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IE7 To Support XMLHTTP Requests

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the new-tricks-for-an-old-dog dept.

Ruliz Galaxor writes "IEBlog posts that Internet Explorer 7 will support a native XMLHTTPRequest object as many other browsers currently do. This will mean no more ActiveX MSXML objects to implement AJAX functionality. It looks like Microsoft is seriously trying to make the lives of us web developers easier. Of course you'll still need to use the Microsoft.XMLHTTP ActiveX object if you want to support IE6 and older."

23 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Program Managers Anonymous? by manastungare · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hello, I'm Sunava Dutta and I am a Program Manager in the Internet Explorer team.

    It's OK, we understand ...

    1. Re:Program Managers Anonymous? by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
      > > Hello, I'm Sunava Dutta and I am a Program Manager in the Internet Explorer team.
      >
      > It's OK, we understand ...

      1) We admitted we were powerless over the cruft - that the code base had become unmanageable.
      2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
      3) Made a decision to turn our specs and our code over to the care of Gates as we understood Him.
      4) Made a recursive search and complete manifest of our source files.
      5) Admitted to Gates, to ourselves, and to another developer the exact nature of our design flaws.
      6) Were entirely ready to have Gates fire our sorry asses.
      7) Humbly asked Him to allocate the budget for the security upgrades.
      8) Made a list of all bugs we had let slip into the released codebase, and became willing to provide patches for them all.
      9) Provided patches to such systems wherever possible, except when to do so would break existing functionality or introduce new security holes.
      10) Continued to monitor the security mailing lists, and when we were notified of an exploit, promptly fixed the bug.
      11) Sought through coding and specification to improve our conscious contact with Gates, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
      12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to program managers, and to practice these principles in all our projects.

  2. Backwards Compatability by angst7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Of course you'll still need to use the Microsoft.XMLHTTP ActiveX object if you want to support IE6 and older."

    Which means that browser type checking will need to remain pretty much for the forseable future. Inclusion of XMLHTTPRequest now is nice, but in practical terms its perfectly meaningless.

    --
    StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
    1. Re:Backwards Compatability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, so they shouldn't add it at all, because it's apparently pointless.

      Good call! After all, why in the hell should Microsoft make web developer's lives easier in the future? It's complicated now!

    2. Re:Backwards Compatability by lseltzer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>in practical terms its perfectly meaningless

      Not true. The point of it is that a user or company can disable ActiveX completely and still use AJAX.

  3. Looks like Microsoft has a winning strategy . . . by mmell · · Score: 4, Insightful
    They've lost some ground to Firefox et. al.; if they can keep corporate America convinced that IE is "just as good" for what businesses want their browser to do, they'll continue to hold the hammer-lock on browsers in the workplace (remember, M$ doesn't need to convince all of us, just the PHB's among us).

    Begun the browser war has (again).

  4. And...? by wombatmobile · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It looks like Microsoft is seriously trying to make the lives of us web developers easier.

    MS deserves credit for this sensible implementation of XMLHTTPRequest, and indeed for innovating XMLHTTPRequest in the first place.

    Now if MS is "seriously trying to make the lives of us web developers easier" [when] will they implement the rest of the core W3C web standards?

    FF, Opera and Safari and their respective communities are already well advanced with implementations of SVG, DOM, CSS, PNG, JPEG2000 and XForms. These standards are bread and butter for "seriously trying to make the lives of us web developers easier".

    When will MS join the inevitable?

    1. Re:And...? by Bogtha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      SVG: Microsoft implemented vector graphics in Internet Explorer years ago with VML, which they submitted to the W3C in 1998.

      CSS: A partial list of fixes regarding CSS that will be in Internet Explorer 7 can be found on the IEBlog. They've fixed a lot.

      PNG: Internet Explorer 7 will have support for the PNG alpha channel, bringing it up to the level of support that other browsers have.

      JPEG2000: JPEG2000 is patent encumbered. Mozilla/Firefox doesn't support it.

      XForms: XForms support is available through a plugin.

      The only really valid complaint you have there is their lack of support for the DOM. In particular, it would be very nice if they implemented DOM 2 Events, but I don't think that's likely to happen for Internet Explorer 7.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  5. Only for Windows? by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can someone tell me if this means that I no longer have to take my business elsewhere when I encounter a "Sorry, this site only loads in Windows?"

    I dig that stuff that requires the DRM WMP still may not let me in, but what about other things?

    Can I hope that Safari and friends will no longer be a second class citizen on Exchange WebMail, for example?

    --

    --
    $tar -xvf .sig.tar
  6. IE is changing its tune by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it's great what the IE developers are doing. There are, of course, a few features I'd love to see integrated into the latest version, but I'm extremely happy with what they're doing otherwise.

