Microsoft, EU Are Said to Modify Deal in Browser Case
The ballot screen on new Windows computer will give a randomized list of alternative browsers.
IE | Permalink
Browsers elsewhere on the 'Net.
Includes:
8 December 2009
The ballot screen on new Windows computer will give a randomized list of alternative browsers.
IE | Permalink
18 November 2009
As it says. Faster JavaScript, border-radius (yawn ... but I know it's very popular these days), progress on Acid 3, the works.
IE | Permalink
17 September 2009
A discussion of Page Cache and its implementation in WebKit. Interesting read because it explains the headaches browser vendors have to deal with.
Personally I'd like to know more about iPhone Safari's handling (or rather, non-handling) of page cache or any kind of cache.
Browsers | Permalink
13 June 2009
Microsoft will not include IE in the Windows 7 version for Europe, which will be released in October. Computer vendors may add a browser to the system on their own, though.
Still, there may be a few computers that will have no browser installed. I'm curious what will happen next. How will these people get their browsers?
Browser Wars | Permalink
2 June 2009
More news on the Opera vs. Microsoft EU fight: the EU might want to go for the "five" option, in which new Windows computers come with all five browsers installed. I doubt the wisdom of this move.
Browser Wars | Permalink
21 May 2009
Andy Clarke discusses possible solutions to the IE6 problem, and then highlights his own: create one Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS file that will give any page a nice-but-basic typography and margins, but no layout or grid at all.
Interesting idea. We'll have to see what clients want (or whether they'll notice), but it sounds like an excellent intermediate solution between "don't bother with IE6" and "make IE6's rendering pixel-perfect".
CSS, IE, Theory | Permalink
4 May 2009
Jonathan Snook ponders on the tricky question what to do with (or to) older browsers. Graded browser support? If so, how do we tell whether a browser is old or not?
No clear answers here, but Jonathan asks a lot of the right questions.
Browsers | Permalink
Tim Cameron Ryan has written a script to work around the differences between an IE Text Range and a W3C Range. I applaud his courage; I once considered doing this but the incompatibilities were terrible and I decided I needed a little more practice; practice I never got because my career started moving away from production coding.
DOM, IE | Permalink
John Allsopp interviews Pete LePage; among other things about the IE8 compatibility modes.
EmulateIE7 is not truly equivalent to testing in IE7, but it’s pretty close. When building Internet Explorer 8, we were able to version the layout and rendering engine, but it was impractical to version the entire end-to-end system; for example the networking stack, parser, security fixes, HiRes layout, JavaScript engine, some DOM APIs, etc… In practice, though, we've found that IE8 Compatibility View works extremely well for most sites. For most cases, this should be enough, and for final verification, we provide the VPC images that you can download and test with a clean version of Internet Explorer 7.
Although this is probably not what web developers want to hear, I'd say let's give them a chance — until really, really serious incompatibilities between IE7 and IE8-as-IE7 are discovered.
IE | Permalink
18 April 2009
Differences in JavaScript implementation between IE8-as-IE8 and IE8-as-IE7.
IE, JavaScript | Permalink
17 April 2009
Overview of recent browser articles.
lang="de" but most links are English.
Browsers | Permalink
24 March 2009
Useful overview of where the various WebKit branches stand with regard to some advanced CSS tricks.
Android, Chrome, S60 WebKit, Safari, iPhone | Permalink
16 March 2009
Gary Keith seems to maintain a quite extensive browser capability information site, based on the MS browscap.ini format (whatever that may be). Useful stuff.
Browsers | Permalink
11 March 2009
Once again rumours are flying; Will IE8 Be The Last IE? I'll believe it when I hear it from the horse's mouth.
This article suggests that MS is looking into using the WebKit engine, OR that the Gazelle browser may replace IE in the future.
Unfortunately the article misses the obvious: the Gazelle paper talks about architecture; and not about rendering engines. Therefore an as-yet hypothetical Gazelle might be combined with either Trident or WebKit. In other words, both rumours might be true simultaneously.
Or none of them could be true. We'll see. Let's get a good IE8 out on the market first, and then worry about its successor.
IE | Permalink
25 February 2009
Google has applied to become a 3rd party in the Opera vs. Microsoft browser bundling case before the EC.
Browser Wars | Permalink
24 February 2009
A large overview article in ComputerWorld about the current state of the browsers. I was interviewed for it. There are also articles about browser sniffing and problems in the W3C standards.
Every web developer will know 90% of what's in the articles, but it's still good to see that interest in correct web development practices is growing.
Browsers, Society | Permalink
18 February 2009
The IE team aggregates a lot of information about the IE Compatibility View and meta switch.
IE | Permalink
16 February 2009
Dan Cederholm shares a simple but efficient trick for dealing with IE6 through conditional comments. I had a 'why didn't I think of this' moment when I read it. It's that simple. (But of course, thinking of really simple solutions is the most difficult job there is.)
IE | Permalink
12 February 2009
Isolani points out an IE Blog article about the rendering mode switch that I missed. Turns out Microsoft is going to blacklist sites where many IE8 users switch back to IE7 mode: apparently these sites need this mode, so IE8 is going to automatically engage it.
Isolani proceeds to critcise the idea, and he has a point when he says:
What is even worse is that sites are blacklisted by top-level domain. As the IE8 blog post describes:
The data we collect from IE8 beta users is the top level domain of the website and whether the user chose Compatibility View while visiting that site.
This is insidious; organisations running multiple sites on subdomains (like Yahoo, AOL, CNN, Blogger, WordPress, Wikipedia, Ning) are exposed to a new risk: a problem with one single subdomain is sufficient to black-list all their websites into an IE7 Compatibility Mode.
This could indeed be a problem. Although I see the IE team’ reasons for making this move, huge top-level domains could indeed be hit hard.
Requires some thinking.
IE | Permalink
A call for treating IE6 as we once treated NN4.
We should not actively block IE 6 users or completely disregard what happens when an IE 6 user comes along. What we should do is spend less and less time working around IE 6 bugs unless they seriously affect functionality or accessibility – only fix the showstoppers.
As long as we make sure to use progressive enhancement, content and base functionality will still be there, like for all other antiquated browsers.
Agree.
