Microsoft Releases Early IE12 Preview As Part of Its New Developer Channel

DroidJason1 (3589319) writes "Microsoft is looking to create a more open dialog between the Internet Explorer team and the Web development community by announcing Internet Explorer Developer Channel. IE Dev Channel allows you to preview the next version of Internet Explorer (IE12) alongside and independently of IE11. Web developers can download and test drive the latest IE platform features, something developers were already able to do with Firefox and Chrome. This preview release even offers support of the emerging Gamepad API, allowing you to use your Xbox controller to play games in IE!"

Comments

Out of curiosity

[Dreth]

What browser-based games are worth playing with a controller?

Re:Out of curiosity

[ArcadeMan]

Canabalt?

Re:Out of curiosity

[Thanshin]

Chrome?

Re:Out of curiosity

[ericloewe]

I doubt there's many, but it's sure to improve in the future when support actually exists.

Re:Out of curiosity

[Blaskowicz]

NES emulators with their numerous warez roms, I guess.

Re: Out of curiosity

[Anonymous Coward]

In a browser?? This I have to see!

Re: Out of curiosity

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go: ~~~~~~

Does anyone still use IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that nobody in my circle of family and friends uses Internet Explorer.

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[OffTheLip]

I use IE for work related OWA access. It's really the best app for that. For all other browsing, Firefox or Chrome.

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[Thanshin]

Usage share of web browsers 2008-2014

Re: Does anyone still use IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

How low can it go?

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[DrXym]

I use it when browsing from metro but only because none of the other browsers offers that choice. Chrome supposedly offers a metro mode but it doesn't work on high dpi devices and Firefox dropped their support. For some reason IE only enables metro mode when it is the default browser which might be for technical reasons but its still highly annoying.

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[gstoddart]

I use it exclusively for work related stuff I have no choice but to use.

Because, sometimes, some wanker decides that I need to use some 3rd party Flash crap to do my annual review or for some training.

For everything else ... it's pretty much anything else except IE. IE has been in the category of "browsers I don't trust and only use when absolutely required" for a long time now, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I certainly wouldn't use IE for day to day browsing.

Re: Does anyone still use IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those charts only show visits to w3schools and is therefore highly inaccurate. Best guess is IE is still around the 50% mark for PC browsers.

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[shutdown -p now]

OWA works just as well in Chrome & Firefox these days, actually. Unless it's some ancient version...

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[Kalriath]

Chrome does the same thing. I suspect it is for technical reasons.

Re:Does anyone still use IE?

[DrXym]

I'd like to try chrome instead but their high dpi support is completely broken. If I run it on my tablet it comes out upscaled in the desktop and a disassociated mess of boxes and lines in metro. Have to wait for them to get their act together.

You want IE to be relevant?

[kiddygrinder]

start by removing the OS restrictions, maybe you think limiting late versions of IE to windows 8 is a selling point for windows, but it just makes people download a browser that supports their operating system and makes web devs pissed off at having to support 3 different versions of IE, 2 of which suck donkey cock.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[jbolden]

If you look at desktop / laptop IE is back to being a huge leader in marketshare even for page views and not just by machines. So they are highly relevant. You might not like that, it doesn't change anything.

As for basic point you are sort of contradicting yourself. You want people to upgrade browsers but not upgrade OSes, where browsers are essentially the OS for their web experience. You either have an upgrade culture or you don't. If you do then people are rapidly upgrading both (like Apple) if you don't then you get stuck on old versions forever (what Microsoft around 2012). I think its a good thing that Microsoft is moving back towards pushing people towards their latest OS for the same reason they should be pushed towards the latest browser. Microsoft can and should be a huge driver for innovation in the industry.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[urbanriot]

In supporting corporate IT, we're finding that more users are having better success accessing web sites with Internet Explorer 8 / 9 / 10 and Google Chrome, rather than Internet Explorer 11. However we also find some web developers are providing platforms that are only compatible with Internet Explorer 11 so there are exceptions. With all of that being said, we're starting to push more users to Chrome since we have less compatibility issues and Google provided group policy templates. I expect IE 12 will push more companies to Google Chrome, assuming they're going to wildly change the standards again, so I'm thinking their relevancy will decline further.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[ericloewe]

3 different versions? Only IE11 matters. It's even being distributed automatically.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Thanshin]

And with "only IE11 matters" you mean "I could prove to your client, beyond reasonable doubt, that no person in an entire country will try to connect to their web page with any IE from any previous version."?

