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Internet Explorer The Internet

Update on Standards and CSS in IE7 442

Posted by Hemos from the good-to-know dept.
brajesh writes "Chris Wilson has posted on IEBlog about the Standards and CSS in IE7. According to the post, "In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2". Further,"we will not pass this (Acid2 browse) test when IE7 ships.""
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Update on Standards and CSS in IE7 More

Update on Standards and CSS in IE7

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  • Fix css bugs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:34PM (#13216056) Homepage
    I thought they had to start with a new code base since the IE6 base had reached its end of fixabilities (like add an extra fix, and something else breaks again, and so on and on and on).
    Apparently they went on on the IE6 base anyway???? Well, good luck with Vista, and your updated IE6 browser. I am off to buy a spyware firm & an anti spyware firm and get filthy rich from Vista.
    • I thought they had to start with a new code base since the IE6 base had reached its end of fixabilities (like add an extra fix, and something else breaks again, and so on and on and on)

      Usually that means that you need refactoring, not necessarily a full rewrite, though rewrites can be useful, too.

      The question is whether they did true reengineering work or whether they just tried to paper over the flaws. The fact that they supposedly have PNG working indicates that at least some reengineering work has gone
    • "I am off to buy a spyware firm & an anti spyware firm and get filthy rich from Vista."

      I would put my money somewhere else. Direct competition with Microsoft only gets you filty rich if they buy your company.
    • Show how XPSP2 IE6 installs spyware without user action, without the user being given the option and a security warning. Imagine Gator informing the user, in detail, how to allow a Firefox extension being installed to gain great functionality. (Or, of course, just getting the user to install local software, which then plugs in the extension.) And add the hopefully enhanced least user privilege support in Vista. (hopefully keeping more people from using a real full Administrator as the normal use account)

  • This is good for all the browsers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by edyu ( 259748 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:36PM (#13216071)
    Although there will be Microsoft bashing in this thread, I believe this is good for all browsers because almost all the other browsers are standards compliant. Therefore, as IE becomes more standard compliant, the common denominator between the browsers will be bigger thus more web pages will be displayed correctly in all the other browers. I appauld Microsoft for this effort although it might be a result of necessity rather than goodwill. ;)
    • Except of course that "almost all the other browsers" aren't standards compliant, either.
      • Except of course that "almost all the other browsers" aren't standards compliant, either.

        But at least the other browser vendors chase standards more consistently than IE does. You don't need to genius or to achieve perfection immediately in order to get there, you just good test cases and continual bug fixing.

        After years of inactivity, it looks as if IE is about to put on one heck of spurt though. Reading the article, they are talking about "ramping up" the team, and are well aware that they will not catch

        • Re:This is good for all the browsers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @02:11PM (#13216396)
          I have a nasty suspicion that after IE 7.0, they won't stop or slow down, but will speed up. It's what MS does: crush the opponent.

          I don't know. I'm truly surprised at how little has been done with Longhorn/Vista. There's a shiny new interface, a slightly improved version of IE, and some neat developer technologies. Oh, and desktop search. This has taken them 4-5 years? If they plan to crush the competition, they're going to have to pick up the pace quite a bit.

          • Re:This is good for all the browsers (Score:5, Interesting)

            by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:36PM (#13218100)
            Brings resolution-independence to the GUI with vector-based controls and icons, plus resampling for legacy applications.

            Brings 3D acceleration into the GUI, making it easy to use 3D in desktop applications without having to use OpenGL or Direct3D.

            Updated kernel, memory manager, etc.

            Reduced user permissions (ala Mac OS X or Linux) to increase security.

            New network stack.

            New printing system with commom document format.

            New power management features.

            Desktop search.

            Vritual folders (e.g. "Music" can organize all music on your computer by artist).

            New shell UI (Explorer).

            New command shell (MSH).

            Completely new install system.

            Faster bootup, shutdown, standby, and resume.

            Support for external LCD displays on notebooks.