IE, Theory | Permalink
11 February 2009
Now this is interesting. An overview article on Sitepoint mentions a top Firefox engineer bashing Opera's unbundling attempt, partly for the confusion it would cause to the end user; partly because he feels unbundling is no solution to the market share problem.
Browser Wars | Permalink
2 February 2009
A survey of screen reader user. Very useful!
Screen readers, Surveys | Permalink
Useful overview of where IE8 stands right now.
IE | Permalink
19 January 2009
Well, the UK browser testing guidelines have been sanitised; the list of browsers-to-be-tested is now correct. Thanks, Bruce, for keeping the pressure on.
Now let’s see if we can incorporate these guidelines in the Dutch Web Guidelines.
Browsers | Permalink
Steve Souders about his user agent string collection. I’m SO glad somebody else is doing this so I won’t have to.
Browsers | Permalink
5 January 2009
Google asks its IE6 users to download Firefox or Chrome instead. Interesting development; this could really help.
(Via Dave Shea.)
IE | Permalink
16 October 2008
A possible bug in Google Chrome. If it is indeed a bug, the Chrome team should react to it instead of classifying it Won't fix. But I still have to study it myself; maybe it's more complicated.
Chrome | Permalink
8 October 2008
A JavaScript Events compatibility table for Jaws 9.0 and Windows Eyes 7.0b1. Always useful (and yes, they got my permission to use my compatibility categories and formatting).
Screen readers | Permalink
9 September 2008
Some interesting background information on Google Chrome.
Chrome | Permalink
Some updates on IE-proprietary and as-yet-unrecommended CSS properties in IE8. Includes filter instructions.
IE | Permalink
20 June 2008
A comparison of debuggers created by the browser vendors.
Browsers, Debugging | Permalink
17 June 2008
Interesting piece on the new Safari JavaScript engine (SquirrelFish), and why it's faster than the old one.
JavaScript, Safari | Permalink
... and Opera hires Bruce Lawson. I already heard that rumoured in London, but it's good to see it confirmed.
Opera is steadily building up a world-class team that is available at conferences (yes, I'm looking at you, Apple) and otherwise.
Opera is clearly the new thingy ... well ... whatever the previous new thingy was.
Opera | Permalink
lang="de" The best overview of what browser vendors are up to. A lot has happened during my holidays; more than I expected. I will catch up only in July.
Browsers | Permalink
7 May 2008
... and Opera, too, unveils its own CSS/JavaScript debugger. Haven't studied it closely yet, but this is obviously a step in the right direction.
Opera, Tools | Permalink
14 April 2008
An overview of the W3C standards IE8 will and will not support. I'm gratified that the most serious bugs I found are present in the IE team's To Do list.
IE, Standards/W3C | Permalink
18 March 2008
Joel Spolsky's take on the IE8 versioning default.
Standards are a great goal, of course, but before you become a standards fanatic you have to understand that due to the failings of human beings, standards are sometimes misinterpreted, sometimes confusing and even ambiguous.
The precise problem here is that you're pretending that there's one standard, but since nobody has a way to test against the standard, it's not a real standard: it's a platonic ideal and a set of misinterpretations [...]
Spolsky also says almost every site he visited in IE8 is broken. This is likely to be true, but it's not entirely fair, since this is the very first beta of the new browser, and historically Microsoft's very first version of any browser have always been quite bad. I, for one, will only make such comparisons once beta 2 has been released.
So you see, we have a terrific example here of a gigantic rift between two camps.
The web standards camp seems kind of Trotskyist. You'd think they're the left wing, but if you happened to make a website that claims to conform to web standards but doesn't, the idealists turn into Joe Arpaio, America's Toughest Sheriff. "YOU MADE A MISTAKE AND YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BREAK. I don't care if 80% of your websites stop working. I'll put you all in jail, where you will wear pink pajamas and eat 15 cent sandwiches and work on a chain gang. And I don't care if the whole county is in jail. The law is the law."
On the other hand, we have the pragmatic, touchy feely, warm and fuzzy engineering types. "Can't we just default to IE7 mode? One line of code … Zip! Solved!"
Secretly? Here's what I think is going to happen. The IE8 team going to tell everyone that IE8 will use web standards by default, and run a nice long beta during which they beg people to test their pages with IE8 and get them to work. And when they get closer to shipping, and only 32% of the web pages in the world render properly, they'll say, "look guys, we're really sorry, we really wanted IE8 standards mode to be the default, but we can't ship a browser that doesn't work," and they'll revert to the pragmatic decision. Or maybe they won't, because the pragmatists at Microsoft have been out of power for a long time. In which case, IE is going to lose a lot of market share, which would please the idealists to no end, and probably won't decrease Dean Hachamovitch's big year-end bonus by one cent.
He's right in his thumbnail sketch of the web standards camp; we LOVE the big stick the IE team is handing us on a silver platter, and frankly I'm not sure if having that stick is good for us in the long run. There are too many web standard fascists already.
As to the IE team changing the default again, who knows ... ? If they do I, for one, will fully understand that decision.
IE, Theory | Permalink
10 March 2008
Steve Souders, who wrote The Book on website performance optimisation, has studied IE8b1 in detail.
IE | Permalink
6 March 2008
John has the overview of IE8's JavaScript improvements.
IE | Permalink
24 February 2008
Chris Wilson spars with Aaron Gustafson, Faruk Ates and Porter Glendinning of WaSP. Interesting ideas were proposed.
IE, Theory | Permalink
21 February 2008
Eric reminds us of an important point that seems to be forgotten in the versioning switch debate:
We all care about the same thing.
[...] The disagreement is over how best to get there given the situation we face now, as well as how we perceive that current situation. [...]
Sometimes what binds us is strong enough that the few differences seem sharper by comparison. That shouldn’t keep us from remembering what we have in common, and the importance of that commonality.
I have nothing to add.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Richard Rutter agrees with the versioning switch and the default.
Pity the Internet Explorer developers working their arses off to add great standards support to their browser, only for that work to manifest itself on but a tiny proportion of web sites. Bit of thankless job, if you ask me, but I hope they stick at it.
Exactly! It's commonly forgotten that the versioning switch was introduced because the IE team wants web standards.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Zeldman once more defends the versioning switch.
With DOCTYPE switching, “off by default” means “in (non-standards) quirks mode.” With version targeting it means “the same way IE7 rendered this content.” The behavior is the same in both cases: if you want improved rendering, you opt in.