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Windows XP is IE8 only, most corporate environments only accept IE that means if you do work to any company you have to support IE8 as well (and sometimes only IE8). I live this problem and it is not fun.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could not agree more. It is really easy for a web-app vendor to tell customers that in order to use their site one needs to install a recent browser for free. Trying to ask customers to update their Windows in order to get more recent IE is a no-go.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Microsoft (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie-system-requirements#ie=ie-11) IE11 can be installed only to Windows 8.1, which has a 6,3% market share (https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Windows+8.1&qpcustomb=0). Are you sure that somebody targets any major software for that kind of market?

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[thedonger]

Microsoft can and should be a huge driver for innovation in the industry.

Google (via Chrome) and earlier Mozilla (via FF) are the driver for Microsoft to innovate, since without that outside pressure we would still be using IE6. Maybe the Dev Channel is the start of Microsoft spinning off (well, not actually "off") innovation groups that aren't encumbered by the 800 pound corporate gorilla?

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[rescendent]

Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 - just not Windows 8

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Ark42]

As somebody who occasionally freelancing HTML5 development, I can tell you I generally target IE10 and up, because IE10 forward has more or less the same feature set that Firefox/Chrome/Safari have had for years. IE9 and below are just lacking in all kinds of basic CSS support. You don't even need any Jquery or modernizer or other "fixes" if you just target IE10+. In fact, at some point, you start noticing that Chrome is actually the least modern of the big 4 browsers here. I know this is a controversial statement for the Slashdot groupthink, but there are many CSS3 features I've tried to use that work great in Firefox and IE10+, but Chrome fails at. Large gradients, for example, still don't render anywhere near what you'd want in Chrome (horrible banding and other weird render errors at angles, still not fixed in the latest version).

I think you'd have to try REALLY hard to specifically write a website that only works in IE11 and somehow not in IE10, as long as you're using HTML5/CSS3 standard stuff. The same goes for IE12. I don't know what features it will bring, but probably not anything real important that's going to change the huge divide between IE9- and IE10+.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[gsnedders]

Bizarrely, listed separately, is Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7. IE11 runs on Win 7, Win 8.1, and Windows Server 2008 R2. That's 56% per the above figures, a far cry from 6%! Also, another 6% can freely upgrade (from 8 to 8.1) to a supported version. Note the 25% of users on Windows XP have no security updates, and the 6% on Windows 8 have until 1 December 2016 to upgrade to 8.1 (or later) to continue receiving security updates.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because IE11 changes the way it references itself, so older script libraries fail to recognize it, well, anything. The rendering is also much closer to standards-based so all the old IE-only hacks break pages. Older sites that were not updated for IE11 therefore break if they're not run in compat mode.

Also, they kicked the developers in the nuts by not supporting conditional comments to reference older ie engines, for example "if ie8 include this file". Conditional comments are ignored when running any of the engines, so if you change your document rendering mode to IE8, your browser will still not pick up on the conditionals that may tell it to include an IE8-specific css file, so the site still appears broken when running in compat mode. Basically, you can't trust any backwards compatibility for sites you develop while testing in IE11 even when using the older engine compat modes.

All in all it was a pretty good flogging, users *and* developers.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

and makes web devs pissed off at having to support 3 different versions of IE, 2 of which suck donkey cock.

Just two?

Fanboi.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that IE version 7 (specifically) is the most popular version of IE, followed closely by IE 8. The most popular version of the browser isn't even officially supported by Microsoft anymore.

