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Part of Browsers.
So Microsoft is going to retire EdgeHTML and use Chromium instead for Edge while not really answering the question if the web [is] better off with less engine diversity. This upset people, and Mozilla, especially, is worrying about the future:
Recently the news broke that Microsoft may be working on another browser instead of IE. After reviewing the available evidence I’ve come to the conclusion that, although Microsoft is making a few adjustments, and a name change for IE might be a good idea, the new browser will essentially be IE12. Still, I think we web developers should support the “new browser” narrative.
I wanted to know which IE versions my readers test on, so I held a survey. The results are below.
Three weeks ago I used modern.ie to equip myself with the latest old IEs (if that makes any sense). I advise you to do the same.
During recent sponsorship talks a Microsoft representative pointed out the existence of this resource, and asked me to spread the word. I studied it, downloaded the IEs and used them in my recent tests, and now I’m convinced. So here I am spreading the word.
Over the past six weeks or so I ran a poll about the use of old IE versions among web developers. It’s time to publish the results.
I’m working on a major update of the CSS section, and one thing I need to decide is whether to continue to show compatibility data for older IEs (say up to 7).
In order to find out what my readership wants, I’d like to ask you to fill out this quick Old IE poll. I’ll use the results for my decision.
Old IE useThanks!
2 November 2010
OK, I’m totally stumped. On my computer (Win7), disabling iframes in IE9 or Opera 10.53 doesn’t actually disable iframes. (I do not know how to disable iframes in Chrome or Safari.)
Firefox does honour the request, but only if I open a new window. (Wish they’d say so somewhere.) Restarting IE or Opera does not make any difference.
See this page that contains the test and explains what I’m trying to do.
Could you please disable iframes in your IE or Opera (instructions on the test page) and do the test? In theory the input field should read No because ... well ... your browser doesn’t support iframes. In practice it reads Yes because even with iframes disabled the browser executes the script in the iframe.
Does anyone know what’s going on? Is this a serious security bug in two browsers or am I overlooking something? (Currently I’m guessing the latter.)
Thanks.
29 June 2010
Well, I’ve revised the DOM CSS and the DOM CSS OM tables, too, and IE9 continues its march. It supports the standards!
28 June 2010
In the past few days I’ve been revising the CSS compatibility table with information about the latest crop of browsers. There’s no doubt about it: this is IE9’s show. It just supports nearly everything. No hassle, no buts.
Besides, CSS3 selectors are now fully supported by all browsers but one. And that one browser is not IE. It’s, curiously, Opera.
28 September 2009
Well, Google Chrome Frame has certainly taken the web dev world by storm. It’s almost as if people are fed up with Internet Explorer and welcome an alternative.
Many useful things have already been said about Frame. I’d like to add a few technical notes I haven’t yet encountered anywhere else.
3 February 2009
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| in Browser Wars, Chrome, Content, IE, Safari
35 comments
(closed)
There’s some browser news to discuss, and I thought I’d bundle it all in one entry. Maybe I’ll even do this more often; it seems a good feature for this blog. But I’m not promising anything!
This weekend I started testing some new browsers, and meanwhile I’ve updated the HTML and CSS tables. There were no surprises. I’m continuing with the Events tables, but they’re so large and sometimes so complicated that I’m not sure when I’ll finish.
In this installment we’ll take a look at IE8RC1 and some reactions to it, Safari 3.2, Chrome’s lack of a “Check for updates automatically” feature and Opera’s antitrust complaint.
In case you’re wondering why this blog is updated so rarely; I’m taking a slight break from web development, and I’m working on a major upgrade of my Dutch politics section. It’s not ready yet; I’ll let you know when it is.
However, while working on it I found a few browser peculiarities, and I thought I'd let you know. There’s one IE bug; one case in which IE does the right thing and the other browsers don’t; the third is a Chrome peculiarity (not a bug); the fourth is an undocumented property in Opera.
Right. Now that IE8b2 has been out for five entire days, it’s time for a round-up. Exactly what has the progress been? Any regressions? And what about the <meta> switch. How exactly does it work?
