Microsoft is releasing for public download on Aug. 24 a new test build of its browser, the near-final Release Candidate 1 milestone. RC1 may or may not be the final public test build of IE 7, officials said, depending on tester feedback. Microsoft has said to expect the final version of its standalone browser to be available in the fourth calendar quarter of 2006. Microsoft is planning to push IE 7 out to users via its Automatic Update software-distribution mechanism that is used to deliver security patches to users.
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Member since:2005-07-06
To access this mode, Web sites need to add a special !DOCTYPE tag to the top of their HTML files. Curiously, this tag was available in IE 6 as well, though I had never heard of it."
heh, just because he doesn't know, doesn't mean it didn't exist 
This isn't an Internet Explorer only tag to get it to render sites correctly; its in the standard for html, and it should be used on all websites in the first place, as a tag to label the "version" of HTML used on the page.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
ie, this page is XHTML 1.0, Strict
Edited 2006-08-24 22:15
Member since:2005-11-12
It is not standard HTML the use of
DOCTYPE is part of the XHTML standard. It should work just fine without this declaration. The fact that it doesn't indicates the feature is still broken.
Microsoft might cause a lot of problems if they roll IE7 out using autoupdate since some CSS renders differently. I heard there are other compatibility problems with Javascript so some web applications might be broken by the roll out. In some way I would actually like to see this roll out break web sites since it would cause an uproar and it make people more aware of the difference between a software update versus a new application release.
Edited 2006-08-24 22:26
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-02-04
If I'm reading this right, this is better. Or at least not worse. If you do not enter a DDT (Doctype) then your browser enters quirks mode. Other browsers do the same thing.
There are MS specific doctypes but they were for forcing qirks mode when you have to declare a DDT. Now if you want IE in quirks mode, just don't declare a DDT.
Basically if you need quirks mode, it is available to you. Otherwise you need to declare a doctype which most developers do anyway.
Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:2005-07-06
So, in other words, IE7 will still default to the borked CSS support and will only enable the improved CSS support if a DOCTYPE tag is manually added. Just like IE6 can do now. And how is that better?
It is better because the actual support of the standards in this mode is much better in IE7 than it is in IE6. The standard requires a DOCTYPE declaration, and if you care about standards compliance you probably have one anyway.
If you don't care about standards compliance your code will still be compatible with IE5 if you like.
Member since:2005-06-29
all websites with the DOCTYPE will have theses advantages and older sites won't broke to end users.
The web is a changing thing... but we still have a LOT of older content that won't be updated. A simple DOCTYPE isn't a nightmare for the HTML 4.0 generation.
I'm pretty sure that be bigger question here is... when we'll have real standards? MS isn't the only one with non-compliant rendering, ALL browsers (well... maybe W3C's Maya) doesn't have 100% compliant renders... Visual designers don't care enough for code quality, they just want it working (looking as they wanted). OSNews isn't compliant markup either, but it 'works' (very well)...
...so, does bitching IE's rendering do any good? Probably the best we can do is writing about most missed features and worst bugs, and discuss and attract attention from MS to follow our requests. They're business people, don't want to miss their costumers. IE won't vanish tomorrow, we have to make it work better. We don't need the Firefox's Web anymore than IE's Web... The web should be "plug'n play"...
Member since:
2005-06-29
Let me get this straight. From the Paul Therrott article linked to above:
"IE 7 offers two rendering modes. The first, called Quirks Mode (or Compatibility Mode), renders Web pages almost exactly like IE 5 and IE 6; this is the mode that IE 7 operates in by default due to the millions of internal and public Web sites around the world that rely on particular IE behavior. The second mode, called Standards Mode (or Strict Mode) is what Chor calls "our best standards-based implementation." To access this mode, Web sites need to add a special !DOCTYPE tag to the top of their HTML files. Curiously, this tag was available in IE 6 as well, though I had never heard of it."
So, in other words, IE7 will still default to the borked CSS support and will only enable the improved CSS support if a DOCTYPE tag is manually added. Just like IE6 can do now.
And how is that better?
Edited 2006-08-24 21:58