That is a major problem.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

And on my website with a few thousand users a day, over 80% of IE traffic (roughly 12% total traffic) is IE7 or 8. Looking back in time, I can only see two visits from an IE browser 9+.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[jbolden]

Microsoft was a huge innovator before that (I.E. 3, 4, 4.5) before that. For a long time they were deliberately holding back on web because they didn't want a migration from desktop to web. Firefox, mobile applications and Safari (mobile) allowed that huge shift to happen. Now that's its happening Microsoft's interests have shifted from holding back to pushing forward. The reason is that x86/laptops are still way faster than ARM/tablet&mobile. The more sophisticated software is the better it is for Microsoft.

Microsoft's strategic interests are now aligned with progress like they were for desktops the 1980s through mid 1990s.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[jbolden]

Were are you getting that from. IE 8 is still popular but less than 11. IE 7 is under 1% share.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[armanox]

I decline (as does the company I work for, and several others I deal with) to support Windows XP at this point, with the exception of moving users off of it (well, my employer doesn't deal with XP at all, if you call support the response for XP is we don't support that, use a supported system, Friend's employer just deals with it for migrations, and I still do that on the side sometimes).

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[urbanriot]

Our IT support experience is entirely different from what you're suggesting and typically it's "8", "9/10" and "11" in terms of compatibility, with 9 and 10 offering pretty much the same experience.
Property management platforms utilized by the majority of hotels throughout North America, like what Micros provides, automobile dealership platforms, like what Honda provides, etc., they're all either IE9 / IE10 or just IE9. Once in a while we'll see a location on an old Siebel platform requiring IE 8 or compatibility view. There are very few instances where anyone has been compatible with all three, it's typically 9/10 or 11 and large corporations have rules concerning specificity of IE version and it's almost always IE 9 for compatibility reasons.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that IE version 7 (specifically) is the most popular version of IE, followed closely by IE 8. The most popular version of the browser isn't even officially supported by Microsoft anymore.

That is a major problem.

Say what?

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[narcc]

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I remember something about MS shifting their focus from the soon-to-be-dead web to the nebulous "x internet". I had always assumed that was the reason why they essentially stopped development on IE.

I like your explanation better as there is a delicious irony in the fact that their innovations contributed greatly to the continued success of the web and the development of the web as an application platform.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that IE version 7 (specifically) is the most popular version of IE, followed closely by IE 8. The most popular version of the browser isn't even officially supported by Microsoft anymore.

That is a major problem.

This is wrong. Most stats show IE11 as the most used version of IE, followed by IE8, followed by IE10, followed by IE9. Other versions are really small.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[narcc]

All in all it was a pretty good flogging, users *and* developers.

Browser detection was always a bad idea. It took a while, and a lot of beating, but even half-wits like Resig realized this years ago.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[weszz]

Healthcare IT is also rough, we have some government mandated things saying you MUST use IE8, others that the same people use are now saying you must have 9 or 10, and I think there is still a handful that need 7.

The only option for many of these people is either versions in Citrix (MS approved way) or ThinApp, which works great, but MS doesn't like it.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[tepples]

True, object detection is superior to browser detection. But object detection can't be done server-side, especially if you want to exclude certain elements from the HTML on platforms more likely to have small screens and download caps. Nor can object detection reliably two browsers that support the same properties of the same object but give it different behaviors, unless I'm missing something really fundamental.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Kalriath]

What's particularly amusing is that probably one of the largest contributions to modern web application development - XMLHTTP - came out of, of all places, the Microsoft Exchange team.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[cbhacking]

Yep. If somebody asks "what did Microsoft ever really innovate?" then "AJAX" is a pretty good answer. Previous versions required silly things like tiny [i]frames on the page that would make requests without navigating the whole browser window, but those were clunky and problematic.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Ark42]

Like I said, you have to try REALLY hard to get yourself into such as situation, by explicitly NOT writing webpages to standard HTML5/CSS3. It's probably the result of poorly trained developers copy/pasting in tons of blobs of ancient javascript, or activeX controls that aren't going to work on newer versions of IE, or using some "toolkit" that spits out your HTML/CSS/JS for you instead of writing streamlined code yourself. Who knows. Like I said though, if you write standard HTML5/CSS3, you will have literally no trouble on IE10+ and Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. I can pretty much guarantee it.

