RSSIE7 CSS and Fixes Detailed; No Acid2
By Nate Mook | Published August 2, 2005, 2:28 PM
While Microsoft admits few CSS bugs were fixed for Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, which shipped to testers and MSDN subscribers last week, developers have shed some light on what to expect in Beta 2 and the final release. IE7 will not, however, pass the Acid2 CSS standards test published by the Web Standards Project.
In a posting to the IEBlog, IE7 lead Chris Wilson said that security will be the top priority of the new browser. Following that, the team will work to remove the "biggest causes of difficulty for Web developers."
"To that end, we’ve dug through a lot of sites detailing IE bugs that cause pain for web developers, like PositionIsEverything and Quirksmode, and categorized and investigated those issues," Wilson said.
"We've taken feedback from you directly (yes, we do read the responses to our blog posts) on what bugs affect you the most and what features you'd most like to see, and we've planned out what we can and can't do in IE7."
Among those fixes on the "can" list include CSS 2.1 selector support and fixed positioning, alpha channel support for PNG images, a fix for width:auto and 1 pixel border style, along with numerous others.
"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 Recommended)," Wilson added.
But IE7 will not pass the Acid2 test, Wilson admitted, despite the test quickly becoming a benchmark for a browser's standards compliance. Apple's Safari Web browser recently passed the test and Opera has been making progress with recent updates to version 8.
Firefox does not yet pass the test, but the Mozilla Foundation says its browser will in the near future.
"I'll go ahead and relieve the suspense by saying we will not pass this test when IE7 ships," Wilson wrote. "The original Acid Test tested only the CSS 1 box model, and actually became part of the W3C CSS1 Test Suite since it was a fairly narrow test – but the Acid 2 Test covers a wide set of functionality and standards, not just from CSS2.1 and HTML 4.01, selected by the authors as a "wish list" of features they'd like to have."
Still, Web Standards Project members seemed upbeat about Microsoft's progress and the group is working closely with Redmond on the next Internet Explorer release. "Three cheers for transparency! Three cheers for openness! Three cheers for standards in IE7!," wrote project member Chris Kaminski.
"We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support," said Wilson.
I tried it and it's much slower than IE 6.0; I am not using it anymore as I had to revert back to the good old IE 6.0.
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|Hi, this George Dolan again, will it be safe to download IE-7 now, or should I wait about a month, please I don't want any problems, I only have Microsoft Products...and if I can download IE-7 please tell me where I can download the IE-7 software, thank you, you are great people, I hope Microsoft consolidates lots of its programs so they work together and fast and don't take up space, and they need a better messenger, and they need to make there programs with fun to use...your friend always...GPGO
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|Personally, I hate CSS despite its advantages, but I agree that effort towards complying with standards is desired... Different versions for different browsers is not acceptable.
Kudos to Microsoft for trying and improving (even if it has been slow coming), and kudos for prioritizing security and compatibility over "new" features.
But!! I will voice criticism at the fact that these issues wouldn't be a challenge if the browser had been maintained better over the past few years since IE6SP1 was released. Shame on Microsoft for that.
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|Paul Thurott is calling for an IE7 boycott because of this news.
Screw him.
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|Because, yeah, that will actually happen... I wouldn't screw him with.... ohhhhhhhhhh, sorry, I mean a boycott of IE would really solve anything.
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|Apparently I'm boycotting it, since I have win2k.
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|Microsoft are up to something big, gettin jiggy with so many different dudes all of a sudden, just like they wonna grow these people's confidense and then..
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|I love firefox, but "near future" for them means months/years. They aren't up to speed, so to speak, on putting in features into their browser code in a timely manner, or even reaching their own internal timetables.
Not a problem, just means I take their statements with a grain of salt.
Kudo's to the IE team though... everyone wins when standards are maintained in browsers (and other software).
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|Critical bug found in firefox
Fixed within 2 weeks
Critical bug found in IE
Fixed within 8 months.
Granted, bug != feature, but it shows the FF team are awake while the IE team are still playing solitaire and discussing which company to bankrupt next.