            New features for eHome (Media Center) and Tablet PC.

            New networking paridigm ("Castle") replaces the outdated "Workgroup" (WINS).

            New graphics driver model (LDM) that will serve as the basis for the desktop and the next version of DirectX.

            New DRM technologies (ugh) - 'secure' graphics path and 'secure' audio path.

            Parental controls for DVDs, games, and potentially TV (eHome) built-in.

            Antispyware built-in.

            New update mechanism that allows in-memory patching of libraries without requiring a reload or restart.

            New Windows Update and automatic update mechanism.

            New protection against security exploits through extensive security audits and code-quality tests.

            Fewer bugs and crashes through increased regression testing, improved error reporting, and tighter code requirements.

            No, Vista isn't going to be Mac OS X. Too many people expect Microsoft to go and duplicate everything that Apple has done. They expect Vista to be the "non-Windows Windows".

            That's not going to happen. Vista is still very much the Windows you know. But it is the most significant change since Windows 2000. It will be better in ways that aren't apparent by looking at screenshots - a better network stack, easier patching, and improved security aren't necessarily the kinds of things that are apparent from the UI. But they matter to the user. And they matter to Microsoft.

            Expect Vista to deliver in a big way. Not through "150 new features" like every release of Mac OS X, but through a general improvement in security, stability, and performance. And, of course, a much improved platform for developers.
    • Microsoft took care of that with their own additions, and the differences in still buggy HTML, which is not covered by css.
    • By applauding them for this effort you're also applauding them for being shitty in the first place. The proper reaction is not to put up with it any more, and use something else (and persuade everyone else you can to do the same, so that more shitty stuff stops being inflicted upon you).
      • There is idealogy and there is practicality. I use Linux on my two workstatations at work but people I know that use IE because it's always there and it has the big blue E that people associate with web browsing. I believe in choice and sometimes people do choose to use IE (for example, some people like to use the MSN toolbar with IE).
        We know Microsoft is the virtual standard in this respect and they have two options: 1. Make it more standard compliant. 2. Make it less standard compliant. I rather have them
    • I appauld Microsoft for this effort although it might be a result of necessity rather than goodwill. ;)

      Necessity is the mother of invention.
    • Two things.

      First, none of the other browsers are completely standards-compliant. The W3C standards are just that complicated.

      Second, W3C standards are not a magic bullet. It is entirely possible that a 100% "standards compliant" browser could still render pages differently than other browsers, simply because it's the implementation of the standard that dictates the end result, not the standard itself.

      Repeat after me: the standard is consistent, the implementations are not.

  • Microsoft doesn't care about standards (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:37PM (#13216076) Journal
    Why? Because they ARE the standard and they know it. In a perfect world, they would conform to the standards that everyone else is striving to hit. But MS knows they own the market. They know that there are a bazillion web pages written specifically for IE. They know there are lazy coders out there that don't bother checking for web standard conformity and only care that their pages work on IE. So why should they rethink their IE development? It's much easier this way (for them). It's a shame, and maybe some day it'll kick 'em in the ass, but for now, they know they're in the driver's seat.
    • Last time I checked, even firefox (latest release) doesn't correctly pass the acid2 test. By that definition, FF isn't completely standards compliant either.

      While MSIE isn't (and probably never will be perfect), it is partially reponsible for the huge popularity the internet enjoys today.

      This isn't meant to be a flame-- Just tired of seeing another unfair MS bash.
      • ...even firefox (latest release) doesn't correctly pass the acid2 test. By that definition, FF isn't completely standards compliant either.

        No, but it's close - it's obvious the Gecko guys are actually trying. Whereas IE appears to be deliberately flouting the rules / standards / guidelines.

        Just tired of seeing another unfair MS bash.