    When the IE blog began I was angered that they didn't seem to be worried about the numerous CSS flaws, among other bugs. They seemed like they were just trying to beef up security. As time marched on, though, the developers seemed to be taking notice to what most of the replies were about. The IE developers listened and really went the extra mile where the concerns of web developers everywhere are concerned.

    While there are a few things I'd love to see (like the ability to properly deliver XHTML), I'm happy (for now) with the changes they're implementing. It sounds like they're really committed to helping web developers from having to design their website three or more times before they get a version that's decent looking in all browsers.

    Let's give the guys some credit where credit is due... who knows, maybe the rest of Micro$oft will take the hint.

  7. MS doing what it does best ... by SilicaiMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... embrace and extend.

    It's good that MS is supporting web standards, but I doubt the reason is to play nice and make the lives of web developers easier. IMHO, MS realized that they have lost a lot of ground, credibility and following in the browser market. Any new "innovations" coming from MS will NOT be adopted very easily these days unless Firefox, Safari and Opera endorse it. So, before it can repeat what it did to Netscape, MS needs to re-capture its lost browser market share. The easiest way to do that is to come up with a really great browser that supports all the current web technologies, and that is easier to code for than other browsers. Classic 'embrace'. Once it has done that, and it has all the time and money in the world for it to do that, only then can it can start phase 2, the 'extend' phase where it renders all other browsers obsolete.

    The only way to combat MS on this front is to keep innovating, staying a step in front of it. Netscape made the mistake of not updating their browser soon enough, and they paid dearly. I hope Opera, Firefox and Safari have learned that lesson.

    1. Re:MS doing what it does best ... by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's good that MS is supporting web standards

      Just so we stay clear about this: MS was the first to support AJAX via XMLHttpRequest, so this is only a change in how they do it.

      Mozilla and Opera followed Internet Explorer here.

      The easiest way to do that is to come up with a really great browser that supports all the current web technologies, and that is easier to code for than other browsers.

      Again, IE was the first to do.

      Once it has done that, and it has all the time and money in the world for it to do that, only then can it can start phase 2, the 'extend' phase where it renders all other browsers obsolete.

      Hoq do implementing XmlHttpRequest support via non-ActiveX render other browser that already have it obsolete? This isn't some weird "lock out" strategy. Please lose your tinfoil hat, at least in discussions where there's absolutely no need to use it.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  8. Re:I dunno.... by Chokolad · · Score: 5, Informative

    > XMLHTTPRequest is too important for MS not to try and control it. I wouldn't rule out a good ol' "embrace and extend" move.

    What the hell are you talking about ? Microsoft invented the damn thing. Embrace and extend my ass...

  9. oh let's not talk standards by ashpool7 · · Score: 4, Informative

    FireFox doesn't even fully support CSS2. (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/text.html#text-shad ow-props) When will FireFox join the inevitable?

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10713

    Note this bug was opened in 1999. Judging from the target milestone (mozilla1.9) and the FireFox roadmap, we will have full CSS2 support in FireFox 3.0 by 2007. Wow, eight years...

    1. Re:oh let's not talk standards by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bad example. Text-shadow was deprecated in CSS 2.1 which fully supercedes CSS 2.0. Better examples are that Firefox doesn't support:
        * display: compact and inline-block
        * content: counters and quotes (recent version has quotes)
        * min/max-width/heigth (recent versions support it very limited)

      There are a couple more. These are also the primary reasons Firefox cannot easily pass Acid2.

  10. What Internet Explorer 7 *REALLY* needs... by TodLiebeck · · Score: 5, Informative

    What IE really needs right now, if it wants to be taken seriously as a platform for AJAX web applications, is proper DOM/CSS support. The following would be a good start (my current peeve list with IE6):

    • Implement document.importNode()
    • Support setting of opposite side CSS positioning properties at the same time, i.e., setting "left" and "right or "top" and "bottom" properties on same element.
    • Fix this problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;177378 Documenting a design flaw does not make it any less of a design flaw.
    • Fix other problems with SELECT element, e.g., the fact that it is not possible to add a ListBox-style select to a document using DOM manipulation.
    • Fix bug where the presence of a vertical scrollbar adjacent to a 100% wide table inside of a CSS positioned element results in a horizontal scrollbar due to incorrect width calculations.
    • Fix issue where 100% wide textareas expand to be a bit wider (creating a horizontal scrollbar) once text is entered. This also only occurs if the text area resides in a CSS positioned DIV.
    • Correctly monitor the DOM for updates and repaint appropriately. Currently there are cases where IE will not repaint the screen even though the DOM has changed, requiring the developer to perform additional DOM manipulations just to trigger a repaint.
    • Fix this completely insane bug (scroll down to a few paragraphs or search for the text "worst bug ever in Internet Explorer 6."
    • And last but definitely not least, simply bring the performance up to a level relative to Firefox/Opera/Konqueror/Safari, especially when dealing with reasonably complex and interactive DOMs.