Exactly! True, doctypes are also used to define the flavour of (X)HTML you're using, but that means that the IE versioning switch is better than doctype switching, since it's only meant for determining a browser version to run in.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that standards-aware web developers behave like little children. They want what they want, and they want it now!
IE, Theory | Permalink
Jeremy continues the argument against the versioning switch. Although he agrees that versioning switching by itself will be a useful tool, he still disagrees with the default.
This strategy is doomed to failure. Standards-aware developers, by their very nature, will object to adding a line of unnecessary markup to their documents just to get one single browser to behave as it should by default.
My question is: why do they object? What's the problem with adding a single line of code to placate IE? Right now we're writing whole style sheets with that goal in mind. (Besides, not all standards-aware web developers object.)
All in all he does not entirely convince me.
IE, Theory | Permalink
11 February 2008
John discusses XPath and its place in JavaScript libraries. Although in general XPath seems to be fast, he's worried about encountering incompatibility problems. These problems might mean that all libraries need both an XPath module and a regular DOM module for the forseeable future, which makes maintenance harder.
Browsers, Libraries | Permalink
28 January 2008
Bruce points out the accessibility problems the versioning switch will cause: large amounts of the Web will be stuck in IE7 mode.
Although that's undeniably true, the solution is obvious: if accessibility is really an issue, switch to IE8 mode. Yeah, I know there are plenty of people who don't know how to do that or what to do once they arrive there, but how is that situation worse than today's?
Even today, you need a serious web developer in order to make your site really accessible. Serious web developers know about the switch and can estimate its accessibility impact, once enough research has been done.
Contrarily, unaware developers won't be aware of the switch, but they won't be aware of the latest and greatest in accessibility, either, so their not knowing about the switch or the difference between IE7 and IE8 mode pales into insignificance.
All in all I'm not convinced that accessibility will suffer. Even if IE8 had been a normal browser with a normally upgraded engine, we'd still have to cater to IE7 and its accessibility problems for the foreseeable future.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Jeremy's reaction to Zeldman. He hasn't changed his position substantially.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Molly disagrees not so much with the versioning switch, but rather with the secrecy in which the talks were held.
IE, WaSP | Permalink
David Storey disagrees with the versioning switch. In fact, he attributes it to a alleged Microsoft "Divide and Conquer" strategy; something I cannot agree with.
While I understand Chris Wilson's position on "Don't break the Web", and very much understand that this is an incredibly hard nut to crack (I work on similar issues every day), it feels like this proposal is more "break the web for others". There must be a better solution.
I'd like some more information on this. Exactly how will this break the Web for non-IE browsers? I've heard this argument now and then, but have never yet gotten a good reply.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Mike Davies studies empty links in screen readers. Conclusion:
Not using proper link text forces the browser and screen reader to fallback to heuristics in an attempt to determine what the link text should be.
Not surprisingly, all browsers have their own take on this.
Accessibility, Screen readers | Permalink
Eric offers an older example from the time he still worked at Netscape. Webmasters simply weren't interested in the "you're doing it wrong so that's why your site breaks in our new version" argument—and they're right, from their point of view.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Drew McLellan takes a look at JavaScript libraries and the versioning switch.
With version targeting, IE7 will never go away. Just as browsers are born, they must also die and make way for the next generation.
That's an interesting thought I haven't yet seen anywhere else. Good argument.
IE, Libraries, Theory | Permalink
Liorean agrees with the versioning switch.
Microsoft had the choices of either having some opt-in to improved standards support, or not improving standards at all. An opt-out wasn’t an option, because live content isn’t using that opt-out. Now, every angry and disappointed web developer out there, if you look at it that way, which one would you prefer? Standards with an opt-in or no standards at all?
Exactly!
IE, Theory | Permalink
Eric takes the argument a step further.
I think a lot of people are discounting the fact that version targeting is absolutely nothing new in the standards world, let alone the web development world. Conditional comments, CSS hacks, and the DOCTYPE switch itself are all examples of version targeting.
That's certainly something I feel people are generally disregarding. The difference between the doctype switch (and CSS hacks) on the one hand, and the new version switch on the other, is, of course, that the first is widely known and the second one is new. Conservatism?
IE, Theory | Permalink
Mark Pilgrim disagrees with the versioning switch, but at least he's funny.
Fun, IE, Theory | Permalink
23 January 2008
Peter Nederlof disagrees with the versioning switch.
[The other browsers] don't need a meta tag in addition to a proper doctype, why would IE?
IE has a specific problem the other browsers don't have: Intranets maintained by people who are not (and maybe do not want to become) web developers, let alone standards-aware web developers.
And what's to prevent us from automatically adding meta tags anyway?
Nobody's going to prevent us, but why would you (unless you know what you're doing and WANT IE8 mode)? Doctypes were also necessary to create valid (X)HTML; the meta tag does not have such an extra function. Therefore it will only be added because web developers want to switch IE to a certain mode.
The argument about expected rendering behavior is even more absurd. No serious developer still believes that what IE renders is actually correct.
This is the key point where I feel the No camp is making a serious mistake.
We automatically define "web developers" as "standards-aware web developers". Unfortunately there are plenty of other web developers around. Feel free to denounce them as incompetent, but do not deny that they're an important factor, especially for Microsoft. They are the ones who maintain Intranets created specifically for IE, and any implementation of the standards in IE must take their needs into account, or fail miserably for business reasons.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Roger Johansson disagrees with the versioning switch—for now. He keeps open the option of changing his mind in the future, though.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Alex Russell agrees with the versioning switch, though he has quite a few important questions about details.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Dean Edwards disagrees with the versioning switch, and also objects to using WaSP as a front. That last criticism rings true: WaSP as a whole wasn't involved in this decision, and it shouldn't be pretended that it was.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Rachel Andrew disagrees with the versioning switch, quoting (again) the default behaviour.
IE, Theory | Permalink
The Safari team (Maciej Stachowiak speaking) explains why the versioning switch will not be implemented in Safari any time soon, though they do not pass judgement on IE for implementing it.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Ian Hickson disagrees with the versioning switch. I can't resist the temptation to reply to some of his arguments.
