Consistent with our efforts to promote further interoperability across the Web, Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 to render content in its most standards-compliant way by default. Giving top priority to Web standards interoperability allows us to help web developers and designers drive toward the ideal of “write once, run anywhere”, freeing up more time to innovate rather than modify content for different browsers. This commitment also addresses several development and design pain points from previous Internet Explorer releases.However, browsing with this default setting may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended. This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8. As such, we have provided a meta-tag usable on a per-page or per-site level to maintain backwards compatibility with Internet Explorer 7. Adding this tag instructs Internet Explorer 8 to render content like it did in Internet Explorer 7, without requiring any additional changes.
We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers. To learn more and get started, please follow the step-by-step instructions located at KB952030
Link: MSDN Blogs.
Pretty much when I develop web pages I do it all in Firefox and then I have to go back and start hacking things up to work in IE 6+, which can be just painful, so anything that makes web development easier =
Ordinarily I'd totally agree with you, but this move is a GOOD thing.
Ask any web designer what the bane of their existence is and many will mention IE and it's compatibility. Especially IE6 which still has a large share of the browser market.
Too often I've had a wonderful standards based and SEO'ed design that I've had to cut back because of IE6. Version 7 of the browser is much better, while sites don't work instantaneously, they do work after you make a few CSS tweaks. IE6 is the version that totally ruins things, and it still has roughly 25% of the market share.
After IE becomes standards compliant I'd like to see a major push to be rid of IE 6 & 7, I don't care if it's Firefox, Opera, Safari or IE8 that people go to. We need to remove these two browsers from our life as soon as possible.
I thought the KB article talks about IE7 having its own compatibility mode and IE8 uses the standard one which I assume is the W3C.
It's one of those classic short-term User Experience vs long-term "correctness" trade-offs.
The root of the problem is largely that many websites currently employ logic like this:
If MSIE:
Do MSIE-specific stuff.
Else:
Do mostly "standards" stuff.
(this is a simplified view of what is actually done)
The problem is that with the new IE 8 engine, IE really belongs in the "else" section since its behavior is now similar if not identical to Firefox / Safari / Opera.
Unfortunately, those checks for IE still determine that yes, this is in fact IE, so the IE-specific code is used. What needs to happen most of the time is for those checks to verify the version number is less than 8, otherwise treat it like any other browser.
In the meantime, the "safer" and easier way for web sites to fix themselves is to put a special tag in that says "Render this using the IE 7 engine, even if the browser is IE 8."
It's one of those classic short-term User Experience vs long-term "correctness" trade-offs.
The root of the problem is largely that many websites currently employ logic like this:
If MSIE:
Do MSIE-specific stuff.
Else:
Do mostly "standards" stuff.
(this is a simplified view of what is actually done)
The problem is that with the new IE 8 engine, IE really belongs in the "else" section since its behavior is now similar if not identical to Firefox / Safari / Opera.
Unfortunately, those checks for IE still determine that yes, this is in fact IE, so the IE-specific code is used. What needs to happen most of the time is for those checks to verify the version number is less than 8, otherwise treat it like any other browser.
In the meantime, the "safer" and easier way for web sites to fix themselves is to put a special tag in that says "Render this using the IE 7 engine, even if the browser is IE 8."
Yeah, that is the real kicker... In case people still don't get it, the reason for the meta tag is for those sites that don't work in IE8, and IE8 is what would be detected by conditional comments. The good news is that the meta tag can be hidden thanks to conditional comments:
<!--[if IE 8]>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">
<![endif]-->
That's assuming HTML is being used, of course. If HTML-compatible XHTML 1.0 is being used, then obviously a trailing solidus would be needed.
You can't have it both ways.
What's the point of using the browser then?!
Microsoft is trying to make it sound like they're going out of their way to cripple their software so that web authors don't have to cripple -their- work in order to use Microsoft's ****ed-up practices. Best of all? They're being a dick about doing it!
"Update your pages so that they're compliant with the standards. Do it now or suffer. I don't give a damn if you had to code it shittily (is that even a word?) in order to work with our older POS browsers. This is how it is now and you WILL comply." --Microsoft
Rofflemaw.
Rofflemaw.
How come they "hfd to code their sites for IE8"? There weren't any betas then.
OH! You just made it all up!
And no that's not a word. Neither is rofflemaw for the record.
I hate the way things are divided now with application developers on one side that need to make use of IE's functionality and Web developers on the other side clamoring for proper support. Hopefully the issue can be reconciled one day...
Edit: Christ, I just saw this articles icon, not that I should have missed it
Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?
Surely it should say: "Is it ready for our W3C Compilant Websites?"
Opera, Firefox, IE5, IE6,IE 7, IE 8, Safari
What a nightmare, why can't they all just get along!
Thank god I'm going into programming next year
Opera, Firefox, IE5, IE6,IE 7, IE 8, Safari
What a nightmare, why can't they all just get along!
Thank god I'm going into programming next year
All you will have to worry about then is Linux, Windows MCE, Windows XP, Vista, Mac......
And don't forget Firefox 1.x, firefox 2.x and (i hope not) firefox 3.x changes and not to say Opera Mini and PIE.
Glad that you can ask for users that use firefox 1.x to upgrade to 2.x but still there are changes between version.
Most websites out there will probably be fine with upgrading to better standards (chances are, most web devs will jump at the chance and no major website is going to sit back and let some of their users get cut off - providing IE8 gets pushed enough that is), really the biggest problem for MOST people will be visiting a lot of those random geocities sites from yesteryear that still have some useful information on them, but have long since been forgotten.
The main thing is businesses who rely on software coded for IE6 - they're the ones that will struggle upgrading, but hopefully they'll pony up and upgrade their crap. Those are the people who have been REALLY stung by IE6's ****ty standards.
Actually, I'm more inclined to say "Down with asoldier, keep up the good work MS!" at this point.
Luckily, I don't have any website right now, but I had some a few months ago... so I guess I'm lucky.
Ironically the sites that have caused me the most issues with Beta one were Microsofts own sites. Hotmail failed to work at all off memory and other ones displayed rather poorly. In fact Mozilla handles most of them fine but a good number of MS ones were pretty messed up in IE8.
But thats what betas are for right?
Of course not. Why they would?. The ppl still using IE6 and in some cases IE5...
I have web applications which look like they have been created in a WYSIWYG editor. The best part is that these applications are encrypted and commercial, which is really frustrating for users like me which can't do anything else but wait for the developers to learn coding manually and follow the standards.
Anyway, better now than never. I hope this will force developers to follow the standards.
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