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IEBlog: Microsoft CSS Vendor Extensions
Microsoft is moving all their proprietary CSS extensions to the
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A List Apart: Version targeting, take two
Jeremy and Jeffrey have a bit of a shoot-out regarding the IE version targeting mechanism in the latest ALA. For what it’s worth, I come drown more on Jeremy’s side of this one — the version targeting was a good idea; defaulting to the IE7 rendering engine was not. But, I also think this is ultimately not that big a deal. All we have to do is add a single meta tag to our documents, and all is well. No, we shouldn’t have to, but we do, and it will take us no time at all to do it. I just don’t see this as the end of the world. The only part I disagree with Jeremy on is that MS’s plan is “doomed to fail.” It’s not. Yes, people will object to adding the meta tag, but they’ll do it anyway, because the alternative is writing pages for the IE7 rendering engine.
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Stickel
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The B-List: X-No-Thanks
For anyone trying to make sense out of the whole IE8
X-UA-Compatiblenonsense, James Bennet’s explanation is almost certainly the most well-thought out and easy-to-understand one you’re going to find. I now have an opinion on this matter. I’m with James: X-No-Thanks.But even though I have an opinion, it’s not a very strong one. Why? Because, quite frankly, I’m just not that interested. If
X-UA-Compatiblelands in IE8, I’ll suck it up and spend 20 minutes putting the tag in all my sites, toss a few more curse words Microsoft’s way, and move the fuck on. Ultimately, for those of us doing standards-based work, this isn’t that big a deal. If we’re doing things right, and this actually happens, it means we have to put one measly meta tag in our code form now on. Big f’ing deal.Here’s hoping it doesn’t ever happen, though.
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CSSVista for Windows
An app that lets you edit CSS and see the results live in both IE and Firefox at the same time. Clever — could be a very useful app.
I presume this is possible because both IE and Firefox have their rendering engines separated from the browser itself and embeddable in other apps (Apple does the same thing with WebKit on the Mac). I said it in Pro CSS Techniques, but I’ll say it again: I really think the separation of browser and rendering engine is one of the single greatest technology advancements in quite a while from the perspective of the web designer/developer.
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Molly: Working Together for a Better Web
Molly has signed on at Microsoft to deal with “standards & interoperability education and outreach” for the Web Platform and Tools division. This can only be a good thing. Thank you, Molly.
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New W3C HTML Working Group chaired by Microsoft
The new W3C HTML Working Group, who will create the next version of HTML, will be initially chaired by Microsoft’s Chris Wilson. Although my impression is that Chris is a good person and has good intentions, I agree with Roger that it’s hard not to be a little leary of Microsoft being in this position of power — what with their attitude towards web standards over the years. Still, I remain cautiously hopefully that Chris Wilson will use this position to influence Microsoft to do the right thing, rather than for Microsoft to influence the W3C.
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Bug: IE7 absolutely positioned italics
Stuart Colville disovers that IE still pukes all over itself when you use italicized text. Wasn’t using italics a solved problem in, I dunno, 1984?
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Internet Explorer and the CSS box model
Roger Johannson details various methods of dealing with the incorrect CSS box model used by older versions of Internet Explorer for Windows. There’s nothing particularly new here, but this is still a major hurdle for people new to CSS, and Roger does a great job of outlining the problems and solutions.
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Inman: Mixed and Mashed
“When I redesigned ShaunInman.com a lot of bile found its way into my inbox and Mint referrers feed. All that unsolicited aggression is demotivating. And this is just a personal site. Imagine having to sift through that as a member of a team responsible for the most common browser in the world. ” Well said, Shaun. All too often on the Internet we forget that there are real people on the other end of the line.
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Browser Smackdown: Firefox vs. IE vs. Opera vs. Safari
“Four experts go head-to-head (to-head-to-head) to defend their Web browser of choice in an opinionated free-for-all.” Decent article. I’m still firmly in the Safari camp for everyday browsing, but I often switch to FF when in development mode.
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IE7: Were they ready?
An analysis of several major corporate sites and their performance in IE7. Interesting, and basically shows that most sites work fine, or with relatively minor quirks in the new browser. The author insinuates that standards compliant sites perform worst in IE7 — but this is inaccurate. Instead, sites which break away from standards by using ugly hacks and filters in order to achieve the desired results in IE6 perform more poorly. CSS hacks and filters are often necessary, but you’re fooling yourself if you think they’re anything but ugly hacks — and if you think they won’t come back to bite you in the ass later on. They will — but unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it.
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CNET reviews Internet Explorer 7
Bottom line? It’s a large improvement, but still several steps behind Firefox, Safari, and Opera. If Microsoft intends to feature-enhance IE7 as infrequently as it did IE6 (read: never), then this could well be IE’s last stand. MS needed to leapfrog the competition with this release — instead, it didn’t even catch up to it. That having been said, it’s definitely better, and that’s good for us web designers and developers.
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IE7 Is Coming This Month…Are you Ready?
It’s absolutely appalling that Microsoft would even ask us this question. “”We need you to test and ensure your sites, extensions, and applications are ready for IE7.” What? We’ve been here, ready, for years while IE6 sat stagnant. It’s up to you, Microsoft, to make your your browser is ready for our sites, not the other way around. We’re writing to the specs, and if you can’t render according to the specs, it’s going to be on you, not us. Are we ready? Hah. Let us know when you’re ready, Microsoft.
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Internet Explorer is preventing you from having a better Internet experience.
I’m not necessarily recommending this, but I do find it to be rather amusing…
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New Netscape offers both IE and Gecko engines
As I predicted, the rendering engine and the browser are separating…
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Microsoft: Breaking the Web
How Microsoft can support CSS2 without breaking the web.
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Microsoft Getting Nervous About Firefox
MS: “Fire-wha? Never heard of it.”
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