All in all I’m quite happy with the progress being made. In addition to a few stunning JavaScript additions, there’s gradual progress across the spectrum. CSS and DOM support has become better; not stunningly so, but still quite important.
IE8 beta 2 has been released. Go get it; let's see what works and what doesn't. See also the release notes.
I'm currently downloading it; more news when I have it.
Update: CSS compatibility table updated. I'm especially enthousiastic about the support for box-sizing without the -ms- prefix.
Update 2: Core, HTML, and CSS OM View tables also updated. Analysis will follow later, but I'm quite happy with the progress.
2 April 2008
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| in IE, Opera, Safari, Theory
24 comments
(closed)
Currently I'm working on a big revision of the Events Compatibility Tables. And no the new table is not yet online because I'm not ready yet.
Testing event support is really awesomely complicated. I've been working steadily for two weeks now, and I still find new bugs and oddities daily, and twice on Sundays.
In any case, I discovered something remarkable when I studied the mousemove event. It sheds light on the way browser vendors keep track of each other's implementations nowadays, and on things that can go wrong.
Update: The bug described in this entry is an OS problem, and not a browser bug.
As everybody and his dog know by now, Microsoft has made IE8 beta 1 available. First impression: decent progress, but a lot of work remains to be done. And, in all fairness, this is merely a first beta, and its main purpose is to show where Microsoft is headed, and not to get every little thing right on the first try.
There's a lot to be said about its CSS and JavaScript support, and I'm going to say it all. My readers, as well as the IE team, expect that.
3 March 2008
Just now the IE team announced that it's reversing its policy on the default behaviour of IE8, which shows that it has been paying close attention to the discussion of its versioning proposal. I admit that I hadn't expected this reversal, but I welcome it.
28 January 2008
Even clinically dead web developers will by now have seen the announcement of IE8's new versioning switch, and many bloggers I read have already reacted—most of them negatively. See the IE page of my linkblog for an overview.
All in all I am in the Yes camp, and in this entry I'd like to offer a few arguments in favour of the current default of the switch. In my opinion, defaulting to IE7 in the absence of a switch is the correct behaviour.
I won't be offering practical arguments, since these are not received too well right now. Instead, I'm hoping to appeal to our collective sense of honour.
23 January 2008
Now that the versioning switch debate is in full swing (see the IE page of my linkblog for a partial overview), I'd like to move attention from lofty goals and aspirations that may or may not be trampled by the new switch to everyday practicalities.
So here's a quiz for you. Please assume that at some point in the future the following will be the case:
22 January 2008
The announcement of IE8's new versioning switch is generating heated debate—and nobody could have expected otherwise. Whether you feel this is a great or a terrible idea, it will change the way we web developers work. I encourage everyone to form his or her own opinion on this matter.
However, there's one point that has to be made right away. Eric Meyer already touched on it in his opinion piece, but repeating it won't hurt.
One argument used by detractors of the new switch is that it's nothing more than a browser detect. This comparison is factually false and it shouldn't be allowed to cloud a debate that promises to be complicated enough even without false arguments.
The MSIE team has asked for input on features that the next version of Internet Explorer should support. Please take a moment to help them out.
Recently Erik Arvidsson lamented the lack of JavaScript progress in IE 7. Strictly speaking he's right, of course: there are few JavaScript bug fixes in the new release, because Microsoft has made CSS fixes its priority. Microsoft has done what it's promised, and it never promised us JavaScript fixes for this release.
That said, everybody knows there are a few things lacking in IE's JavaScript support. The point of this entry is to start creating a list with specific wishes for JavaScript improvements in IE. When it's done and when Microsoft starts thinking about the next version we can present it.
27 April 2006
Permalink
| in Coding techniques, IE
13 comments
(closed)
In a project I'm currently working on I encountered an Explorer bug that depends on the window you open a page with.
I post it here because I know that MSIE team members occasionally read my blog, and I have the faint hope that can they solve this bug, especially since it's messing up one of my projects (and, after all, what in the world is more important than my projects going smoothly <grin>, particularly when I have another important and exciting project that should be finished quickly but is held up by this bug).