IE9 will generally also gracefully fall back, as it supports some HTML5, it's just missing lots of features you might want to use in CSS such as gradients, transitions, transformations, text-shadow, and then some basic HTML things like the placeholder attribute for form fields. With IE9 having support for CSS rgba, opacity, box-shadow, nth-child, calc, and some other important things like Javascript's addEventListener and JSON.parse, you can also pretty easily target IE9+ if you know which handful of neat CSS things to avoid.

Targeting IE8 and below requires all kinds of IE-specific code like attachEvent instead of addEventListener, and it's generally not worth targeting IE8 without some shim like JQuery. And for this reason, I've pretty much stopped using JQuery (as it's now mostly superfluous), and stopped targeting IE8 completely. Sorry Windows XP users, but you're going to need to use a 3rd party browser of some sort if you want to stay on the web.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[david_thornley]

It may not be poorly trained developers. It may be good developers pushed by management to get something working ASAP, or crappy legacy software created by time-pressed developers that management sees no ROI in updating. In any case, when you're talking about major industry-wide applications, you can specify the platform they're run on, such as IE 9. It's cheaper for the users to provide computers using IE 9 than to push for more general solutions.

What will change this is when IE 9 is not supported on recent versions of Windows. At that point, the application will have to be upgraded, and if the developers are lucky they'll be able to argue that doing it right will save money in the long run.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[Ark42]

I understand how bad managers can create situations like this for developers, that's a given. All I was arguing is that IE10 and IE11 should both be pretty good browsers, capable of HTML5/CSS3 mostly on par with all the other major browsers now. I don't see how you can purposefully create *new* code that works on just IE10, and not IE11, without trying REALLY hard to be an idiot.

For legacy corporate sites, you just need to stick in a X-UA-Compatible to force IE to render in the version-mode you were originally targeting, and for the most part, I think things will keep working. Your IE10 and IE11 browsers can be forced to render everything as if they were IE9, or IE8, etc... This is only a "fix" for old, legacy sites though. For any new development, you should really stick a with IE=edge for X-UA-Compatible and just code to HTML5/CSS3 standards.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[i.kazmi]

iframes were also developed by the person responsible for most of the pioneering work on AJAX ie Scott Isaacs and rumor has (had) it that iframe stood for Isaacs' Frames (although he has denied it). Chris Isaacs was the program manager on the Internet Explorer team in the mid-90s.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[kiddygrinder]

you misunderstand me i think, i don't care in the slightest if people upgrade windows as the only part of that that effects me is the browser version. I still have to support ie8 at work and while that's a massive step up from the old ie6 days it still pisses me off.

my other point was that they're not doing themselves any favours by not allowing older windows versions install newer versions of ie as they're just pissing off users into switching away from ie since it's free to do so, not pissing them off into upgrading windows. eroding one very important market share for marginal at best gains in another if you will.

Re:You want IE to be relevant?

[jbolden]

I understand that. But I think you are wrong. The way you force people back into a culture of upgrading is having things not work anymore. Many users become very satisfied with their computers and setup to get them to upgrade is often quite hard.

Until recently (essentially the Windows 8 shift) Microsoft was far more concerned with maintaining marketshare of desktops then sales, the growth was coming from the enterprise server side of the business (SQLServer, Lync, Exchange, Dynamics...) With the rise of iPads and Android they started to genuinely lose share and thus had to change their strategy. Making the PC back into a dynamic environment where upgrades are required: somewhere between where they were in 2012 and Apple, is there new direction. Forcing browser upgrades is part of that. Companies have a tough time standardizing on a browser version which means internal software will be harder and harder to write for a single browser version.

Your IE8 customers are
1) the people who are still using the default with Win 7
2) the people running XP

Well they have killed off XP quite aggressively driving the market share down from around 35% to about 7% in a year and a half. And that did induce browser upgrades. People like you not supporting Windows 8 would do the rest.

