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Dave Massy's Blog

Embedded Windows
Internet Explorer Documentation

There's lots of great documentation on Internet Explorer available on MSDN. http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie is an excellent place to start. If you have feedback we'd like to hear it. What functionality are you finding difficult to find? What topics would you like covered?

Something worth drawing attention to is the fact that each reference page in the SDK for Internet Explorer has and explicit section for standards. This makes it clear if the attribute, method or element falls within a W3C recommendation or not. I mention this because a couple of times lately I've seen it suggested that Microsoft is deliberately not documenting which parts of Internet Explorer fall within W3C recommendations or not. This is clearly not the case and our reference documentation has contained this information for many years.
For example the AUTOCOMPLETE property is something we support in Internet Explorer. We happen to think that the autocomplete functionality is very useful, however it is not part of a W3C recommendation. So the reference page http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/properties/autocomplete.asp states:

Standards Information
This property is a Microsoft extension to HTMLs Non-Microsoft link.

In contrast the ACCESSKEY property that Internet Explorer supports is part of a W3C recommendation and the reference page at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/properties/accesskey.asp states:

Standards Information
This property is defined in HTML 4.0 Non-Microsoft link and is defined in World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Non-Microsoft link.

We think this is useful information so it is included in every reference page. Do let us know if you find any errors in the documentation and if there are things you are looking for that you cannot easily find.

The best place to post feedback is the Internet Explorer Wiki on Channel 9

You are also welcome to place feedback here as well. I do ask that you keep posts polite and respect each others opinion. I have unfortunately already had to remove an abusive and obscene comment.

 

 

Published Friday, July 02, 2004 2:43 PM by DMassy

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Comments

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 02, 2004 2:58 PM

I find it hilarious you're preaching standards when this blog fails to load properly in every browser save for Internet Explorer.

I'd rather have rock-solid W3C standard implementation than page transitions, scrollbar changes and autocomplete. I'd rather have a working CSS box-model than all these claims of developer friendliness.

IE is RIP

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 02, 2004 3:04 PM

I'm not really sure how you can interpret my post as "preaching standards".
I was showing that we are documenting the functionality of Internet Explorer and being very clear about what is and is not included in a W3C recommendation.

Dave Massy

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 02, 2004 3:10 PM

...and it's also a shame you can't really use the MSDN Library in anything other than IE.

On a related note, I sent a message to MSDN regarding the window.open page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/methods/open_0.asp) a few months ago requesting they stop listing it as a DOM1 method (document.open is DOM1 but window.open isn't), but I never heard anything anything and it still hasn't been changed. Oh well.

Tom Gilder

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 02, 2004 3:20 PM

This page displayed just fine in Firefox 0.9.1. I'm posting with it right now.

MSDN info is available in non-IE browsers, but the in-line "Show Me" samples and the like don't work. The TOC isn't as functional either.

Bruce

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Saturday, July 03, 2004 3:08 AM

Can I ask what the point of these extensions is? If they're useful then wouldn't it be better to drive the concept through the w3c (of which you're a part) to include them in a future spec? That way every user agent can have the benefit of adopting them and the web becomes less segragated. 'Embrace and extend' is a major problem.

Robin

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Tuesday, July 13, 2004 1:10 AM

And what about the buggy IE box model ?

xylpho

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Tuesday, July 13, 2004 3:08 PM

As a developer who uses IE components via COM (C++), I've been pretty pleased with the IE-specific documentation. Some things that aren't very well documented (probably because they are meant to be internal-use-only) are the various DISPIDs in exdispid.h, and the various IDM_* constants in a different header file (mshtmcid.h maybe? I can't remember).

There's a document called "WebBrowser Customization" which goes into detail about how to use IDocHostUIHandler/IDocHostShowUI. One paragraph starts "The WebBrowser Control gets its shortcut menu resources from Shdoclc.dll. That knowledge and a few #defines gives you a chance to manipulate the browser's menu." Nowhere are these types of things formally documented, and at least to me, seem to be the type of things that could be quite subject to change. Anyways, documenting this stuff (what can and can't we rely on?) would be great.

Non-documentation-related suggestions:

1. Implement IE components using XP's side-by-side technology, similar to comctl32. Keep IE 6 DLLs as they are in the system32 folder, and require assemblies to use new versions.

2. Maybe there's a way to already do this--if so, great. I have an application that I distribute on CDs, that launches via autorun. This app uses the WebBrowser for its interface, and I would love to be able to instantiate an ActiveX control that I implement myself and plug it programmatically into the HTML document--wihout having to put it in the registry, etc. For example, add IDocHostUIHandler3 with a method that takes in an OBJECT element's CLASSID string and outputs an IUnknown, so that I can provide my own object without going through COM. (My app had to work on limited-user accounts, so I ended up having to register the control under HKCU (new feature of Win2000) and keep track of how many times it was registered so that I could clean up properly.)

Jonathan

# natrix.se » Internet Explorer f?r Windows @ Thursday, July 15, 2004 6:51 AM

natrix.se » Internet Explorer f?r Windows

TrackBack

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Thursday, July 15, 2004 3:55 AM

It would be nice if the documentation told when a non-standard property has a standard alternative. E.g. the "parentElement" property vs. "parentNode".

