Internet Explorer 7

[Dommers]

Testing it now. Seems ok. All the usual tabbed browsing, popup blocker etc.
Screeny:

 

[nath]

Looks a bit like firefox

 

[JingleBells]

Readign this List of fixed CSS bugs, IE7 might be pretty good, it all depends on the security model.
I hope no-one mentions the complete tripe posted in The Reg on IE7's failure to run google toolbar, check out: http://www.auroravisions.com/opendir/blogstuff/ie7googletoolbar.jpg
or read it from the horses mouth.

 

[Draylor]

Installed it here since I basically never use IE so it cant break too much.

Having the 'File menu' within the tabbed area feels wrong. It works nicely if you open non-HTML files in IE (PDFs, documents, whatever) though, maybe Ill get used to that.

The stop & refresh buttons have been removed from the toolbar. This smells like a change for the sake of being different. The replacement is now to the right of the address bar: switching from stop to refresh after a page has finished loading.

It supports RSS files, shame theres nothing builtin to do with them. (Why now? RSS has been around since the days everyone used Netscape, yet once its attached to a few pointless blogs about stamp collecting and knitting patterns my browser needs to know about it? 'K').

Finally it supports the 'favicon' files, years behind everyone else. Im sure this massive change took man-years of effort to add. Using that area of the tab to display the traditional page-loading animation works fairly well. Someone needs to design an icon for FH, using the default for these boards is just tacky.

Its "are you running a genuine copy of Windows XP" is a beautiful reminder of days gone by. Protection removed with incredibly advanced tools (a hexeditor and a 1 byte change) At least it wasnt 'cracked' with Javascript I suppose

Unrelated to the above it manages to break Windows Update. The site loads fine, but doesnt render correctly. It seems you can install updates (if any are available), you just cant see what they are. Odd, but it'll probably be fixed soon enough (or by beta2 in a few months)

Havent come across anything else it breaks so far, probably due to not having played with it too much, and using FF for most things anyway.

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

I should just say do not pay attention to the UI nor much else in this beta. IE7 Beta 1 is designed for developers and running it outside of Vista means the UI will basically retain Vista's positioning but without any of the visual style. Expect the final version of IE7 to appear different on XP than Vista. Even in terms of features IE7 Beta 1 is still nowhere near complete, but I guess people can't help but be curious

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Any links to non-MSDN/TechNet IE7 downloads will be removed immediately. You have been warned

 

[Draylor]

P.S. Any links to non-MSDN/TechNet IE7 downloads will be removed immediately. You have been warned

Heh

If someone isnt capable of finding it for themselves in under 30 seconds they shouldnt be running it.

 

[fatbusinessman]

If someone isnt capable of finding it for themselves in under 30 seconds they shouldnt be running it.

Would it be overly anti-Microsoft to suggest that no-one should be running any version of IE anyway?

 

[Dommers]

No it wouldn't

 

[Draylor]

Nope, not at all.

After all for versions 1 thru 4 of IE noone did use it

 

[fatbusinessman]

Readign this List of fixed CSS bugs, IE7 might be pretty good, it all depends on the security model.

While this list of bug fixes is nice, it's somewhat important to note that IE7 probably won't be out for another year when Vista ships and, even after that, it'll take a good 12–18 months to achieve any significant level of penetration (no Wij, not that kind!).

So while it's good to see MS developers paying at least some kind of attention to standards compliance, it does seem like it's perhaps too little, too late?

 

[Shovel]

Nah, I'm not buying this ‘too little, too late’ nonsense. Too late for what? Just because IE7 is going to ship with only a small number of fixes and zero features that aren't already in rival browsers does not mean it's going to die. In fact, it will be stronger for having core user-side features like tabs (especially since their tabs interface is, frankly, better than Firefox's by being more discoverable, even in this early version).

Internet Explorer has the following reality attached to it and it cannot be fixed over-night. They released version 6 and it had bugs, then they neglected it. Roll on this number of years and IE7 is the start of rectification. It can't all get fixed at once, especially when they have security as a higher priority than standards (which is as it should be).

The WaSP/Microsoft partnership is not going to have any effect on IE7. Maybe IE7.5 or IE8, but nothing before that. It's too soon.

The achievement with IE7 is that it exists at all. Everything after that is a bonus.

 

[Jonty]

The achievement with IE7 is that it exists at all. Everything after that is a bonus.

Very true, Shovel, IE was effectively dead barring security updates until a little while back (which roughly matched the height of Firefox's popularity ... ). As for the standards collaboration, it really highlights the arrogance and stupidity of these anti-MS zealots when well-respected designers get shot down for merely working with the IE team and trying to improve things long-term.

Personally, whilst I rarely use IE except designing and for Microsoft Update, I do think IE7 and beyond is a good idea, particularly if bundled with Service Pack 3 (Microsoft have already shifted over 200 million copies of SP2).

