AJAX and IE7?

Moochfish asks: "Recently, my company took a brief look at AJAX to see if it was worth implementing on a few of our administrative pages to speed up certain tasks. I had created a demo that made an interesting use of live edit fields that showed some promise. However, after a little debate on the issue, we ultimately decided to skip AJAX implementations anywhere in our codebase due to concerns about things breaking when IE7 comes out. I haven't personally tried IE7, but I completely understand and mirror the concern. For you testers of IE7, does it successfully render current, non-ASP AJAX enabled sites without errors? And finally, does IE7 introduce any new functionality that may enhance the current capabilities of AJAX?" "Many of the AJAX libraries out there have tons of duplicate functionality to handle cross-browser support. Recalling Microsoft's history of IE quirks, it seems likely that the new IE7 will have its own set of problems with regards to JS implementation. With the AJAX craze only growing, how are other developers and IT departments addressing this problem? Is this even a valid concern? While this is probably not an issue with ASP developers - especially with the release of Atlas - is this an issue for sites that use non-MS technologies?"

Comments

I don't get the question, I think

[heinousjay]

Why not just install the beta and see how it behaves? I can't imagine they're going to change the interface to the XMLHTTPRequest object now, but even if they do, you can isolate that change. Bam, AJAX still works.

Seems your question might be more about DOM manipulation, but I have the same advice: install the beta.

Re:I don't get the question, I think

[poopdeville]

Yes. Testing is far more useful.

non-ASP ?

[LDoggg_]

For you testers of IE7, does it successfully render current, non-ASP AJAX enabled sites without errors?

What the heck does the tech creating the html/javascript have to do with the browser's usage of the generated code?

If you specifically mean ATLAS, they you should specify it in that question.

Administrative pages

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it seems you want AJAX for internal uses, why do you care if it'll work with IE7? Seriously, maybe your organization should consider deploying Firefox...

Ajax will be better in MSIE 7

[BladeMelbourne]

If I recall, MSIE 7 has XMLHttpRequest - no more using MSXML. The same code should run on Mozilla and MSIE 7.

MS has also released their Atlas Ajax library/framework in the past couple of weeks.

I hate IE 7's interface. Tabs are ok, but the buttons and layout are not placed well on screen.

Re:Ajax will be better in MSIE 7

[bjpirt]

This is true. The only cross browser testing that should need doing is whether the browser is IE 6 or 5.5 (or 5?) in which case use the active X control. IE7 has the same XMLHTTPRequest object as all the other proper browsers

Re:Ajax will be better in MSIE 7

[Bogtha]

Yep, other than that I haven't seen any modification of the Javascript interpreter mentioned anywhere.

Internet Explorer doesn't have a JavaScript interpreter. It has a JScript interpreter. JavaScript and JScript are both implementations and supersets of the ECMAScript language specified in the ECMA-262 standard.

Re:Firefox

[dpilot]

No. The answer is clear. They should postpone doing anything until Microsoft is ready for them to start, with IE7.

How DARE anyone think of innovating without Microsoft!?!
How DARE anyone think of doing anything with a computer that isn't the One Microsoft Way!?!

(That's sarcasm, for the impaired. Ordinarily I wouldn't think it necessary, but this IS Slashdot.)

Fine

[Kawahee]

It works fine. GMail runs smoothly, Outlook Web Access runs smoothly. IE7 is just IE6 + more features and better CSS support. And they're using the standard HTTP request object now, not the MS* one.

IE7 Browser Usage and Design Decisions

[alstor]

While this doesn't exactly answer the question posed, the question made me consider the impact IE7 will have on browser usage, and Microsoft's design decisions for IE7. Given the current market of browser distribution basically mandates that web designers and programmers fix IE6 issues, I am not so sure that IE7 will be considered in such forceful terms, or, that Microsoft will be forced to try harder to make the browser standards compliant and have fewer idiosyncrasies. Should web designers and programmers be forced to make frustrating fixes for so many generations of the same broken browser? From the numerous times I have been pissed at IE6 because it rendered something just slightly off, I know I might advice organizations I program for to tell users to use Firefox or Mozilla or Opera or nearly anything aside from IE6, or in the future, IE7. For Microsoft's sake, I hope they have considered the possible backlash from the generally non tech savvy users of IE6 when they get an update to IE7 and all the new AJAX applications break. I know that if I were trying to use Gmail or Flickr, and they just stopped working when I moved to IE7, I might just switch to Firefox or Opera if I hadn't tried before.