Who wants this?

[gstoddart]

allowing you to use your Xbox controller to play games in IE

Is there a demand for this?

If I want to play a console game, I'll use a console.

This sounds like a solution in search of a problem to me, not something anybody is going to care about.

And, of course, being a new Web API, it's probably safest to assume it will be a massive security hole. Because, let's face it, IE seems to be the most vulnerable browser around.

Re: Who wants this?

[tysonedwards]

WebGL is becoming a nice technology, and systems like Unity and Unreal Engine 4 are supporting web deployments (not download via the web, but render in a full on HTML5 compliant browser) so at a certain point it makes sense for someone to be the first mover for implementing gamepad support.

Re:Who wants this?

[ericloewe]

[Citation Needed]

Re:Who wants this?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want to play a console game, I'll use a console.

Suit yourself, ignorant troll. I haven't owned a console since the PS2. Fuck consoles. Meanwhile, I enjoy games like SouthPark: Stick of Truth, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, Metal Gear Rising Revengence, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Limbo, and many others. All of which work beautifully with my Logitec F310 Xbox compatible controller.

Re:Who wants this?

[drinkypoo]

allowing you to use your Xbox controller to play games in IE

Is there a demand for this?

Yes. I would like to be able to play Ascent: The Space Game with a controller in my browser. I could pay five bucks to get a Windows client with joystick support, but it lags behind the browser version because it takes time to get new versions up on Desura, the platform being used to distribute it. This particular game is a Unity game, so in theory they could support that already, but the point remains that some amount of demand exists.

With more games moving into the browser, which works fine for some types of games, there's demand for more input options. And what I get out of it is not needing to download 15-20GB and use up 30-40GB of disk space like you will with some MMOs with a "traditional" client.

Obliviousness

[Thanshin]

"Microsoft is looking to create a more open dialog between the Internet Explorer team and the Web development community [...] This preview release even offers support of the emerging Gamepad API, allowing you to use your Xbox controller to play games in IE!"

At least they identified the core issue: The dialog between the IE team and the Web dev community; as proved by every single word after that.

Support of XBOX controllers? Seriously?

I'd like to make a poll between the entire human population of web developers.

The (completely unbiased) question would be: "why does the acronym IE make you gag?" just to see which one replies "Lack of support of XBOX controllers!"

Re: Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

For fuck's sake the word is "dialogue." "Dialog" is a crime against culture perpatrated by Microsoft as part of a scheme to dumb down humanity to the point that Windows would seem acceptable.

Re:Obliviousness

[kaiser423]

The odd thing is that I have a number of items that have webpages that talk to my XBox controller currently. A staggeringly large number of pan/tilt/zoom security sensors respond to XBox controls if you have their webpage up. Sure, it requires an applet versus this just working natively, but it's not like that was a big hurdle......Just an odd thing to trumpet.

Re:Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already do gamepad stuff with Chrome and Firefox. Have been able to do so natively for a few months at least now, me and a buddy have been working on a game in this fashion. Of course the real question is this: every other browser recognizes generic controllers, not just Xbox. Will IE specifically exclude non-xbox controllers?

Re: Obliviousness

[Thanshin]

"Dialog" is a crime against culture perpatrated by Microsoft

"Seynte Aldelme returnyde to Briteyne..makenge mony noble bookes ... of the rewles of feete metricalle, of metaplasmus, of dialog metricalle." - Higden's Polychronicon 1475

Re: Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

A quote from before standardized spelling was even a thing is perhaps not the best example to use in this situation...

Re: Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

So who perpetrated "perpatrated"?

Re:Obliviousness

[Kalriath]

No, because all they're doing is supporting the W3C GamePad API (which the IE status page at http://status.modern.ie/gamepa... says is available in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera already) which supports all gamepads, including the Xbox controller (with Xbox controller drivers, which for the Xbox One controller Microsoft has officially released).