Kind Regards

 

[MYstIC G]

From what I've seen, this will be the first version of IE in a long time where basically I've got no interest in the beta because there are no reasons to have it and there are better alternatives...

 

[Jonty]

hehe, it should be said that nobody barring MSDN/Technet developers should actually have it There's still a long while yet before even the public beta, if there is one. But granted, there are nice alternatives such as Firefox and Opera.

Kind Regards

 

[Shovel]

Bundling with Service Pack 3 is useful insofar as it will have substantial distribution but from a web development perspective is a fucking terrible for us. It effectively means that Microsoft could implement to whole of CSS3 if they wanted and we'd be nowhere better off, since we'll be supporting IE6 for years.

I suspect there may well be a break in etiquette from many designers and they'll just start pushing the ‘dump IE’ campaigns harder. Anyone on pre-XPSP2 Windows is in the cold here.

This is why trying the browser into the core Windows APIs was a rubbish idea all along.

 

[Draylor]

Quick update: the problems with IE7 & Windows Update have been sorted out, updates can be installed normally.

 

[Redh3lix]

Does IE7 have better support for PNG format images, I damn hope so

 

[Jonty]

Hi Redh3lix

It does indeed. I'm not sure if Beta 1 features the fixes (I think it does, off the top of my head) but the final version will sort out the alpha transparency and gamma issues.

Kind Regards

 

[Draylor]

Its listed as being fixed in IE7.

Tested on beta1 I have installed here: works for me.

 

[Draylor]

So beta2 is around now: the first public beta.

Interface has been reworked a bit, guess itll take a little getting used to but first impressions arent exactly favourable. Hiding the menubar? Odd. Pointless, but odd. It does solve the problem MS invented of whether it belongs inside or outside of a tab I suppose: although when it does popup its now outside the tab again.

As with beta1 the installer checks for a legit Windows serial, and wont install if it doesnt like you. As with beta1 its not exactly fullproof.

Anyways, back to FF ...

(finally I notice Jonty edited my last post in this thread, changing a link to something utterly pointless. If your reading - thanks )

 

[Shovel]

As with beta1 the installer checks for a legit Windows serial, and wont install if it doesnt like you. As with beta1 its not exactly fullproof.

Yes. This is especially shit because it still installs over the top of IE6. You can uninstall it later, but installing beta software that has so many effects on other applications on the system (any app that uses the IE control will also use IE7, and inherit any bugs) is a bad idea.

Unfortunately, even if you can get Microsoft's Virtual PC to try and test IE7 separately from your main, stable system (£100), that still requires a second standalone license for Windows to pass the Activation/Validation (£250). The fact that I can't test it has caused me to rant somewhat.

 

[Embattle]

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie7_beta2.asp

 

[Draylor]

Any credibility that article had was lost by:

Over ten years ago, I preached the wonders of IE 2.0, which resembled the Windows shell and offered a (very) few unique features when compared to then-market leader Netscape Navigator

Anyone who ever used (or even saw) IE2.0 knows it was a steaming pile of turd that you wouldnt wish on your worst enemy.

Skimming through the security section and the summary my initial reaction appears totally valid. "Appears to be quite secure" is completely meaningless, it either is or it isnt. The publication of fairly severe security issues only days after the latest public beta was made available shows that so far it just isnt.

Theres a few reasonable things about IE7: printing is far better than FF for starters. However 'features' like its zoom and tab groups are fluff the majority of people will use one, do the 'oooh pretty' thing and promptly forget about. Its 'anti-phishing' checks are a joke: far too slow to be usable. As it is the malicious site could easily have installed whatever nastiness it was designed to before the warnings were generated.

Still interesting to see the spin a very pro-MS site puts on things though

 

[Shovel]

Theres a few reasonable things about IE7: printing is far better than FF for starters.

Whilst Firefox's printing is definitely buggy, IE7's enhancements still don't make it a clear winner in my book. The new margin-adjustment UI is excellent, certainly, but this is counterbalanced by their continued lack of support for CSS Generated Content (which they've said they won't support in the final IE7 either).

For example, in Firefox, Opera, Konquorer and Safari you can use CSS in a print stylesheet to display the URL for hyperlinks next to the hyperlink text. It makes it possible to follow references from the document after you've printed it out. Ordinarily, hyperlinks are rendered useless on paper.

@media print {
  a::after {
    content: "[" attr(href) "]";
  }
}

IE7 doesn't support ::before and ::after, so whilst you have a limited ability to improve layout of full pages printed from IE, content authors are still unable to enhance print output with useful generated content like the above.

However 'features' like its zoom

Zoom is a very useful accessibility feature and well worth them implementing (especially given how shit their text resizing is in IE6). Opera has obviously had it for a while, and Firefox has had extremely capable _text_ resizing. I believe that Firefox 3.0 will have a full page zoom feature that comes with the next round of major Gecko updates (I don't know if they're going to retain text-only zoom alongside it).

 

[SheepCow]

I get Windows + VPC free from my uni, yay for testing.