It's a non-issue

[AnamanFan]

I think you're a little confused about what AJAX technologies are and where they run.

AJAX is a presentation philosophy (AKA: a client-side issue). It runs independent of the server technology used. On various projects, I have implemented AJAX on servers running PHP, ColdFusion, and static HTML. AJAX is server platform independent.

As for the particulars of IE7, I can say that using script.aculo.us and Prototype libraries run the same if not improved on IE7 in comparison to IE6. The fact that the libraries themselves are actively being tested for IE7 as new beta comes out means that I don't have to do anything extra for the changes; It just works.

I understand the initial concern for IE7/IE6 compatibility, but sticking with a popular library solve this problem and make the concern a non-issue.

As for the server-side of AJAX, what you'll be coding are pages that output either HTML, XML, or JSON. Any server platform can create this kind of output, so questions of server compatibility are moot.

But my word of cation is this: Know why you are changing a component to an AJAX philosophy and how best to implement it. There are good reasons to use AJAX as there are bad ones. Please proceed with cation and purpose.

Shannanigans

[Fhqwhgadss]

Let's see: The poster has an in-house web application and has gone so far as to prototype an AJAX-ified interface. After all of this work is done, it appears that the new interface may improve productivity, but the idea is scrapped wholesale over some ephemeral fears that IE7 _might_ break their site, and an Ask Slashdot is posted.

How hard is it to download the IE7 beta? The app is in-house so if it breaks tell IE7 users to fuck off until support is added for it. Is moochfish totally inept or just trying to fan the 'IE7 is the suck' flames? My guess is the latter.

Re:Shannanigans

[moochfish]

My company is involved in consumer web traffic and thus many users in the company use a variety of browsers to test both in-house and partner web pages. The rest of our administrative software works fine in the main browsers we use and it would be rediculous to force everybody to start using a specific browser for one or two pages.

Secondly, my prototype was a demo for something I wanted to expand to our clients and partners. And trust me, coding a 20 line AJAX script is not that much work and you might think.

Finally, telling people to "fuck off until support is added" is the exact reason the project was canned. That is not possible in the business world.

The decision was made without my direct input. I though it was an interesting issue and was curious how other departments handled it. I wasn't asking for ways to convince my management to reverse their decision.

But thanks for the trolling/flamebait.

Try it yourself you tool

[Fweeky]

Runing IE7 Beta 2 Preview next to IE6.

Re:Firefox

[tomhudson]

If they're going to wait for IE7 to come out of beta "just in case", by the same reasoning they should also wait for Vista to come out of beta.

Seeing as Longhorn/Vista was originally supposed to be out in 2003, oops, 2004, sorry 2005, for sure 2006, now definitely Januar 2007, the question is "Which will be out first - Vista or Bush?"

Re:Take it from someone who knows...

[TheComputerMutt.ca]

"Take it from someone who knows..." from personal experience? You suck too?

Re:Firefox

[paugq]

He's talking about a intranet application for his company. To state it clearly: it's an in-company application, so you have full control.

Where's the problem telling users to employ Firefox? Hell, most companies oblige you to use Microsoft Word to write your documents and Outlook to manage your e-mail. What's the difference when telling people "you must start Firefox when using the accounting application"?

Doubt

[WED Fan]

I am sorry, and I am apologizing up front and will probably have my karma slammed, but I do have to comment.

I really have to question the legitimacy of this 'Ask Slashdot' article, and am wondering how the editors let it slip through. The article is either a fake, or the person submitting it is a piss-poor tester.

How hard would it have been to install the IE7 beta on a single machine to check the rendering of AJAX elements?

I have IE7 installed on a test machine that we use to test web apps. I also use it for much of my daily browsing. As a result, I have a list of items that IE7 just won't work with, chief among them are SharePoint event calendar rendering, and Microsoft Producer. It has not broken against AJAX that I've run into, and I use Pageflakes as my homepage on that machine.

So, the poster is faking a "my-company-wanted-to-use-the-latest-greatest-but- we-are-afraid-MS-will-break" article, or his company is paying him much too much for his perceived skills.

Really, editors, you should have caught this.

Re:I've built a library on top of ajax.

[josepha48]

here read this about their support in IE 7

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/featuret able.mspx