Re:Obliviousness

[tepples]

But IE can still pick and choose which joysticks it will make available to web browsers. If IE uses only XInput and not DirectInput, only Xbox 360 (and possibly Xbox One) controllers will work. And the Metro version will have to use XInput because there is no DirectInput in Windows Runtime.

Re: Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's a perfect demonstration of the evolution of language.

Re:Obliviousness

[Kalriath]

That's true enough. Unfortunately I can't find any conclusive statement anywhere, so it would have to be tested to tell for sure. Side note, the Xbox One controller drivers make any game that supports an Xbox 360 controller work with an Xbox One controller.

Re:Obliviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I was shocked by the idea of MS giving a fuck what it's customers want for their money (and OK IE is free but anyway...), but then was reassured by the second part that everything was as normal in Redmond.

About time!

[Ol Olsoc]

I hope it lets us download Chrome or Firefox faster.

Re:About time!

[synapse7]

Repurpose Clippy, "I see you're attempting to access the internet, would you first like to download Firefox?"

Re:About time!

[Ol Olsoc]

Repurpose Clippy, "I see you're attempting to access the internet, would you first like to download Firefox?"

Clippy? Say 7 Hail Mary's and a good act of contrition. Then go forth and sin no more.

Xbox gamepad support?

[ArcadeMan]

Finally, I'll be able to play MegaMan 2 with my Xbox gamepad running on the NES being emulated in HTML5 inside IE12 running on Windows 8.1 inside VMware Fusion on my OS X Mac.

Sorry, Sony.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[mwvdlee]

Sorry, Sony.

No reason to feel sorry.
If you've ever put a music CD in your computer, you're probably running Sony software too.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[ArcadeMan]

I did put a music CD in my computer, but the OS I use isn't stupid enough to automatically install any software it finds on a CD.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[Thanshin]

I did put a music CD in my computer, but the OS I use isn't stupid enough to automatically install any software it finds on a CD.

Joke's on you. That's why you need an emulator.

Autorunning CD rootkits is a small price to pay for a browser with XBOX controller capabilities!

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[CastrTroy]

This. What exactly does one gain by being able to develop games in the web browser? Why not just download and run the executable. Sure the user is afraid of viruses, so they don't want to download and run an executable, but putting all the functionality into something like a web browser creates a huge vector in the first place. If all a browser had to do was display static content, perhaps with a little bit of Javascript for DOM manipulation, it would be a lot easier to secure web browsers. There's other ways of securing applications such as running them in a sandbox, that don't require making a web browser way more complicated than it needs to be.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got one up on you. I'm smart enough to configure my OS not to automatically install software.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[synapse7]

That is awesome, MegaMan 2 was great!

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[Blaskowicz]

You jest but when I wanted to play NES games under linux, the emulators I found in apt-cache search were garbage or unusable. Best one had garbled sound, others were buggy, command-line only, unconfigured etc.
I tried using good old Nesticle under Dosbox, it was almost good except that Dosbox only recognized two joystick buttons and not four.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[gstoddart]

If you've ever put a music CD in your computer, you're probably running Sony software too.

Only if you're stupid enough to not have turned off AutoRun -- one of the stupidest features from a security perspective Microsoft ever came up with.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[Blaskowicz]

It's a waste, but with computer CPU so powerful and years of over-optimizing javascript engines we'll soon be able to enjoy 1990s level of gaming in the web browser, assuming some game are of good quality and can be found along the heaps of garbage.

Re:Xbox gamepad support?

[narcc]

We've been able to do that for years. I remember a version of Doom, before canvas, that ran just fine, even on those old computers. (I can't find it, but it was around 2002-2004 iirc).

You'd be amazed at what you can do today in the browser these days with webgl and other new API's

hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

I still can't install 10 or 11 because they're incompatible with my AMD Radeon video card, yet now there's 12.. okay..

It's all good!

[EzInKy]

If IE follows web standards it will remain relevant. Trying to lock developers into supporting a certain OS will only hasten its death though. Oh, and just a reminder to Microsoft, there are more devices running other systems than there are devices running Windows nowadays.

