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

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?

[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?

[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+.

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!"

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: 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: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.