If Web authors actually use this feature, and if IE doesn't keep losing market share, then eventually this will cause serious problems for IE's competitors — instead of just having to contend with reverse-engineering IE's quirks mode and making the specs compatible with IE's standards mode, the other browser vendors are going to have to reverse engineer every major IE browser version, and end up implementing these same bug modes themselves. It might actually be quite an effective way of dramatically increasing the costs of entering or competing in the browser market. (This is what we call "anti-competitive", or "evil".)
I believe Ian paints the current situation too black. True, other browsers will have to take some IE bugs into account when updating their rendering. However, one of the points of the versioning switch is to allow IE to become more standards compliant, so the difference between IE's higher rendering modes and the other browsers would become smaller and smaller as time progresses—which means less and less implementations of IE bugs are necessary.
An ideal situation, true, but not an impossible one.
It will also increase the complexity of authoring by an order of magnitude. Big sites will become locked in to particular IE version numbers, unable to upgrade their content for fear of it breaking.
Unless they decide to redo their sites and hire competent web developers, who'll switch to IE's highest feasible mode. OK, that won't happen everywhere, but in general those sites that won't be updated to a higher IE mode won't be updated today, either, so the situation will not get worse.
Besides, this is the other point of the versioning switch: if you don't want to update, you don't need to. Eventually this will go for Intranet sites more than for Internet, where the existence of other browsers will have a mitigating effect.
Imagine in 18 years — only twice the current lifetime of the Web! — designers will not have to learn just HTML, they'll have to learn 4, 5, maybe 10 different versions of HTML, DOM, CSS, and JS, just to be able to maintain the various different pages that people have written, as they move from job to job.
Or they could decide to upgrade to the highest feasible IE version. In fact, I feel that the situation Ian sketches could increase the standard-awareness of web developers.
The alternative is that they don't want to learn anything and will stay locked in IE7 mode permanently. That would be a pity, but again we're not worse off than we are today. Today, plenty of web developers don't want to learn the standards, either.
All in all, I think Ian may be too negative.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Nicholas Zakas tentatively agrees with the versioning switch.
Microsoft is in a really tough position. They have really been trying to listen to web developers clamoring for better standards support. They are also listening to their partners, big corporations with thousands of Internet and intranet pages that would cost them millions to upgrade. Microsoft got slapped when IE7 broke some pages by fixing layout bugs; they couldn't afford to repeat that mistake. Whether we like to admit it or not, there are tons of web sites that are designed to work specifically for IE6. They were written at a time when IE had over 95% market share and haven't been updated since.
There literally is no good move for Microsoft to make in this vein. Either they do nothing and don't break the Web but garner the ire of web developers everywhere, or they pacify web developers by forcing standards on everyone and break tons of web sites and web applications. This is the literal rock and hard place scenario. Microsoft is trying to satisfy both conditions and I honestly feel that this is a huge step forward for IE.
I tend to agree with this summary of Microsoft's position.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Andy Budd sees the point of the versioning switch, but disagrees with the default behaviour. Fortunately he offers actual arguments:
Clueless developers won't know about this behaviour so every new site they build will automatically be rendered as IE7. Clued-up developers will use this as an excuse to freeze support for IE and turn their attentions to better browsers. Users will see less benefit from upgrading and will be more likely to turn to other browsers.
Anyway, good to see some arguments in the No camp.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Sam Ruby takes a practical approach to the versioning switch: he has engaged the edge value. If you trust your coding skills and believe in progressive enhancement, that's exactly what you should do.
IE, Theory | Permalink
22 January 2008
John disagrees strongly with the versioning switch. He raises a few technical points:
Unfortunately he, too, is making insubstantial claims:
The fundamental issue is that Safari, Firefox, and Opera will all be harmed by attempting to implement this.
I'd love someone to explain this to me. What possible harm can a <meta> tag that they're going to ignore anyway do to Safari, Firefox, and Opera? I suspect an underlying philosophical issue, but I'd like to get it into the open, too. What, besides "it's Microsoft so it must be Evil", is the problem?
IE, Theory | Permalink
Isofarro disagrees strongly with the versioning switch. So strongly, in fact that I'm wondering if he isn't overshooting his target.
Standards compliant pages must always carry a Microsoft passports that identify the holder as a standards compliant page. Sounds like a ghetto to me.
That's what we are being asked to do. We're segregated from the rest of the Web, and forced to carry identity documents that prove we are standards compliant, and earn the dignity to be rendered in a standards compatible way.
Just comparing something you disagree with to something most people feel negative about is too easy—especially when the comparison makes no sense at all. I call this playing for effect, and not serious debate.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Zeldman replies to Jeremy and explains that we've got precious little choice. It's either versioning, or no more web standards.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Andrew Dupont mostly agrees with the versioning switch, though he has some doubts.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Jeremy might agree with the versioning switch, if it weren't for the default behaviour.
Personally I feel that this default behaviour is the whole point of the switch, and besides I wonder whether the situation will become much worse with the versioning switch in place. It may not become better, but I don't see how it will get worse.
IE, Theory | Permalink
David Baron disagrees with the versioning switch, pointing to this mail he wrote back in April.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Robert O'Callahan of Mozilla disagrees with the versioning switch, and asks some interesting technical questions.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Jonathan Snook agrees with the versioning switch.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Anne van Kesteren disagrees with the versioning switch. (Note: disagreeing is fine, but assigning ideological blame to people who happen to agree with the plan is not.)
IE, Theory | Permalink
Chris Wilson talks about the problems the new versioning switch has to solve. Basically, IE6 was broken, but when IE7 was released and solved a lot of CSS bugs, everybody (except for a few standardistas) still expected it to work exactly as IE6.
Of course, it didn't work that way. Sites optimised for IE6 broke in IE7. That was a major problem for Microsoft, and it's the reason they've added the versioning switch to IE8.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Eric discusses his initial and later reaction to the new IE versioning switch. I agree on the basics: when I first heard of it I wondered if it was such a good idea, but on thinking it over I realised this is probably the best way of handling multiple browser versions now and in the future.
IE, Theory | Permalink
Aaron Gustafson unveils the new versioning switch in IE8, and discusses why the doctype switch is broken.
IE, Theory | Permalink
14 January 2008
John is preparing for his next book and is wondering if he should treat memory leaks. IE6 was infamous for its memory leaks, but the problem has been solved in IE7 and IE6 is on the way out. Should a description of this problem still take valuable book real estate?