Impressive..

[GameofScones]

I have a copy. Microsoft is playing catchup....and very quickly.

my experience with IE12.

[nimbius]

i appreciate the effort that went into streamlining the user interface. Microsoft understands its customers have always wanted a reliable and efficient means to quickly download Firefox or Chrome, and IE12 delivers. Although the recycle bin isnt supported anymore, the icon now has advanced right-click features to permanently remove it from view faster than ever before. For Power users will enjoy the advanced 'uninstall' mode for IE12 found in the control panel as well.

You want IE to be relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

They just should fork Firefox and put their own branding on it, and call it a day.

IE is irrelevant!

[EzInKy]

It fails to run on all my devices, and most of my friends say it won't run on the majority of theirs either. Funny how MS still thinks it rules the world, isn't it?

Version Bloat

[nitehawk214]

Thanks Microsoft. You want to jump on the version bloat game that Firefox and Chrome have... but keeping the complete version incompatibility that IE is known for.

FF Chrome or WebKit for free or Safari as a dev...

[jpellino]

I love when MS invents these new things.

Corrected link/time period

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that IE version 7 (specifically) is the most popular version of IE, followed closely by IE 8. The most popular version of the browser isn't even officially supported by Microsoft anymore.

That is a major problem.

Say what?

For some reason the Statcounter link messed up the time period, this is the last 3 months.

create a more open dialog

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, Microsoft, so switch the rendering engine to WebKit so I don't have to build a web site that works on all browsers other than IE, and then hack it to not look awful on IE. Why not commit to open source, if that's what you want to do now?

Re:create a more open dialog

[Kalriath]

No, that's a bad idea. Having a single rendering engine used by all browsers creates a monoculture, and monocultures are bad because they create behemoths like Microsoft. Trident needs to stick to the standards, and that's what they're doing. From what I've seen, any website that looks fine on Chrome or Firefox also looks fine on the latest versions of Trident.

Re:FF Chrome or WebKit for free or Safari as a dev

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean just like how apple invents all those *new* things?

Gratis vs. paywalled upgrades

[tepples]

You want people to upgrade browsers but not upgrade OSes, where browsers are essentially the OS for their web experience. You either have an upgrade culture or you don't.

There's a difference between a gratis upgrade culture and a paywalled upgrade culture. Upgrades to Firefox and Chrome are gratis. Upgrades to the newest IE require first upgrading Windows, which is paywalled.

Re:Gratis vs. paywalled upgrades

[jbolden]

There shouldn't be for customers of paid operating systems. Microsoft needs to throw off customers who find $40/yr for their OS to be too onerous.

Re:Gratis vs. paywalled upgrades

[cbhacking]

The IE 12 preview runs on Win7, which went RTM nearly five years ago. Vista users need to upgrade, yes, and XP users really seriously guys why the fuck are you running XP need to upgrade, but Win7 is still supported.

Provided you own that console

[tepples]

If I want to play a console game, I'll use a console.

Provided that the game you want to play is available for the console you own. What would you do if you see something like this?

Web: Play Episode 1 Now
Windows: Download Episode 1 (Free) | Buy Full Game ($9.99)
Linux, Steam OS: Download Episode 1 (Free) | Buy Full Game ($9.99)

Other platforms: If you represent a publisher interested in bringing this game to living rooms everywhere, contact us.

DirectInput vs. XInput

[tepples]

Will IE specifically exclude non-xbox controllers?

Probably so, as Windows has two gamepad APIs. DirectInput works with both Human Interface Device (HID) class joysticks and "next generation controllers" (meaning Xbox 360 controllers), but it doesn't support vibration on 360 pads. It also returns 360 pads' LT and RT as opposite ends of a single axis because DirectInput expects analog axes to have both negative and positive sides, resulting in games not being able to tell both held from neither held. Nor does DirectInput work in Windows Runtime (the subsystem used by so-called "Metro" apps from the Windows Store). XInput supports vibration and holding both LT and RT, but it doesn't work with HID class joysticks. It's also the only gamepad API in Windows Runtime, meaning the 360 pad is the only gamepad compatible with the Surface (not Surface Pro) and other Windows RT devices. Because IE is available as a Windows Runtime app, it's unlikely to support anything but XInput.

