Microsoft has released the 2nd beta of Internet Explorer 7 to the general public. You can read the release notes, or watch a tour of the new features. Microsoft warns you not to use this beta a production environment: "Evaluation of Internet Explorer 7 should start now, but the software should not be used on production systems in mission-critical environments. Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview will only run on Windows XP Service Pack 2 systems, but will ultimately be available for Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003." Update: You might have been expecting this, but there's already a DoS attack out there for this new beta.
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Member since:2005-11-14
"Web developers everywhere will leap for joy."
6 year web developer here. I'm pleased that they fixed egregious CSS bugs. What web developers wanted was the following:
o Correct implementation of CSS and CSS2
o PNG support
o Correct implementation of HTML4 (BUTTON, OBJECT and others)
o Correct implementation of DOM
For the most part we got the first two, which means fewer CSS hacks and more powerful layouts. PNG support means an end to transparent GIFs which have to be designed around a specific background color. Good.
The others, not so much. BUTTON is so badly broken no one dares use it, and it would have made creating web apps much, much easier four years ago. IMG is deprecated and should have been replaced with OBJECT 4 years ago, but IE renders OBJECT images with scrollboxes that cannot be removed and treats rescaled dimensions as if they were overflows instead of squeezes/stretches.
It isn't trivial when web developers can't use spec because one browser won't support it. Unless IE7 substantially improves its support for standards when it goes final, we may very well see a return to badges on websites.
Member since:
2005-07-14
Not only does IE7 have some of the features that Firefox and Opera have, it has much better standards support than IE6. That is the most exciting thing about it. And yes, Microsoft is playing catchup, but because most internet users run IE, when IE7 comes out the internet will become a better place, almost over night. Web developers everywhere will leap for joy.
This is why I (and others) are hyped about IE7.