Microsoft Releases IE7 Beta 3

Kawahee writes "Microsoft has released IE7 Beta 3 to the public. From TechNet Flash: 'As a result of customer feedback, IE7 Beta 3 contains some feature changes in addition to the planned reliability, compatibility, and security improvements. If you've previously installed a beta of IE7, you should uninstall it before installing this release.' For the first time, the Administrator's Kit for Internet Explorer 7 is also available, which is described as 'the most efficient way to deploy and manage Web-based solutions.'"

Comments

Favorite release note...

[peipas]

"If Flight Simulator 2004 stops responding after you have installed Internet Explorer 7 Beta, find the oleacc.dll file in the Flight Simluator folder and rename it to oleacc.old. Then restart Flight Simulator."

Re:Favorite release note...

[Mayhem178]

'the most efficient way to deploy and manage Web-based solutions.'

Typos. Let me fix that for you.

'the most efficient way to destroy and mangle Web-based solutions.

Let's see.

[Inoshiro]

IE 7 still did not correctly implement the box model, positioning, all CSS1, all CSS2, or any CSS3. The same IE-specific parsing bugs for CSS are in place in IE 7.

At this point, you have to ask; is it that the people at Microsoft are incapable of producing a specs-compliant rendering engine (when every one else in the world can?), that they are roped by backwards compatibility, or that they think people will see IE 6 + tabs as "good enough"?

It's to the point where every site I make has 2 code paths: not IE, and the IE-specific overrides (up to an additional 20kb per page!).

Re:Let's see.

[heinousjay]

The ACID test has as much bearing on real world browser usage as my opinions on foreign policy have on Mexico's actions.

Re:Let's see.

[naelurec]

Yeah, but let's not pretend that everyone else is able to meet specs and standards perfectly either.

Yah but I can develop a XHTML/CSS website to the standard, using one of the mentioned browsers (firefox, mozilla, konqueror, safari, opera, etc..) and when I view that website in any other standards compliant browser on various operating systems, it looks VERY close if not the same. Then I view it in Internet Explorer and absolutely cringe.

As a developer, you get the following options:

1. Develop exclusively for Internet Explorer and don't care about any other browser (fortunately this mentality is dying due to the marketshare of alternative browsers). Other browsers tend to display these sites fairly well as long as there is no IE-specific crap (ie: active x)

2. Develop a tables based design with limited CSS .. basically, throw out lots of accessibility related formatting, but limit overall development time. Seems like most sites favor this method.

3. Develop two separate sites .. do browser detection (yuck) and serve up (at minimum) a separate CSS doc for Internet Explorer than for all other current browsers. Works ok until you realize the incompatibilities between different versions of IE and end up having to do version checks and maintain many separate layouts.

4. Develop to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, oh well.. (not terribly useful for most sites).

Its absolutely aggervating as a web developer to not only learn a standard and code to the standard, but end up having to learn the "IE" way and all the various hacks and workarounds (I believe Microsoft refers to this type of crap as "shims").. when working on a new layout, its not unrealistic to end up having to spend twice as long just to make a standards compliant XHTML/CSS design work in IE.. Its a shame because *most* developers simply can't devote the time ($$) and as a result, webpages are not standards compliant, less accessible and harder to maintain.

Uninstall

[jeffy210]

"you should uninstall it before installing this release"

Wait, wait, wait. A version of IE you can actually uninstall? Did I miss something here?

Re:Uninstall

[tehshen]

That's a bug, it'll be removed from the Vista version.

IE 7 is a Major Improvement

[ThinkFr33ly]

The IE 7 team has talked in length about the changes to the rendering engine and the decisions they've made.

Some particularly interesting posts are:

Standards and CSS in IE
Improving the CSS 2.1 strict parser for IE 7
Layout Complete Announced at MIX06
What's New for CSS in Beta 2 Preview
The prolog, strict mode, and XHTML in IE
All your are belong to us
Call to action: The demise of CSS hacks and broken pages.

It's not perfect, but it's a major improvement in basically every way over IE 6.

Re:It's not that bad

[mcmonkey]

Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.

Buddy, you gotta lay off the Redmond kool-aid. A true baseline for a browser that's integrated into the the OS is...nothing. Null. The empty set.

There should be no web browser that's integrated into the OS. There are many reasons for this, but I'll name one: security. Browsing the web is an inherently insecure operation. Why would you (for any technical reason) integrate that function into the core of your OS?

You wouldn't. IE is integrated into Windows for marketing reasons. Until that integration is done away with, we know MS isn't serious about all their security talk.

Would you integrate your digestive system into your hands? Eating would be so easy--you'd just have to touch stuff! What that's? Sometimes you touch stuff that isn't safe to eat? Here, put this 'patch' on.

Re:It's not that bad

[misleb]

I know the Slashdot crowd will poo-poo on this release, the zealots will shout for their favorite browser, etc. And for the most part, they're right. The media seems oblivious to this, but I've stopping thinking of IE7 as a competitor to all of the other browsers. Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.

A "baseline" browser would be standards compliant and minimal, which IE7 is not.

-matthew

Re:FUCK!

[NickFitz]

IE will use the W3C box model if you include an appropriate DOCTYPE in your page (as per the standards) thereby triggering "strict" rendering mode. The box model is only broken if you use"quirks" mode rendering.

This has been the case since IE5.5.

It's also how Firefox, Opera and Safari - and probably every other CSS-supporting browser of any note - cope with all the malformed HTML/CSS out there.