Personally I think that memory leaks should still be treated, although a detailed description of the IE6 problems is not necessary any more by the time the book is released. A short summary might be useful, though.
Besides, other browsers are rumoured to have memory leaks, too. I'd love to have a solid description of these problems—or a statement that despite rumours these browsers have in fact no problems.
So my answer is Yes, treat them. Keep the treatment short, except for problems that creep up very frequently.
Browsers, JavaScript | Permalink
Ian Hickson asks for our help in filling the last 16 questions of the Acid 3 (JS) test. If you have time on your hands and access to Firefox and Safari trunk builds, participate.
Browsers, JavaScript, Tests | Permalink
12 December 2007
Alex talks about the upcoming IE release, and points out the cause of Microsoft's tight-lippedness (is that a word?): We have harshly (and rightly) rebuked MS in the past, and they don't want to make any false promises again. The easiest and safest way to do that is not making any promises at all. That's what's happening right now.
Alex also wonders about priorities for new browser releases, and he places innovation above standard support; that is, if a browser vendor has a great innovative idea, it shouldn't be forced to go through interminable W3C procedures before being allowed to implement it.
One can agree or disagree with Alex's thesis (I tend to agree), but the really important point is that the standardisation process has become kind of stuck. True, W3C has been mending its ways for the past year or so, but it's still going too slow.
And we all know what happens when there aren't any standards: browser vendors invent their own. Nowadays we can at least hope they'll pay attention to each other's efforts, but the essential problem is the same that plagued us during the Browser Wars.
Nonetheless, this situation has advantages as well as disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is a new wave of innovation, and that's always a good idea.
Will W3C and the web standards movement be cast in the role of opposing innovation in the name of the standards? That would be bad.
I feel that we're on a crossroad now. Standards support, though still important, isn't the be-all-end-all of everything Web any more. We've basicaly won the standards war—browser vendors now pay attention to us. Nonetheless, winning the war might have brought us a whole new set of problems, problems that are mostly centred on W3C being (or having been) so slow.
Which road do we choose? Strict adherence to the standards in all respects—which brings along a certain slowness; or a more innovation-driven approach—which may lead to proprietary extensions (in the sense that they aren't in the specs; but not necessarily in the sense that they differ from browser to browser).
Something's about to change. Something HAS to change.
But what?
IE, Standards/W3C | Permalink
Well, the news is out: the next version of IE is coming and it's called IE8. (Personally, I wonder why they make such a big deal of the name, but the MS marketing department is not to be denied.)
IE8 isn't actually ready yet, and Microsoft asks a bit more of our patience:
In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction.
Sage advice.
IE | Permalink
4 December 2007
Now that mobile phones have entered the mainstream of web development (well they haven't, not quite yet, but let's pretend they have), David Storey turns to the next frontier: the Web on TV. Having tested a few proprietary systems way way back in 1998, I already know it's not as easy as it's supposed to be.
TV | Permalink
James Edwards makes the remarkable discovery that IE doesn't support the DOM with complete correctness; even if we forgive it for not implementing part of it.
Maintaining a major set of compatibility tables over the past seven has already taught me the same. James adds a few interesting notes, for instance about a second argument to the getAttribute() method, which leads him to conclude that Microsoft hasn't even implemented its proprietary stuff correctly.
Figuring out exact levels of DOM Compatibility is SUCH fun, and I'm glad somebody else is feeling the strain, too. BTW: except for me, James is just about the single person on earth who's going through the major hassle of creating compatibility tables, so I'm glad he's coming to the same conclusions as I have. Misery loves company.
IE | Permalink
22 November 2007
The Safari team unveils a few upcoming additions to their browser.
Safari | Permalink
1 November 2007
Dave Hyatt announces the lastest addition to Safari's CSS: animations.
div {
opacity: 1;
-webkit-transition: opacity 1s linear;
}
div:hover {
opacity: 0;
}
Now this sounds great, but I have to agree with Shaun Inman and Jonathan Snook that these new properties blur the line between presentation and behaviour even more.
Behaviour and presentation have to be separated somewhere; there has to be some sort of line dividing the two. The problem is that on the CSS side of things there are plenty of people who want to slowly push back the line, integrating more and more functionalities that once were JavaScript-only into CSS (content, for one).
Now animations. Where will it stop? Presentation is presentation, and behaviour is behaviour.
Besides, didn't we decide that we should attempt to follow the W3C standards? For sure, "following" has acquired the secondary meaning "implementing declarations W3C is considering but hasn't yet made up its mind about", but just about all new CSS additions actually have some sort of basis in some sort of spec. Animation hasn't.
All in all I wonder whether this is a good idea.
CSS, Safari, Theory | Permalink
28 October 2007
For once a German blog post: Einfach für Alle warns against the Firefox 2.0.0.8 update, since it seems to contain a few CSS bugs. I haven't seen this warning anywhere in the English blogosphere, and all documentation is in German.
The problem seems to be that floats with negative margins aren't cleared properly, and aren't properly contained in their parent element, either. (Source)
Good to know.
Mozilla | Permalink
25 October 2007
Roger gives a useful overview of where Mac browsers stand nowadays.
Browsers | Permalink
13 October 2007
Gez Lemon discusses the difficult relation between screen readers and display: none. The latest news was that screen readers honoured display: none, but Gez has found circumstances in which they nonetheless announce hidden content.
Screen readers | Permalink
14 September 2007
Alex Russell:
Browser.Next list of 10 issues that would give Ajax libraries a break and let app authors worry less
Interesting.
Browsers, JavaScript | Permalink
8 September 2007
Alex Russell is not happy with Microsoft´s lack of communication about IE progress. Although I´m not nearly as pessimistic as Alex, I agree that some sort of official communication would be nice. It would lay web developers´ fears to rest.
IE | Permalink
Useful list of Safari versions tied to Mac OS releases.
Safari | Permalink
Some test cases that show Opera 9.5´s new CSS capabilities. I haven´t yet downloaded the alpha version, but if it truly supports all that´s mentioned here, we´ve got a nice new browser coming.
CSS, Opera | Permalink
29 August 2007
As it says (Kestrel being the code engine of the upcoming Opera 9.5)
CSS, Opera | Permalink
18 July 2007
Interesting read.