        But you're not even claiming anything chia_monkey said is counter-factual - in what way was it "unfair?" Heck, in what way was it a "bash," as opposed to a somewhat cynical re
    • Please RTFA before reeling off a standard Microsoft bash. It really looks like the team in charge of IE 7 actually cares about standards compliance and beta 2 looks to fix most of worst bugs that currently exist in IE 6. Of course we will discover the truth when the FINAL version of IE 7 is released but quotes like the following give me hope:

      "I want to be clear that our intent is to build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2 ( 2.1, once it's been Recommen
    • Well, it all has to do with how "cool" the standards are. When frames came about, all the browsers updated as quickly as possible. If other browsers have something that has a bit more of a "neato" factor to it, then IE might want to either conform to that standard or replicate it in some backwards way.

      For now, the only thing I can think of has to do with CSS2 and PNGs, two things which Firefox does well and IE does not. (At least not natively, I know you can do some "scripting tricks" to support PNG in IE,

  • If the fix their bugs they'll break web sites (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LemonFire ( 514342 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:39PM (#13216095) Homepage
    If the fix their CSS bugs they'll break web sites that is heavilly dependant on IE CSS.
    Too many developers have gotten dependant of the IE CSS quirks already.

    A really sad situation, however it's the right thing to do though.

    -- This SIG was created without the help of CSS

  • Painful bugs (Score:3, Funny)

    by MirrororriM ( 801308 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:39PM (#13216096) Homepage Journal
    I think we will make a lot of progress against that in IE7 through our goal of removing the worst painful bugs that make our platform difficult to use for web developers.

    However, all of the other painful bugs for everyone else will remain in place.

  • A Feature Request (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:44PM (#13216161) Homepage Journal
    "... we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well."
    Dude, the "feature" most developers are requesting is standards compliance!

    • Re:A Feature Request (Score:3, Informative)

      by Shalda ( 560388 )
      Hello, and welcome to reality. IE is the standard. Any alternate browser that doesn't render a page exactly the same as IE is not standards compliant. I don't code to W3C standards, I code to IE, because that's what's on the desktops of my users.
      • I don't code to W3C standards, I code to IE

        May I suggest a slight modification to your statement? How about "I code to W3C standards, except where what I need to accomplish can't be done within W3C, or the standard solution won't work in IE, in which case I code to IE and document the deviation"? IE is the poster boy of non-compliance, but IE6 with the proper DOCTYPE is usable, so the far more interesting question is why you might disagree with my version.

        Also, which IE? I have written pages that work

      • Re:A Feature Request (Score:5, Funny)

        by TravisWatkins ( 746905 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @06:01PM (#13218261) Homepage
        From the look of it you don't code at all.

        <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
      • What IE rendering standard are you talking about? Are you talking about IE6 on w2k? IE6 on windows XP with SP1 with SP2? I have looked over microsofts website and msdn areas and have never found an IE rendering standard. From my experience IE6 does not render the same on all platforms and stuff designed for the IE5.5 and IE5.0 rendering does not always work correctly with IE6.

        There IS NO IE STANDARD. THERE NEVER HAS BEEN AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL BE!

        You are designing for the quirks in the particular browsers
  • I'm really curious as to how they are going to handle the * html hack that is current with IE6...

    If they have fixed the aforementioned bugs (from the IE7 Blog) will we still be able to target IE6 and whatnot the same way? Wonder wonder wonder..

    I can see shit + fan if the same * html hack works in IE7, or if there isn't a way to target it specifically.. But who knows, it's gonna be a gong show regardless.

    Yay for IE!
    • One of the comments in the article says this (from a microsoft developer):

      As for the "* HTML" selector issue - actually, it's currently fixed (that is, it no longer works) in beta 2; however, I'm on the fence as to whether we should ship that (it does help our appearance on the acid2 test), since it is in use in the web today for browser switching. I'd welcome feedback on whether we should fix it in IE7 or not.

      I read this the other day, and sifted through the huge pile of comments by searching for "[MS"

  • What stupid, stupid reasoning.