Yesterday Microsoft released a new beta version of IE 7, confusingly called "IE 7 beta 2 preview - released on March 20th". I wish they'd named it beta 3.
Download it here. I haven't done any tests yet and I don't know when I'll be able to.
Despite being terrifyingly busy I found the time for some basic IE 7 beta checks this weekend. In general all CSS issues that Microsoft promised to solve have been solved, with the partial exception of the [attr] selector. The beta refuses to honour p[align=right] {font-style: italic;}. I updated my CSS compatibility table for the second time in two weeks.
I also went through all Explorer Windows bug reports and determined whether they were solved in the beta or not. I found that 58 old bugs have not been solved. See the Explorer 5-6 Windows and the Explorer 7 beta 2 category pages for more information. I also took the opportunity to remove a few reports that were orphaned for more than two months.
Finally, in JavaScript nothing much seems to have changed, although the crash on the normalize() method has been solved. I haven't yet done the rigourous DOM tests, that'll have to wait for another time.
The release of Explorer 7 beta 2 has raised some questions, especially about maintaining the various IE versions you may have on your computer. Basically the beta overwrites IE 6, and Joe Maddalone's Multiple IE instructions don't work, but you can uninstall the beta quite easily and IE 6 is restored to you.
I suppose I do a few people a favour when I write down clear installation and uninstallation descriptions and instructions. Here it goes:
Explorer 7 beta 2 seems to be available. I'm currently downloading it, so I have no test data yet.
I added an "Explorer 7 beta 2" category to the Bug Report. Please report any bug you find; the MSIE team needs you.
6 September 2005
Permalink
| in Coding techniques, IE
21 comments
(closed)
In a recent article on the IE Blog, Justin Rodgers talks about further CSS improvements in the ever more impatiently awaited IE 7 beta 2. His message is that CSS hacks will start to break in IE 7, and I fully agree.
Nearly two years ago I warned against the excessive use of CSS hacks, because I envisioned a situation like this. Web developers who rely on CSS hacks are going to have serious problems.
30 July 2005
As everybody and his dog know by now, IE 7 Beta 1 has been released. Read Chris Wilson's entry over on the IE Blog for the details. Since I do not have a copy of it, I will not discuss it in detail. It is my strict policy to discuss only browser features and bugs I've actually seen for myself. Expect a full report as soon as I've got it installed on my computer, but not before.
The MSIE team seems to have used my site for bug testing, although almost all discussed bugs come from Position is Everything, and rightly so, since Big John and Holly Bergevin have far more interesting and detailed bug reports than my own CSS section.
Meanwhile this good news is being overshadowed by an apparently quite vicious campaign against Molly Holzschlag, who seems to have had the temerity to suggest that the IE 7 beta is actually good news for web developers and the standards movement in general, a message that encounters quite a bit of resistance among web standards fascists.
Over on the IE Blog Chris Wilson gives a few details on the upcoming Explorer 7 beta.
Two months ago I said that I didn't expect the Explorer 7 beta to contain solutions to CSS problems. Clearly I was wrong: Wilson announced support for alpha PNG channels and a solution for the Peekaboo and Guillotine bugs, and he indicated more goodies are to come.
So the Microsoft team is taking the opportunity to not only beef up security, but also CSS support. I'm curious, for one. Expect a full report on this site when the beta is available; and let's hope the CSS solutions we found for the Peekaboo and Guillotine bugs won't misfire in the new Explorer 7.
In an interesting post in the IE Blog, lead program manager Chris Wilson explains the current state of affairs in the touchy realm of "IE and standards support". It's an interesting read, and he makes a few cogent points. He also calls for specific requests about standards IE should support, and I'm happy to oblige.
Today Microsoft, in fact Bill Gates himself, has officially announced Explorer 7, the fabled successor to Explorer 6 that everybody seems to have been talking about since 2002. Before jumping in the air from joy, let's see what Microsoft says and what it doesn't say.
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