Just how difficult can it be to support all of CSS2.1 or XHTML 1.1 or such? It can't be that difficult, right?
David Storey of Opera explains why this is pretty difficult. Although he concentrates on Opera, his general argument goes for all browsers.
Browsers | Permalink
16 July 2007
Lots of CSS enhancements in Safari 3. Unfortunately Saf 3 Windows crashes when you scroll past one of the appearance tests.
CSS, Safari, Tests | Permalink
6 July 2007
John Allsopp's advice for developing sites for the iPhone.
Safari, iPhone | Permalink
4 July 2007
Apple's official pages.
Safari, iPhone | Permalink
23 June 2007
... Kestrel being Opera 9.5 . I'm curious.
Apart from being the best standard compliant browser, Opera 9.5 will also display even more webpages with bad coding.
An excellent summary of the glorious life of a browser vendor.
(Via Jon Hicks.)
Opera | Permalink
A week ago I encountered some problems with Safari 3.0b Windows. The 3.0.2 version has solved most of these problems. My site looks normal on my desktop computer.
Kudos to the Safari team for their quick response.
Safari | Permalink
16 June 2007
The resize event fires also when the <body> element is resized. I knew that, but I forgot it. Thanks to Jonathan for reminding me.
Events, IE | Permalink
12 June 2007
John Gruber on Jobs' keynote.
It’s not widely publicized, but those integrated search bars in web browser toolbars are revenue generators. When you do a Google search from Safari’s toolbar, Google pays Apple a portion of the ad revenue from the resulting page. (Ever notice the “client=safari” string in the URL query?)
My somewhat-informed understanding is that Apple is currently generating about $2 million per month from Safari’s Google integration. That’s $25 million per year. If Safari for Windows is even moderately successful, it’s easy to see how that might grow to $100 million per year or more.
This was exactly the information I needed to understand the deeper whys of Safari Windows.
Business, Safari | Permalink
15 May 2007
Useful table of Gecko versions used in the various Mozilla browsers.
Mozilla | Permalink
8 May 2007
This article contains the details that Chris was willing to give on the upcoming IE8. (In fact, this version number is news to me, too; could easily have been 7.5)
Microsoft is planning to require Web site authors to "opt-in" to standards mode when developing IE 8.0 sites.
This seems to be a sort of super-standards mode (as distinct from the doctype switch implemented back in IE6), and I'm not yet sure if I'm happy about it. I'd like to see a practical example of a situation in which this super-standard mode is desirable.
IE | Permalink
2 May 2007
A practical example of catering for screen readers when creating a nify JavaScript effect. Useful tips.
Events, Screen readers | Permalink
24 April 2007
Eric is still working on his reset styles, but is stuck on Explorer not supporting inherit. What he'd really like is
CSS, IE | Permalink
11 April 2007
Andrew Dupont divides browser issues into two groups:
canvas?), which are addressed by object detection.I don't like browser detection for beans, but I'm forced to admit he has a point. The article also contains a few interesting technical details about the browser detection used in Prototype.
Browsers, JavaScript, Theory | Permalink
2 April 2007
8 March 2007
Some facts about timer implementations, and why 10ms is the lowest practical limit for setTimeout. I found that out by experimenting (and fortunately this nugget is in The Book), but I didn't know why this was the case.
Browsers, JavaScript | Permalink
23 February 2007
Always an interesting question: should high end personal sites of web developers still support IE6 fully? QuirksMode.org doesn't, but I dropped IE6 support as much to save time as for any other reason. Maybe it's time to discuss this question more formally and in more depth.
Browsers, Theory | Permalink
4 February 2007
Scott Andrew points out bugs in Safari's handling of dynamic <script> elements.
JavaScript, Safari | Permalink
From now on Molly will help the IE team maintain its standards compliance.
IE, Standards/W3C | Permalink
24 January 2007
23 January 2007
A call for screen reader users willing to test the recently published virtual buffer update trick (see under 20 January).
Accessibility, Data Retrieval, Screen readers, Tests | Permalink
20 January 2007
About some interesting Jaws features. Summary:
Popular screen readers use a virtual buffer to allow users to interact with web content, whereby the virtual buffer provides a mechanism for screen reader users to interact with web content. This article uncovers undocumented behaviour in JAWS 7.1 and later, which allows web developers to build Ajax applications that update the virtual buffer without any interaction from the user.
Delves deeply into Jaws's bowels. Not for the fainthearted.
Accessibility, Data Retrieval, Screen readers | Permalink
16 November 2006
Andy Clarke reveals his CSS testing order. I don't entirely agree (I test everything I write in IE and Firefox simultaneously), but his approach interesting nonetheless—and it might turn out to be better than mine in the long run.
Browsers, CSS | Permalink
1 November 2006
How to set up a really strict testing environment for the various IE versions.
Yes, there are things floating around that purport to let you run IE 5.5 alongside IE 6.0, etc. The fact of the matter is, though, that these aren’t what your users are running.
True, but for most simple websites running the various IEs next to each other is enough. It's only for complex Ajax-enhanced sites that a more formal testing environment is required.
IE | Permalink
29 October 2006
A test to see if the FTSE 100 company web sites were ready for IE7. Conclusion: 13 weren't, but the damage is slight. Most of these sites were saved by the fact they're not standards compliant, anyway, and IE Quirks Mode has seen little change.
IE | Permalink
25 October 2006
David Flanagan discovers that an event object is passed to event handlers set with the Microsoft proprietary attachEvent() method. This object is not the same as window.event, but contains the same properties.
Everybody kind of assumed that IE only used window.event, but nobody ever seems to have tested it. My book doesn't mention this fact, although I don't think I ever denied the existence of these event objects, either.
I wonder how many more of these curiosities are hidden deep in the browsers' bowels.
Events, IE | Permalink
19 October 2006
Brendan Eich on Mozilla 2 and what went before. Expected release date: 2008.
So the goals for Mozilla 2 are:
- Clean up our APIs to be fewer, better, and "on the outside."
- Simplify the Mozilla codebase to make it smaller, faster, and easier to approach and maintain.
- Take advantage of standard language features and fast paths instead of XPCOM and ad hoc code.
- Optimization including JIT compilation for JS2 with very fast DOM access and low memory costs.