Firefox renders all the sites I've thrown at it, IE renders about half of them. Out of the choice between not-css2-ready, I'd still choose firefox any day.
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|You fail to acknowledge that IE is used the world over by 85%+ of the Internet's users... and that there are applications (such as Norton, Intuit, and countless others) that are built on IE's functionality. It takes time to verify that fixing a security bug won't break those applications.
Microsoft is in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. If they fix the bugs as quickly as we want, they break apps and we cry foul... because "HOW DARE THEY BREAK SOMEONE'S APP!!!!!" (Someone's app that used a security flaw and broke when the flaw is fixed, mind you, but people won't accept that explanation).
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|To be honest, I've always used IE - it's never failed me.
I've tried FF and it crashed too much (and there seems to be a new release of it everyday!), don't like Opera and don't even get me started on Netscape 8.
I'm looking forward to IE7.
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|Now I use FF most of the time, but it crash to much. I hate the fact that I got to download and install new FF version every month. In FF support forum they told us to clean install FF and it means that I got to install and reconfig everytime, too much hasle.
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|I don't like how IE crashes programs without the security flaws fixed. :P
FF has been rock solid stable on my system, but then again I don't use many extensions.
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|You probbly are looking at the build forum, which is certainly the case to use a clean profile/setup.
Every official version since 1.0 supports installing on top without issue. There are a few extensions that will cause hiccups, but they should just be disabled if they do cause hiccups.
Everyone realizes that two years ago FF was just a twinkle of browser? to come to near 10% marketshare and it's current featureset so quickly is astounding. Here's to the next two years!
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|I left IE long ago and have been using FF and Opera as well to test my sites on. Both of these browsers have never crashed on me and they are both free :). Yet the other day i had to fix a windows computer. It didn’t have any other browser but IE. It had all the updates yet every time i went onto a site with css 2 it craped its self out and sometimes crashed. Put firefox on and the people who i was fixing it for loved and they have reported no crashes since.
In regards to IE7 after testing it on Windows Vista BETA 1 i must say its more like IE6 with a facelift and tabs (bit late eh). It crashed on me twice in 30 mines. I put firefox on and it was working for at least 1 hour with no crashes, and its not even made for Vista.
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|Of course IE7 has a chance of crashing. It is still beta(not even a public beta at that). I have had so many issues using firefox with websites that I have stopped using it. I think firefox needs alot of work before people can even compare it with how IE functions. There are many secure pages that firefox completely bugs out on. Even with a clean - no plug-in load of firefox. IE on the otherhand only seems to have issues when other software elements are added. Not that every addition compromises IE's stability. I have to test our companies website on all browsers. IE has never gave us an issue. FF and Netscape are the only browsers that have ever gave us problems
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|Maybe you do not know how to use FireFox or Netscape 8.0. Maybe you need to sit down and READ a book!! Also IE 7.0 is NOT that good because of spyware and so on... I have been testing Firefox out for two years now and never had any spyware like I did with IE 6 & 7 ...
Microsoft is going for a Sh*t Kicking!! Linux is comming out more & more.. LINUX IS GOING TO BE BETTER THEN MICROSOFT!!
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|it doesn't matter what browser you use,
FF, opera, IE6-7, and all the other ones.
each has his on view of his fav. browser and will proclaim to the world! that FF is the best or opera is the best or IE6-7.
Every damn browser is not perfect, that is why there are updates and crap for all browsers, because people keep finding ways to break the envelope in computers or, more common, find a way to make certain browsing software DO WHAT THEY WANT IT TO DO, and that is where problems come in, so then we get more updates to fix the stupid things we do to whatever browser we have and all the software as well.
we always want better
I mean we all have tried just about every browser out there, and we have to admit, we are not perfectly happy with our favorites. Yeah we are happy and feel secure with the one we cling to, but we always want better even though we got something good.
If we werent completely happy with the browsers out there, i'm sure we wouldn't have posted a comment.
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