Notes
Open Search 1.1
- window.external.AddSearchProvider([url])
- brings site search up to browser
- ** relevant to LN? how does it interact with authentication? Alternative to LNToolbar,
other 3rd party toolbars?
**mention that there will be forced address bars on pop-ups for security. Alters model
CSS
- Referenced http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html list of IE bugs, fixed all but one
- Added support for maxwidth, minwidth, selectors: first-child, adj, attribute, child
- Alpha channel support for PNG images
- Native XMLHTTPRequest (no longer subject to ActiveXControls issues)
- Select element is now windowless (drop down issue resolved?)
- The bulk of these changes will only show in strict mode (w/ DOCTYPE) so that it doesn’t break old pages
Hacks
- * html – targets IE only
- _height: 50px; - targets IE only
- height/**/: 50 px – targets all but IE
- html > body – targets all but IE
The preferred method of ‘targeting’ is to use conditional statements if you don’t want to use JS to fish for the user agent
User Agent Testing
- use “>=” not “=” to futureproof
- < ?xml prolog no longer throws brower into quirks mode
Questions:
When?
-IE7 is set to be rolled out in the 2nd half of 2006.
What about running side by side versions of IE?
- they are looking at this moving forward, but it will never be backwards compatible
why not XHTML? (Doesn’t support mimetype)
-wants to avoid bad parsing, ensure it’s done right
Will it meet the ACID2 Test
-not now, but within 5 years. Right now, a lot of the ACID2 test is ‘nice to haves’, not standards.
Will IE7 be a recommended/required update?
- ”Strongly encouraged”
IE7 Readiness Toolkit
- see if your pages are ready: download toolkit
The next release will focus on more object model support (Yes, he stated that they had committed to at least two more releases of IE)
Impressions
I was quite unimpressed with this session, it came off much like a sales pitch. I don’t know what I had been expecting, perhaps more of a demo or something like that. Still, I am encouraged that MS looked at the CSS bugs that are out there, and worked on fixing them.
One thing I found very interesting is how much they’ve beefed up security. This struck me in light of what Jeff Veen discussed in “Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps“, wherein the user is trusted more with their own experience. This seems moreso to attempt to protect users. Where’s the fun in that??
The search toolbar in IE7 is very powerful and can be customized by the end user in a variety of ways. Because it’s based on OpenSearch, you can go to http://www.openSearchList.com and add your own searches.