- Tool-time and runtime enforcement of important safety properties.
I don't quite get all this, except for the "simplicity" bit, and I like that bit quite a lot.
Mozilla | Permalink
IE 7 has been launched officially. The only thing I wonder is: can we still uninstall it and get our IE6 back? Before that has been made clear I hesitate to install IE7.
IE | Permalink
7 October 2006
26 September 2006
How to prevent IE6 from sending requests for cached images.
IE | Permalink
22 September 2006
IE 7's JavaScript now runs much, much faster than before. Dean Edwards has the details; and Chris Wilson has confirmed them.
IE, JavaScript | Permalink
21 September 2006
It turns out that there are still sites that block IE 7 because (presumably) it isn't IE 6! Once again proof that browser detection is like putting guns in the hands of idiots.
The IE team has added a navigator.userAgent-spoofer that allows users to send IE 6 strings to such sites. Although this is the only possible solution from MS's point of view, it's still a sad comment on the state of the Web.
IE | Permalink
6 September 2006
Dave Hyatt on parsing order. Are CSS files read first, while the HTML is stalled, or are they read at the same time?
Browsers, CSS, JavaScript | Permalink
29 August 2006
The IE team gives JavaScript performance tricks. Some are old hat for advanced scripters, but others are new (at least, to me). Interesting read overall.
IE, JavaScript | Permalink
25 August 2006
Dave Shea gathers IE 7 CSS regressions (stuff that works in IE 6 but not in IE 7).
CSS, IE | Permalink
'WaSP issues an open invitation to work with Assistive Technology vendors to help ensure greater support for standards-based web development techniques in software that enables access for millions of people worldwide.'
Accessibility, Screen readers | Permalink
23 August 2006
14 August 2006
Chris Wilson gets tired of IE bashing, that continues even now that IE 7 turns out to be a giant step forward. True, IE is still behind the other browsers in some areas, but saying that it's moved forward only '2 %' is just plain nonsense.
'I'd love to have a honest, straightforward, unbiased statement of exactly where we (and other browsers) are – despite the fact that I know we would be behind today.'
CSS, IE | Permalink
9 August 2006
When a <base> element is used in a document containing text in floated elements, a IE bug that causes text to become more or less impossible to select is triggered.
HTML, IE | Permalink
8 August 2006
This project ports the WebKit code engine that powers Safari to Windows. It's still in early alpha; among others frames, my XMLHttp function, and document.lastModified don't yet work.
I'll get back to this browser when a beta is available; right now testing it doesn't make much sense.
Browsers | Permalink
7 August 2006
28 July 2006
responseXML is not available when you use document.domain to allow pages from several subdomains to communicate.
Data Retrieval, Mozilla | Permalink
27 July 2006
Excellent news: IE 7 will be automatically installed via Windows Updates. That means that the time during which we still have to support IE 6 will be dramatically shortened (nonetheless it'll take at least a year before IE 6 has gone entirely; probably more like two years).
IE | Permalink
24 July 2006
Interesting and detailed overview. The article is mainly about the interface differences between the three, and all are treated fairly.
What's most interesting is that 'browser X supports technology Y!' is no longer a factor in such comparisons. Obviously all browsers support the standards; it's in interface and ease of use that they compete.
Browsers | Permalink
Gez Lemon studies the mouseover event in screen readers. Part 1 of a series; I can't wait for the next installment.
Events, Screen readers | Permalink
9 June 2006
A tip from the MSIE team: in IE 7, use the native XMLHttpRequest object, and not the ActiveX objects you need for IE 6 and lower.
Data Retrieval, IE | Permalink
25 May 2006
'We explain the fundamental issues; how to inform users of assistive technology that a change has taken place, and how they can interact with the content. To illustrate our findings, we summarise the behaviour of popular screen readers.'
Accessibility, Data Retrieval, Screen readers | Permalink
9 May 2006
How to launch a standalone IE 7 so that your IE 6 install remains operational.
IE | Permalink
PDF! Interesting paper on the fluctuations of the browser market during the Browser Wars (1996-1999). The authors' conclusions about the present-day browser market are a bit over the top, but they treat the historical material solidly.
Browsers, History | Permalink
Surprisingly, Joe's conclusion is 'Everybody could do everything. It just wasn’t all that convenient.'
Accessibility, Data Retrieval, Screen readers, Tests | Permalink
8 May 2006
Emil Stenström asks: What is Microsoft's official advice to web developers who need to test in both IE6 and IE7? Good question.
IE | Permalink
4 May 2006
James Edwards discusses screen reader JavaScript support. Chaotic.
Accessibility, Events, Screen readers, Tests | Permalink
4 April 2006
Dan wonders whether memory leaks are such a big deal. Sure, they occur, but does it really matter in a lightly scripted page? Interesting question.
DOM, IE | Permalink
20 February 2006
How to write an advanced form validation script that's usable in a screen reader. The trick is very simple.
Accessibility, DOM, Screen readers | Permalink
17 February 2006
A methodology for deciding on browser support.
Accessibility, Browsers, Usability | Permalink
9 February 2006
Transcript of some questions and answers from a chat session about IE 7's CSS support.
CSS, IE | Permalink
5 February 2006
4 February 2006
Andy Clarke's site seems to be the prime victim of IE7's lack of support for CSS hacks.
CSS, IE | Permalink
Andy Budd wonders about the IE team's drive to get rid of CSS hacks. 'I think the IE dev team are catering to a group of developers who build their sites with IE, rather than the standards in mind.'
Could be, but we'll have to get rid of the hacks anyway.
CSS, IE | Permalink
Not entirely fair. The current beta focuses on CSS issues, and not on JavaScript issues. There are few JavaScript changes.
IE, JavaScript | Permalink
2 February 2006
Where CSS-Discuss members are dumping their IE 7 information.
CSS, IE | Permalink
Highlights important changes in IE's CSS support.
CSS, IE | Permalink
31 January 2006
18 January 2006
Safari will also get a Web Inspector. Looks useful.
CSS, Safari, Tools | Permalink
On the changes to the select element in IE 7. The ancient bug will finally be solved.
CSS, IE | Permalink
30 December 2005
Making the canvas tag available in Explorer. Work in progress, but interesting.