Olav Junker Kjær

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Thursday, July 22, 2004 1:48 AM

The MSDN documentation in regards to standards has lots of errors in it.

I'm currently looking at the TextRectangle (http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/objects/textrectangle.asp) object and it says that it is defined in HTML 3.2. First of all it is an IE propritary DOM property. Secondly DOM properties are never ever defined in the HTML standard. Some DOM properties defined in HTML DOM level 1 and 2 reflect attributes and elements in HTML 4.0 but that is far from the same thing.

Erik Arvidsson

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Thursday, July 22, 2004 10:17 AM

I have to tell you one thing; this has been an irritant in IE since 4.0 and is still there. I have had to point this out to several people at Microsoft, while they all kept saying Oh yeah that is a problem, it has still never been fixed. It is basically a user interface annoyance or glitch. Yes I could go on as a web developer about standards compliance and so on and security but I am sure you guys have more than enough of that planned or at least discussed, which as far as standards compliance, when it comes to usability, IE is great. It displays pages Yeah there are some quirks on the developers side when creating html, but those are pretty well known. Security, yeah you can make IE pretty secure if you know what your doing, and with the direction Microsoft is taking with security and all the big hoopla I am not going to even chime in on any of that stuff. I have faith you will get a lot of IE Corrected.

But, there is one thing and only one thing please fix it has drove me nuts for years like I said ever since 4.0. Ok you have to set your machine up properly to see this bug or quirk. First off right click on your task bar, start bar and choose properties. Uncheck the Always on top, and Uncheck the Auto hide and then click ok. Also make sure your Start Bar is on the bottom of your screen and not on the side or top. Now you have your start bar behind all your application, the application that you are working in is on top of the start bar. This is fine, this is what you want. Ok now open IE if it isn’t already, go to any website. Now click on View then Full screen or hit F11. Great now your in IE Full screen mode. Now imagine your at a website or looking at a picture that is larger than your screen resolution. So the scroll bar at the bottom of IE is a NECESSARY TOOL to scroll around and see the picture. Well move your mouse down there to the bottom of IE which is also the bottom of your screen and your dang start bar starts auto hiding and popping up and getting in the way, sometimes you can’t even scroll around without the start bar popping up and getting in the way. Please turn that off or give me an option to turn that off, that is the most annoying thing ever in IE and has been there since 4.0, was in 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP and 2003. If I am surfing a website and in full screen mode, I am perfectly capable of minimizing IE or hitting the window start button (the one between ctrl and alt) to get to the start menu if I need it. I turned auto hide the start bar off for a reason. I find that annoying and the start bar gets in the way when working with other apps.

Auto Hide is awesome inside the application, like Visual studio for example I like everything auto hidden in there but how annoying would it be to move your mouse over one of the auto hide buttons in VS and your start bar kept coming out in the way. However you are forced into the Auto hide on the start bar when in full screen mode in IE. When I go into full screen mode in IE. I am reading something or looking at something that I want to be my primary attention. I also do 3d modeling for fun and www.renderosity.com is a preimary example of a site where I would go full screen on. Some 3d artwork there may be rendered well over 1024 X 768 which is usually my default browsing resolution. So to take it all in I go full screen in IE, but you can’t scroll around easily without the start bar constantly popping up. Please give me this one thing. It has been there and has been annoying since 4.0.

The only work around I have found is I made a simple webpage with the following function in it.

function fullwin(targeturl)
{
window.open(targeturl,"","fullscreen,scrollbars")
}

Then I can open IE in a complete full screen mode without the start bar popping up on me. But you have to ALT + F4 out of it. And you loose your back buttons and so on.

As you can see by this lengthy post I really have a grudge against this. There are other things yes that IE has wrong with it, but I see them mentioned all over the place so I am certain you are aware of them. It will be your choice if you fix those or not but this one thing is never mentioned never brought up I know I can't be the only one irritated by this. But like I said every MS person I have ever showed this to never noticed it before.

Jeff Parker

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 23, 2004 5:26 AM

"Can I ask what the point of these extensions is? If they're useful then wouldn't it be better to drive the concept through the w3c (of which you're a part) to include them in a future spec? That way every user agent can have the benefit of adopting them and the web becomes less segragated. 'Embrace and extend' is a major problem."

Agreed!!

Safari is going to push THEIR as of now propriety WebCore tinker things to the whatwg.org:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2373

Has MS ever attempted this with IE odds & ends that don't have a standards equivalent?

JP

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Friday, July 23, 2004 9:32 AM

^ BTW *NOT* a troll, I really am wondering.

JP

# re: Internet Explorer Documentation @ Monday, July 26, 2004 6:06 AM

"If you have feedback we'd like to hear it". Is it just me, or why is it awfully hard to give simple feedback about Windows products??? For example, I just went to the link you mentioned (http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie) and tried to give feedback. After several links I found some general support page for several windows products where I had to pay (BTW $38 is a lot). I just freakin wanna give some feedback! I just don't get why there is no simple way to give feedback!?

Hermann Klinke

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