has made it a goal TO pass, unlike the IE team which has apparently said, "screw it, we're not going to waste our time just to pass that." IE is shooting for "good enough."
Considering the amount of money Microsoft could theoretically pump into development on the next version of IE, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be the first to pass the test (and by doing so provide implied compliance with the standard)?
Opera Acid2 as of today and the forum post accompanying the attachment:
Good news for Opera users.
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.
#DeleteChrome
Honestly there's a few fixes thay could make that would solve a whole lot of stuff fairly quickly:
:hover: correctly
- Fix the box model
- Fix inheritance issues
- Implement
Hell, even if they just fixed the box model that would solve the bulk of the problems that people are having now. I'm still curious why they botheres with this "beta" except to show off their awesome new UI that breaks all known UI design conventions for no compelling reason.
This question has been answered several times. As it seems, Opera renders it mostly correctly (significantly better than FireFox), and their reps say they're working on passing it completely. Safari passes it now, but the version that does isn't available yet. The same goes for Konqueror (I think).
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(/snip)
So I think that sums most of 'em.
And look, if IE6 fails miserably the ACID2 test, i'm really hoping we'll see a yellow blurb at least in IE7 (right now it's like a red wall with some pieces of slaughtered yellow-face in there).
In firefox we don't see the face, but at least we can see a nice yellow thing with wierd not-intended-to-be sunglasses on... kinda.
So I'm quite curious how the ACID2 will render in IE7...
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.
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.
Acid2 is a test of the CSS standard, not the standard itself. And no, Firefox doesn't pass. But the Firefox team has made it a goal TO pass, unlike the IE team which has apparently said, "screw it, we're not going to waste our time just to pass that." IE is shooting for "good enough."
From TFB (the fucking blog):
As a wish list, it is really important and useful to my team, but it isn't even intended, in my understanding, as our priority list for IE7.
We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support. We've dug through the Acid 2 Test and analyzed IE's problems with the test in some great detail, and we've made sure the bugs and features are on our list - however, there are some fairly large and difficult features to implement, and they will not all sort to the top of the stack in IE7. I believe we are doing a much better service to web developers out there in IE7 by fixing our known bang-your-head-on-the-desk bugs and usability problems first, and prioritizing the most commonly-requested features based on all the feedback we've had.
So, they view it as a useful wishlist, they are implementing lots of stuff from it, but they don't expect full compliance for the scheduled release (which is scheduled to be long before the Vista release, possibly this year). From my perspective, this is quite a bit from "screw it, we're not going to waste our time just to pass that."
safari and konqueror pass, but opera and ff do not.
t hor=&sort=1&op=stories
at least not according to slashdot: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=&query=acid2&au
Opera doesn't pass. Yet. However, Opera Software knows the test and they bragged recently in a changelog about improvements - quite rightly, they are huge. In 7.5 the test was a mess, now, in 8.02 it looks almost right. I'm not sure if they will be going for full compatibility though. Afterall, the other browsers are not better (yet) in that accept (maybe Konq, I haven't checked).
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".
vk.
IE7 passes the Acid test, as in you need to be on LSD to use it.
/. ++
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.
What we need more of is science!
Opera is very close to passing Acid2 test.
Box-model in IE was fixed around 2001. Fix YOUR code.
I'd like IE to support basics like width , height , display:inline and float . Currently under these names Microsoft has implemented min-width, min-height, display:inline-block and god-knows-what, respectively.
For the ten millionth time. There is bogus CSS because the acid2 also tests the case of fallback on invalid css! There is a very good reason the bad code is there! To make sure browsers can handle it!
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!
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
iCab passes because they use Webcore from Safari as their rendering engine.
What, people already forgot the fracas set off when Dave Hyatt landed complete Acid2 rendering in the WebCore CVS (which you CAN download and use - quite easily I might add)?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
If you will all look towards the left, you will see Deer Park Alpha 2 (Firefox 1.1) getting acid2 very, very near.
Besides, rendering Acid2 is not a test of correct CSS rendering, it's a test of invalid css rendering. Firefox has nigh-on perfect CSS2 capabilities - when the CSS is correct. What Acid2 is designed to test is the browser's resilience to errors. Ironically, IE should do very well at this, since it renders totally invalid HTML as it was meant to be rendered.
Considering the amount of money Microsoft could theoretically pump into development on the next version of IE, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be the first to pass the test (and by doing so provide implied compliance with the standard)?
Ah, so you believe then that the more programmers on a project, the faster and better it gets done?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
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.
Mozilla stole tabs from NetCaptor. So what? Right?
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?
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Considering the amount of money Microsoft could theoretically pump into development on the next version of IE, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be the first to pass the test (and by doing so provide implied compliance with the standard)?
Microsoft won't be the first to pass Acid2, not unless all that money's going to buy A MAGICAL TIME MACHINE...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Definately. If not for the existence of IE we'd still be stuck with Netscape 4.x which believe it or not was even worse in regards to Standards.
Competition is good.
That is, as long as it's actually from creative people introducing exciting new products. When you try to instill competition by kneecapping the dominant player back down to the lowest common denominator... you really aren't going to see much improve.
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