IE | Permalink
22 December 2005
Molly gives a useful overview of the discussion caused by the IE team's decision to remove the * html hack from IE 7.
CSS, IE, Linkdumps | Permalink
20 December 2005
Microsoft has finally pulled the plug on IE Mac. Understandable, but it's nonetheless a pity. IE Mac can't do modern W3C DOM, but back in 2000 it was really an awesome browser with the best CSS support of its days. In 2000 and 2001, when I was sick of Netscape 4 but Mozilla wasn't yet a serious browser, IE Mac was my favourite.
So long, and thanks for all the CSS.
Browsers | Permalink
3 December 2005
Roger Johansson gives a few guidelines for creating sites for interactive TV.
Accessibility, Browsers, Usability | Permalink
1 December 2005
Andy Budd starts a list of *important* CSS bugs in Safari, Firefox and Opera. Could grow into something interesting.
Browsers, CSS, Reference | Permalink
10 November 2005
Interesting idea: pre-process HTML pages on the server, then send them on to a mobile phone.
Only available in Scandinavia as yet.
Opera | Permalink
4 November 2005
Some more facts about IE7, conditional comments, and possibilities to install IE7 next to earlier versions.
IE | Permalink
3 November 2005
What can we expect from Microsoft? A few more facts about IE 7 and other subjects.
IE, WaSP | Permalink
2 November 2005
A list of fixes.
'Made sure that event.target is always an element, not a text node.'
Yay!
Safari | Permalink
18 October 2005
Eric Meyer advises us not to change our CSS hacks before the IE 7 beta is actually available. Furthermore, he feels that Dean Edwards's IE 7 script may become our saviour in time of need.
CSS, IE | Permalink
14 October 2005
An interesting summary of the incorrect implementation of overflow: visble in IE. Solutions: use overflow: hidden (obviously) or the MS proprietary, but nonetheless interesting, word-wrap: break-word
CSS, IE | Permalink
13 October 2005
30 September 2005
Stuart Langridge explains a Mozilla event that fires when you scroll with the mouse wheel. It's a bit silly to use a separate event when the scroll event is also there, but it's useful to know that you can actually detect the mouse wheel in Mozilla.
Events, Mozilla | Permalink
Scott Andrew encounters the ghost of Netscape 4 and tries to squeeze it into Firefox.
JavaScript, Mozilla | Permalink
25 September 2005
Molly gives some nasty details of the XHTML implementation of mobile phone browsers. And this is only the XHTML, mind you. CSS and JavaScript support will be much, much messier.
Browsers, HTML | Permalink
22 September 2005
Opera introduces Browser JavaScript, bits of script that seem to rewrite the scripts on pages that don't work properly in Opera. 90 % of the examples is about changing browser detects.
Is this a good idea? It'll help Opera users in the short run, certainly, but what if it changes scripts wrongly? I'd love to take a peek under the hood to make sure that everything works fine.
JavaScript, Opera | Permalink
20 September 2005
19 September 2005
Official fix list. Rather longer than I thought. The unload event is not mentioned, but fixed nonetheless.
Safari | Permalink
14 September 2005
Eric Meyer says Mozilla's print CSS compatibility sucks. From my own experiences I completely agree.
My Mozilla 1.75 WinXP crashes when I use Print Preview on http://alistapart.com/articles/pdf_accessibility
CSS, Mozilla | Permalink
11 September 2005
9 September 2005
IE 7 team members chatting with interested parties. Includes a few interesting notes.
IE | Permalink
1 September 2005
Markus Mielke of Microsoft explains the feared hasLayout property, its use, and the disadvantage of giving everything layout. Very enlightening.
CSS, IE | Permalink
31 August 2005
A bit harsh maybe, but essentially understandable. Opera is the browser that is supposed to do everything right, but usually doesn't quite. JavaScript support, especially, has sometimes been problematic (right now the load/unload nonsense bears witness).
Andy's wrong at one point: 'Opera 4 was without doubt more advanced that both IE4 and Netscape 4'. It wasn't! It was a disastrous browser that should never have been released. See my old Opera 4 page in the Browsers section.
Opera | Permalink
28 August 2005
Very useful overview of the hasLayout property and the problems it causes.
CSS, IE | Permalink
27 August 2005
Scott Andrew discovered that Firefox does support document.all, which it's supposed to ignore. So Firefox now executes supposedly IE-only code branches.
Annoying, but since we haven't needed document.all at all since IE 4 went down, it shouldn't be too big a problem for standards aware JavaScript sites.
DOM, Mozilla | Permalink
1 August 2005
A reaction from the Safari team to my benchmark test of the same name. Although my conclusion seems not to have been correct, the test case allowed the Safari programmers to solve a bug in their getElementsByTagName implementation.
CSS modification, Safari, Tests | Permalink
On IE problems with pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes.
CSS, IE, Tests | Permalink
29 July 2005
Great test page on the working of events in screen readers. If you happen to have an assistive device available, or know someone who does, please do the test! We badly need to know how screen readers actually handle JavaScript.
Accessibility, JavaScript, Screen readers, Tests | Permalink
28 July 2005
The first official Explorer 7 feature list. Subject to change.
IE | Permalink
20 July 2005
19 July 2005
MS tips for faster DOM Scripting in Explorer. Contains benchmark tests (I thought I was the only one who did that). The tests could use a bit longer loops (1000 iterations instead of the 100 currently used), but all in all the tips have an experimental basis and can serve as a first step towards real benchmarking.
Benchmarks, DOM, IE | Permalink
15 July 2005
Interviews with the Netscape founders. Interesting bits of history.
Browsers, History | Permalink
12 July 2005
As it says. By Joe Clark.
Accessibility, Screen readers, Usability | Permalink
11 July 2005
Dedicated to providing solid information, documentation, and community for Mozilla and Firefox developers. Looks like an interesting initiative, and as far as I can see now the JavaScript and DOM pages might eventually take the place of the alas disappeared devedge JavaScript reference.
CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Mozilla, Reference | Permalink
6 July 2005
Derek Featherstone explains why screen reader users might have to turn off JavaScript.
@media 2005, Accessibility, JavaScript, Screen readers | Permalink
This is the linklog of Peter-Paul Koch, mobile platform strategist, consultant, and trainer. You can also visit his QuirksBlog, or you can follow him on Twitter.
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