Engineering POV

re: Engineering POV

Matt — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:23:52 GMT

James, rather than whining helplessly, why not explain specifically how "IE8 doesn't work" on your computer? Since it clearly works for 10s of millions of people, I'm sure there's a way to make it work for you (you probably have a buggy browser addon, easily fixed).

When you uninstall IE8 using the control panel, your old IE is automatically restored.

re: Engineering POV

James Chen — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:05:23 GMT

IE 8 doesn't work on my XP computer, and now I can't reinstall an earlier version of IE. Why do you keep making poorly-performing software?

re: Engineering POV

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:35:22 GMT

I think there's some irony in that Broader Topics and Fred are complaining about opposite things (one wants a complete UI rehaul, the other wants no UI changes at all).

re: Engineering POV

Geld lenen — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:10:49 GMT

That post from jatinder was very helpfull.

re: Engineering POV

Gérard Talbot — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:53:17 GMT

@ broader topics

> Why is the IE7/IE8 UI so horribly un-customizable? Why can't I hide the tab bar if only 1 tab is open? Why does the command bar flow backwards? Why does dragging the favorites bar to the tab bar throw everything out of place? Why can't I close the last tab in IE?

(...)...lots of questions...(...)

> The IE team is well aware that the

> community is not happy with the IE

> UI and the IE usability.

Broader topics,

IE Team closed bug 363573: Poor Interface

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=363573

and closed bug 331901: User interface = poorly designed

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=331901

Ability to customize the UI has been covered by some parts of UAAG technical recommendation. In any case, it must be said that

bug 460283 : Reorganize IE's user interface layout

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=460283

is still active.

regards, Gérard

re: Engineering POV

Jatinder Mann [MSFT] — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:57:22 GMT

@cpradio: For more information on the IEAK8 and also a case study of customizing, managing and deploying IE8, please refer to the following blog posts:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/09/22/the-ie8-ieak.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/03/18/improving-the-education-experience-with-internet-explorer-8.aspx

Thanks,

Jatinder

re: Engineering POV

broader topics — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:36:32 GMT

why yes, broader topics for IE engineering like:

Why can't I drag links in IE to all the places I want/used to be able to in IE6?

Why does bookmarking a bookmarklet fail silently in IE?

Why is organizing my favorites in IE so mind bogglingly complicated? Better yet why wasn't this fixed in the last 2 versions of IE?

Why is the IE7/IE8 UI so horribly un-customizable? Why can't I hide the tab bar if only 1 tab is open? Why does the command bar flow backwards? Why does dragging the favorites bar to the tab bar throw everything out of place? Why can't I close the last tab in IE? Why are bookmarklets severely truncated to the point that they are just not worth making for IE? Why did it take a whole version of IE to get an option to move the reload button back to the left of the address bar? Why do I have no control over the unreadable address bar "In the almighty name of security"? Why can't I resize the addressbar/search box? Why does the addressbar dropdown portion suck so horribly? Where did my favicons go? Why does the find as you type searching not work like users expect it to?

Where is the built-in spell checking in IE7 or IE8?

Where is the download manager?

When will the JScript^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJavaScript error console provide something more meaningful than "Unknown Thing doesn't support Unnamed Property or Method" - I'm sure there is a possibility that there could be a more useless message here but I have to admit you would need to try pretty hard!

When will the JScript^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJavaScript error console provide a clear button?

etc, etc, etc.

The IE team is well aware that the community is not happy with the IE UI and the IE usability.

What ticks us off is the complete lack of acknowledgment that a complete re-vamp has been needed for 8 years... and has yet to be announced.

re: Engineering POV

Eric Hebenstreit [MSFT] — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:28:27 GMT

@cpradio: in addition to the availability of the IEAK as Tom mentioned, we will also make Internet Explorer 8 available via WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) starting on August 25th. See my post from 6/29 for some additional details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/06/29/it-professionals-prepare-for-internet-explorer-8-availability-via-windows-server-update-services-wsus-in-august-2009.aspx

re: Engineering POV

Anand Kumria — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:58:44 GMT

Hi,

What is the engineering point of view when it comes to Video codes?

Is one, or the other, technically harder to implement?

What's your take on existing ActiveX controls that simulate the <video> tag?

Would you actually implement this within the browser, or using COM or deferring to Windows Media Player?

Thanks,

Anand

re: Engineering POV

domenic — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:06:05 GMT

My comment is this:

I would like IE9 to have 100% full support for setting/getting the .innerHTML of EVERY SINGLE HTML element.

For the getting part we want VALID markup returned. No UPPERCASE tags, No DBl-QUOTE-less attributes, No MISSING closing tags or closing slashes.

For the setting part it should work on EVERY element. This includes the Head, Tables, Selects, Divs, Pres, Objects, etc.

Slapping "readonly" on certain HTML elements because your implementation failed to address them is NOT a resolution. Furthermore the Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain is fully exposed on this because we all know full well these elements are NOT readonly, we can set all of their content using W3C DOM methods.

Note using the DOM Methods isn't a fully acceptable workaround as it takes longer to process that setting the .innerHTML and as I'm sure you are fully aware IE's support of .setAttribute() in the past (pre IE8 Standards Mode) is notoriously very badly broken.

Sorry if this comes off like a rant, it isn't meant to be. However I think it is high time we start addressing some of the legacy bugs in IE that really honestly need to be fixed if IE plans to be taken seriously as a Web Browser of the future.