    I've posted this on ieblog before. I sincerely hope that somehow someone on the IE team sees one my numerous implementations of the above list of rants and implements solutions for them. It'll make the professional lives of many AJAX developers quite a bit more pleasant.

  11. Not news by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

    Firstly, this is not news. This was posted on the IEBlog way back in September.

    Secondly, this is one hell of a misleading headline. Internet Explorer has supported this interface since Internet Explorer 5.0, released in the year 2000. All that's different in Internet Explorer 7 is that it's implemented as a native object, rather than with ActiveX.

    Finally, this matters to practically nobody. Any decently-written code will work just fine in Internet Explorer 7 with no modification whatsoever. Even code written to use browser detection instead of feature/object detection, (a bad idea) will work just fine, assuming that the ActiveX interface sticks around too.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  12. Ajax over IFRAME - more compatible? by code4fude · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm the web architect of gather.com and we use an invisible iframe as a pipe for our AJAX stuff instead of XMLHttpRequest. This works in a uniform way across all browsers we've tested it on with - even way old ones. The Javascript is 1.0-level stuff and IFRAME is standard since HTML 4. I wonder why more people don't use this approach? I know people hate IFRAMEs, but the ones we use are invisible and 0x0 pixels, so they're little more than an offscreen paint buffer (like BitBlt! :) ) The general approach we're taking is described in this years-old posting on Apple Developer Connection. Anyone else have experience with this approach?

  13. Except that.... by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Microsoft invented XMLHttpRequest. Not Firefox, not opera, not KHTML. They all copied it from IE.

    So it would be Firefox/Opera/KHTML that are doing the "embracing and extending" in this case.

    On a side note, I don't see why this is a big deal. They are likely still going to use a COM object underneath. All this is is a coding shortcut, that no one will be able to use anyway because you're still going to have to support IE6 for the next 3 years at least.

    1. Re:Except that.... by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "On a side note, I don't see why this is a big deal. They are likely still going to use a COM object underneath. All this is is a coding shortcut, that no one will be able to use anyway because you're still going to have to support IE6 for the next 3 years at least."

      If you RTFA you'll see the benefit is for those organisations that have ActiveX turned off for security reasons (lots of em).

      On the IEBlog you have a code snippet showing how you create the native XMLHttpRequest object for Opera, FF and IE7, while fall back to ActiveX for IE6 and earlier.

      So there IS benefit. And no, it's not a simple scripting shortcut at all.

  14. Embrace and extend my ass... by melted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Goatse, is that you?

  15. ISV's lives become easier. by Tenk101 · · Score: 3, Interesting


    I work on solution designs for a fairly large ISV, anything that increases browser compatibility is a good thing all around. Most of our end-user interfaces and make use of XML with some XSLT on the client, we also use XMLHTTPRequests..

    Due to pure market pressure from our existing userbase we develop for the IE platform. IE isn't for everyone and ideally we'd like to target every browser from a technical standpoint and we know it increases the number of potential customers we have. We move one step closer to genuine cross browser compatibility with this.

    Despite this we still need ActiveX right now for a couple of key things:
      - File uploading, we used Java already and it went badly. Our customers had real problems with getting correct JRE versions out to their users, the users complained about the lack of standardisation in basic things like the Common Dialog. We've had a lot less problems with ActiveX controls but understandably network admins really don't like it.
      - MS Office Automation. Part of our product is business reporting, it has features around automated generation of Powerpoint Presentations and Excel Spreadsheets from the web interface. We can't influence our customers decisions around Office systems but we've never encountered pushback over MS Office from anybody. MS Office automation needs ActiveX and is way outside sandbox (local processes are launched and these have access to all kinds of things).

    In short, this helps but we are still a way off from being able to deliver fully functional web-based business systems with this but it helps. As an enthusiast I like it, as a real world solution developer it doesn't quite make a dent.

  16. Re:A Nice Step by Bogtha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why shouldn't Firefox and Safari render more closely to the way that IE does it?

    What makes more sense?

    1. The developers of browsers A, B, C and D get together and write down how something should work.
    2. The developers of browsers A, B, C and D go off and implement what they've agreed upon.

    ...or:

    1. The developers of browser A implement something.
    2. The developers of browsers B, C and D wait for browser A to be released.
    3. The developers of browsers B, C and D try to reverse-engineer what the developers of browser A have done, while the developers of browser A implement version 2.0.
    4. The developers of browsers B, C and D implement what they hope is the correct behaviour while the developers of browser A release version 2.0.

    Which do you think is the healthy, competitive scenario? Which do you think hands control of the future of the web over to a single organisation?

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha