Slashdot Mirror
Site Compatibility and IE8
Kelson writes "As the release of Internet Explorer 8 approaches, Microsoft's IE Team has published a list of differences between IE7 and IE8, and how to fix code so that it will work on both. Most of the page focuses on IE8 Standards mode, but it also turns out that IE7 compatibility mode isn't quite the same as IE7 itself."
And at the bottom of your web page, instead of having some non-sense such as "This page best viewed with IEx", have something that says, "Page best viewed with standards compliant browsers, such as X,Y, and Z".
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious, or if you're saying that we should move back towards Java applets and use more Flash or if they should go away. Care to elaborate?
Personally the idea of bringing Java applets back makes me cringe. I also have FlashBlock set to block all Flash by default, so you can guess my stance there as well. In fact the trend to include more Flash and the increasing use of Silverlight has me wondering what the future HTML and CSS will be if they have one at all. (I say as I format my post with HTML tags...)
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I think you are missing the point of the example given.
Microsoft isn't saying that they didn't implement both window.postMessage and window.addEventListener.
They are saying that if you want to test for the existence of feature A, you check for the existence of feature A and you don't infer its existence by checking for the existence of feature B.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
I think you're missing my argument. The assumption that addEventListener should exist if postMessage exists is a good one. Why? Because postMessage relies on addEventListener. However, Microsoft decided that proper DOM support wasn't important to standards compliance, and implemented a bastardized version of the spec.
The example they gave as a solution is actually buggy. The original code checked for cross-document messaging and presumably would have fall-back logic if the feature didn't exist. Microsoft's "corrected" code does not correctly check for cross-document messaging. It simply assumes it exists and registers an event for it. Which is likely to break a lot of truly standards compliant browsers while "fixing" IE8.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is a temporary problem. As computers get faster, this problem will go away.
Um, it has been stated that its a temporary problem ever since Java applets were introduced in the '90s, and even today with dual-core multi-ghz CPUs commonplace as Gigabytes of RAM, the problem still hasn't gone away.
Similarly, Flash seemed just as fast on a Pentium III with about 128 MB of RAM as it does today on the latest quad-core box.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
People, the web is fine for multimedia and information presentation, but why is there this constant push to integrate everything into the web? There's all this crap being tacted onto what constitutes a "web browser" that it's becoming less and less a browser and more and more a platform every day. This is not the direction we want to go right now. A lightweight browser that can present information in a variety of devices is where the web needs to stay: Accessibility is more important than features. HTML, XML, CSS, and maybe some javascript is all the farther anyone needs to go. But then Flash came along and suddenly you've got crap that can't be indexed and is inaccessible to people who are blind or deaf, and increasingly devices like mobile phones which have enough power to do the basics aren't enough because the standards are getting jacked up to the point that we have to cram a laptop's worth of computing resources into a form factor that can fit in your hand, and a battery life of less than a day.
This so-called progress is a step in the wrong direction. We need to work on a set of standards that can be implimented with minimal computational resources, is flexible enough to offer a range of presentation options sufficient for most information (images, text, some video and audio) -- and leave it at that. By extending the web into areas reserved for applications and then trying to do everything at once (cross-platform, intensive computations, entire application suites stuffed into web browsers) we are opening a can of worms that promises to segment the web into a million incompatible methods.
We need to work on making this information as available and accessible as possible, not coming up with fancy new ways to make it inaccessible to larger and larger groups of people in the name of progress.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This accomplishes two things: one, it shows that their browser isn't that good, and two, it shows other browsers are available and lastly, it doesn't just throw those folks out - otherwise, they'll just move on; unless you're the coder for the Wall Street Journal or some other website where the viewers are captive.
HTML rendering is actually pretty consistent among standards compliant browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome & Opera). The problem is that the largest browser vendor by marketshare (Microsoft) has a poor history of standards compliance; rather they ignore parts of standards for their own proprietary implementations, which change from version to version.
This has caused Microsoft their current position, where it becomes difficult for new versions of their browser to match the quirks and partial standards compliance of the past versions. It's hard to remove features from a browser when a popular site coded years ago is still using them. In essence, they have painted themselves into a corner.
The problem is not in HTML, the problem is the long term effect of proprietary technology instead of standards compliance. Vendor-owned technologies such as Flash or Silverlight are not the answer, in fact they're characteristic of the problem!
My websites will block IE8, and a message will pop up telling people to go download Firefox, Opera, or Chrome.
For those whose whom their website is not tied to their livelihood, I suppose one can afford to be smug.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Am I missing something here? Why the hell even introduce the idea of "Compatibility View"? That's just pure sloppiness.
Since when was it the browser user's responsibility (or even the browser's) to decide what mode a page should be viewed in? Isn't it the developer's job to tell the browser how to behave, and the browser does so accordingly, in a consistent fashion?
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Yes, let us please kill that lie right now. Working with SOHO and SMBs I can tell that there are most likely millions of machines still doing their jobs in offices accross this country, as well as in many customers homes, that are between 1GHZ and 3.6GHZ with anywhere from 256MB to 2GB of RAM. In fact for purpose of this example i am typing this on a refurbed office machine I have had working as a Nettop(long before there was even such a word) for the past 9 years. This machine is a 1.1GHz Celeron with a maxed out 512MB of PC133.
For the Internet it works beautifully EXCEPT if the evil known as flash is allowed on. In fact let me quote the system requirements for Linux Flash Player 10 that a fellow Slashdot reader posted(Thanks McGuirk) "Minimum Requirements: Modern processor (800MHz or faster) & 512MB of RAM, 128MB of graphics memory For "Standard" and for HD playback:Intel Core Duo 1.8GHz, AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 4200+ processor (or equivalent) & 512MB of RAM & 64MB of VRAM"
I'm afraid I have to agree with his comments after reading the specs "Good God...that's more than many games" and you want to use THAT as the "standard" for making web pages? I have many 3d video games that aren't that damned bloated! But to me it simply highlights why Flash is bad: It is made by Adobe. No offense, but Adobe has always been a "throw more RAM and CPU at it" kind of company. There products have always gotten more bloated and buggy with every release. That is just who they are. But wanting to turn the whole WWW, which is used by countless millions across the planet, including businesses, charities, users rich and poor alike, into a giant flash site because the HTML and CSS code has gotten sucky is just insanity.
If the HTML and CSS standards suck, then have a fit and demand they change! But don't turn the web into a giant bloated playground for a single monopoly. We went through that in the 90s with "This site is designed for IE only" and I'm not really wanting to go back to that, Are you?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.