    We'll support the features people want = we'll support the features that are most used = we'll bugfix the features used by the World's Most Popular Browser [TM] = we're actually going gto do jack shit for interoperability.

    I'd love to believe that MS really are going to fix IE's utterly appalling CSS support that other browsers sorted out years ago, but judging by IE's track record I don't hold out alot of hope. Hack, am I the only one who failed to notice any significant extra

  • I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by RoadkillBunny ( 662203 )
    ..how much troube will the pages that use the current bugs to their advantage have.

  • Acid2 Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by courtarro ( 786894 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:49PM (#13216207) Homepage
    Since the Webstandards site has been /.ed, here's a mirror of the Acid2 test:

    http://whereswalden.com/files/webdev/acid2/test.ht ml [whereswalden.com]

  • give web developers a break (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LodCrappo ( 705968 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:53PM (#13216239)
    As a part time hobbyist web developer, I have to applaud any move by any browser towards correctly implementing standards. Sure yeah it's Microsoft and I think I share a pretty negative view of alot of things they do with many of you. BUT... have you ever tried to create a page that uses even moderately complex CSS and have it look the same in IE and Firefox? It's practically impossible. I usually find it easier to just serve up different pages based on the user agent.. that sucks! So any move regardless of motivation that makes it possible to create a single version of a page and have it look normal is a good move in my book. For once, and just this once, good job MS.
    • Not really. MSIE has only two options that are a net-gain for everyone.
      • continue to ignore their browser, and users will eventually move to competitors who are much better equiped to handle the situation
      • actually keep up with their competitors. This costs virtually nothing for microsoft. Mozilla and Opera give away their browsers, yet are able to actually assign sufficient coders to the project to release a decent product. Microsoft has vast sums of money, and can't keep up. What does that say?

      If

  • Thank You Firefox! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:54PM (#13216245) Homepage Journal
    Thank you Firefox! Without competitive pressure from Firefox, I doubt that we would be seeing such effort to fix longstanding issues with Internet Explorer. IE 7 won't be perfect, but it will likely be a lot better than it would have been if the Mozilla project and Firefox had never existed. I suppose in some small way this is a bit of revenge from the grave for Netscape.

    • You are correct, Sir! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @03:52PM (#13217352)
      Definately. If not for the existence of IE we'd still be stuck with Netscape 4.x which believe it or not was even worse in regards to Standards.

      Competition is good.

      That is, as long as it's actually from creative people introducing exciting new products. When you try to instill competition by kneecapping the dominant player back down to the lowest common denominator... you really aren't going to see much improve.

  • A question of labor? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bronz ( 429622 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:54PM (#13216247)
    What does it say when google and yahoo are creating brain drain [businessweek.com] hiring good developers that push the limits of standard-incompetent browsers, while Microsoft does not seem to be able to get qualified people to just make the thing work right in the first place? I know there are some brainy people in the ranks of Microsoft. At this point can ultimately determine it isn't a question of "can't fix" but "won't fix" ... or "afraid to fix" ? It's been hypothesized that Microsoft is afraid to fix IE for fear of losing their application monopoly to web applications.

  • Moaning about IE's standards compliance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @02:01PM (#13216304)
    IE's hit-or-miss CSS/DOM support drives me nuts, since it tends to add a significant amount of work to almost every project for me. But until Firefox ships a browser that passes Acid2, it seems rather silly to complain about IE's problems with the test.

  • Big 3 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by faust2097 ( 137829 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @02:01PM (#13216310)
    Honestly there's a few fixes thay could make that would solve a whole lot of stuff fairly quickly:

    - Fix the box model

    - Fix inheritance issues

    - Implement :hover: correctly

    Hell, even if they just fixed the box model that would solve the bulk of the problems that people are having now. I'm still curious why they botheres with this "beta" except to show off their awesome new UI that breaks all known UI design conventions for no compelling reason.

    • Re:Big 3 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by delus10n0 ( 524126 )
      I'm guessing you didn't actually read the article/blog post? They _did_ fix those, for beta 2 (not yet released.)