A dozen different platforms

[tepples]

Why not just download and run the executable.

Good luck running Mac executables on a Windows PC. Or good luck making 14 different executables for 14 different platforms. You could have your web game designed, implemented, tested, and deployed by the time you finish applying to become a licensed developer on half of them.

Two versions of FCEUX work on Ubuntu

[tepples]

when I wanted to play NES games under linux, the emulators I found in apt-cache search were garbage or unusable. Best one had garbled sound, others were buggy, command-line only, unconfigured etc.

As a developer of homebrew NES games that have been published on cartridge, I'd say the best NES emulators under Ubuntu are probably these:

• FCEUX (SDL version, no debugger): sudo apt-get install fceux
• FCEUX (Windows version, with debugger): sudo apt-get install wine then get the executable from FCEUX.com

Both have a GUI for loading ROMs. Sound in FCEUX (Windows version) was garbled in the version of Wine included in 10.04, but by 12.04 it became usable. (The SDL version always worked fine.) What did you mean by "buggy" and "unconfigured"?

Re:Two versions of FCEUX work on Ubuntu

[Blaskowicz]

I think I ran fceux in mint 13 (ubuntu 12.04, linux version) and that the sound was garbled. I've just tried it in Mint 16 and the sound is excellent :), with Snake Rattle'n'Roll as a quick test. Selecting full screen crashes the program instantly though. I'll eventually migrate to Mint 17 and haven't tried the program in there yet.
On linux you have a great variation between xorg, pulseaudio versions, plus shit like gcc and libc etc. so I'm sure some people have shit working in 2010 already and some other have crap in 2013. I don't want to blame anyone in particular!, it's a marvel that stuff works at all (even in Windows or on the web)

Re:Two versions of FCEUX work on Ubuntu

[Blaskowicz]

What did you mean by "buggy" and "unconfigured"?

Buggy is a generic term for not working (like crashing or showing a black screen and no idea what to do), unconfigured is a cop out term for "I don't know how to configure it". I think one emulator worked nice after setting up keyboard or gamepad keys the ugly way and launching it from command line every time but I can't tell which it was.

Re:Two versions of FCEUX work on Ubuntu

[tepples]

Buggy is a generic term for not working (like crashing or showing a black screen and no idea what to do)

Some more obscure games might not work because they use unusual mappers (configurations of hardware on the circuit board). An NES emulator has to emulate not only the components inside the Control Deck and the ROM chips but also the "bank switching" components that select which part of the ROM to read. Or you might have a bad dump, either with incorrect ROM data or configured to use the wrong mapper. Do games with simpler mapper hardware like Thwaite and RHDE work?

I think one emulator worked nice after setting up keyboard or gamepad keys the ugly way and launching it from command line every time but I can't tell which it was.

Let me guess: Probably Mednafen or the old version of FCE Ultra. You see command-line emulators because the skill set to develop an emulator and the skill set to develop a graphical front-end aren't always inside the same person.

But at least one advantage of SDL under Linux over SDL under Windows (and other DirectInput wrappers) is that SDL under Linux handles the LT and RT buttons of an Xbox 360 controller as separate axes.

On linux you have a great variation between xorg, pulseaudio versions, plus shit like gcc and libc etc. so I'm sure some people have shit working in 2010 already and some other have crap in 2013.

There's variation among Windows versions as well, as you pointed out. I'm just glad FCEUX works well enough for me on Ubuntu 12.04 on a Dell Inspiron mini 1012 (Atom subnotebook) that I can take it with me and write NES programs while riding the bus to and from work.

Re:Two versions of FCEUX work on Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a deficiency of DirectInput, it's a result of using Microsoft's own 360 pad driver.

Using XBCD provides a DirectInput compatible Xbox 360 pad driver with correct trigger axis mapping.