      I love Slashdot-- Microsoft is actually trying to be fully CSS 2.0/2.1 compliant, and you guys nitpick, or whine that it won't pass ACID.

    • The other big lots of (Score:2, Informative)

      by porneL ( 674499 )

      Box-model in IE was fixed around 2001. Fix YOUR code.

      I'd like IE to support basics like width , height , display:inline and float . Currently under these names Microsoft has implemented min-width, min-height, display:inline-block and god-knows-what, respectively.

  • from TFA:

    Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2, we have already fixed the following bugs from PositionIsEverything and Quirksmode:

            * Peekaboo bug
            * Guillotine bug
            * Duplicate Character bug
            * Border Chaos
            * No Scroll bug
            * 3 Pixel Text Jog
            * Magic Creeping Text bug
            * Bottom Margin bug on Hover
            * Losing the ability to highlight text under the top border
            * IE/Win Line-height bug
            * Double Float Margin Bug
            * Quirky Percentages in IE
            * Duplicate indent
            * Moving viewport scrollbar outside HTML borders
            * 1 px border style
            * Disappearing List-background
            * Fix width:auto

    In addition we've added support for the following

            * HTML 4.01 ABBR tag
            * Improved (though not yet perfect) fallback
            * CSS 2.1 Selector support (child, adjacent, attribute, first-child etc.)
            * CSS 2.1 Fixed positioning
            * Alpha channel in PNG images
            * Fix :hover on all elements
            * Background-attachment: fixed on all elements not just body
    (/snip)

    So I think that sums most of 'em.

    And look, if IE6 fails miserably the ACID2 test, i'm really hoping we'll see a yellow blurb at least in IE7 (right now it's like a red wall with some pieces of slaughtered yellow-face in there).

    In firefox we don't see the face, but at least we can see a nice yellow thing with wierd not-intended-to-be sunglasses on... kinda.

    So I'm quite curious how the ACID2 will render in IE7...

  • This is why I don't use box model "hacks"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by venomkid ( 624425 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @02:14PM (#13216430)
    This is why I never used things like the box model "hack" or any other browser bug-dependent CSS for cross browser compatibility. It's begging to have the site start blowing up in users' faces as soon as a new browser is released.

    Even the terrible implementation of CSS in IE6 is usable enough to make sites to standard. Sure it requires a bit of cheesiness, but I'd rather do that than *depend* on their browser continuing to not only have bugs, but to react to those bugs the same in every new release.

    There is a middle "standard".

  • I think it does pass: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nytewynd ( 829901 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @02:15PM (#13216437)
    IE7 passes the Acid test, as in you need to be on LSD to use it.
  • Debugging JavaScript in IE just plain sucks. It's so bad that I just do not even debug in IE anymore, if the bug is reproducable in Mozilla, I debug there.

    It would be nice to see MS fix with IE by adding a parsable stack dump like Mozilla (error.stack) including function name, file name and an accurate line number.

    JsD

  • freedom to innovate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Monday August 01, 2005 @03:21PM (#13217045) Homepage Journal
    Ok, they're making progress. But did anyone notice what's "innovative"?
    but innovative stuff like the anti-phishing work and low-rights IE.

    Using any other browser would be running all that browser code without admin privs. Yeah, they're making a "broker" that handles all the system interface. Pretty much the architecture most unix-based server programs have been using for years. Except at the client/browser level it's unnecessary... unless you're building on previous poor design decisions.

    The anti-phishing... yet another thing others have already been doing quite well [netcraft.com] for quite a while.

    It's plainly obvious they're playing catch-up on many fronts. That alone isn't a reason to bash them, as least as far as I'm concerned. But calling "innovative" the features that have been implemented for over a year or more in other browsers or as third party add-ons is pretty cheap.

    Or did I miss some new features, anything really, that's truely innovative in IE7, rather than just implementing features already available from competitors and third parties?

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