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IE and Standards

First of all, I’d like to introduce myself.  My name is Chris Wilson; I’m the lead program manager for the web platform in IE.  (I am NOT Chris Wilson the drummer for Good Charlotte.  :^) )  I joined the IE team shortly before we shipped IE 2.0 in 1995, and worked in various releases for every major release from then until IE 6.0’s release in 2001.  After IE 6.0 shipped, I worked on the Avalon project until I decided to rejoin the IE team four months ago.  During my tenure on the IE team, I’ve frequently been Microsoft’s representative on various standards working groups in the W3C – CSS, HTML, Document Object Model, even the XSL and Internationalization groups for a while. 

Over the course of my history in IE, I’ve witnessed Microsoft being both applauded and hated for our support for web standards, often in the same release.  At times we have taken a leading role in standards support – and at times we have not.  When we released Internet Explorer 3.0 for Windows back in 1996, we had the first CSS implementation out there in a mass-market web browser.  (I personally wrote the code for that support.)  We led that charge – our only major competitor at the time was still hacking in new HTML tags.  We looked at the nascent CSS effort, said “hey that looks great,” and played a key role in getting the working group together and the spec under active development.  We continue to participate in that working group effort to this day.

Additionally, with every subsequent major release of IE, we have expanded and improved our implementation of web standards, particularly CSS and HTML.  When we shipped IE 6.0, we finally fully supported CSS 1, and had some pieces of CSS2 implemented as well.  Since IE 6.0 shipped, we have focused on one of our other key problems – enhancing the security of the Internet Explorer platform.  This has taken tremendous effort on our part, and was – IS – an important place for us to focus – but it will not be our only area of improvement in our engine.  We know we have a lot more work to do in addressing our consistency issues with CSS and furthering our coverage of these standards.  Expect to see more detail on our plans in IE7 in the future.

In this blog and elsewhere (including Gary Schare’s BetaNews interview), we have emphasized our commitment to compatibility.  I want to address a common misinterpretation of that commitment - when we say we have a difficult challenge to change behavior (even under standards mode), we are not excusing ourselves from the need to make improvements.  Given the strong usage of IE in the corporate space as well as embedded in applications, we have a strong requirement for backwards compatibility with our previous behavior, compliant or not; that requirement does not mean “don’t touch anything”, it is just a recognition that keeping our engine in sync across strict and quirks modes is challenging when quirks mode has to work nearly exactly the same as it always has.  We will continue to improve our compliance under strict mode even when it breaks compatibility, and under quirks mode when it’s not damaging to our backwards compatibility.

Finally, I want you all to know that specific requests and descriptions of problems in the field help us tremendously in prioritizing what we need to do.  There is some great work that has been done in harvesting the collective knowledge of the web development community, such as on quirksmode [edit: fixed link], meyerweb.com, CSSVault, glish and Position Is Everything.  We pay a lot of attention to this kind of thoughtful insight into the biggest problems web developers face today.  We’d like to encourage those facing real-world problems with the IE platform to participate in these kinds of efforts, so we can use this to help prioritize our development.  By contrast, vague demands for open-ended “standards support”, or requests for various standards that aren’t (yet, at least) standards (there is no CSS3 standard yet, nor is XUL a standard), don’t really help us drive our development very much.  Microsoft does respond to customer demand; web developers are our customers.

-Chris Wilson

Published Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:43 PM by ieblog
Filed under:

Comments

# "fully supported"?

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:06 PM by Ian Hickson
By "fully supported CSS 1", do you mean "mostly passed the W3C's basic test suite for CSS1", or do you mean "had some sort of detectable behaviour for every feature of CSS1"?

Because I _know_ you don't mean "correctly supported all of CSS 1"...

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:07 PM by Jeff
If you'd like to lead some kind of new standards effort, the thing that continually drives me crazy is rich text (HTML) editing. IE I think was one of the first to do it, and the generated HTML is absolutely horrible. Now Firefox does it, but it renders different HTML.

It's a useful platform in content management, forums and blogs. I just wish it worked one way, based on some standard.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:28 PM by -dean
I must say that the IE dev blog is improving of late. This post is actually quite a good read.

Chris, most of what you say is true. Like most of the statement "fully supported CSS 1" is true.

However, that does not explain the last three years does it? OK, the security thing. But weren't those patches to the Windows platform itself?

IE6 has stagnated since it's release, let's not forget how quickly IE6 followed IE5.5 and IE5.0. More annoying than this stagnation has been the silence from Redmond regarding future releases and the support of standards. Aging documentation, no support forum, undocumented features - IE6 has been a nightmare.

So what are you going to do? Adopt standards, or continue apologising for what are clearly economically-oriented decisions of the past?

The web is bigger than Microsoft.

Fall in or fall out.

# Content-type and position: fixed

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:31 PM by Brion Vibber
Since you asked for requests...

It would be really nice if IE respected the Content-Type HTTP header. The default autodetection behavior is a security risk (XSS vector), pushing the burden for working around IE's problems onto the developers of web applications that accept file and image uploads.

As for CSS2 support; the lack of position: fixed in particular has forced me to do a lot of workarounds over the last couple years. Working attribute selectors and the 'content' value for :before and :after pseudo-elements would be extremely helpful as well.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:33 PM by Bruce Morgan [MSFT]
Dean, the IE platform is a part of Windows (see the earlier blog post relating to Netscape 8) and the IE team is a part of the Windows team.

So an update to the IE platform can be called an "IE patch" or a "Windows patch" and it really makes no difference - both would be correct.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:34 PM by David
Support CSS 1 isn't something to brag about...I mean if you support CSS 1 and 2 and flawlessly support HTML 4.0 and all XHTML then you are at the MINIMUM level of being considered in the game. That's just enough to qualify for the race...the race then starts with expandability and features. Security only gets you bonus points. IE ruled everything 5 years ago, but as paradigms shifts go...Firefox will win this time. I'm still a Microsoft loyalists though...but their stubborness in trying to stay alive in the browers and search engines is just bad business.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:41 PM by -dean
Bruce,

The point is moot. From a developer's point of view, IE6 has not changed one jot since it's initial release. I would imagine that is why you have not altered it's version number.

Since we are mentioning previous IE dev posts, how about his one:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2004/11/23/268662.aspx#271108

btw, I appreciate your participation in this blog. Thanks. ;-)

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:44 PM by Bruce Morgan [MSFT]
We haven't done a great job on that one [more posts on layout engine], have we? Sorry. Dave did that one on table layouts, but I think that's it

IE6 for XPSP2 had quite a few dev oriented changes, but not web-dev layout, CSS, HTML, etc. oriented.

If you host IE platform components, there were quite a few changes on the security front.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:49 PM by -dean
> We haven't done a great job on that one

Well Bruce, never mind I wasn't exactly holding my breath...

What we web-developers really want to know is this:

What are you going to do about standards in the future? Particularly IE7 (by Microsoft) ;-).

We don't need details. Just a hint of the direction you are headed in. If you can't give us that, then this isn't really a dev blog is it? Although I admit this dialogue is cool and novel... :-)

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:05 PM by Tim Allen
As a very small-time web developer in a very small company, I often don't have time to become proficient in every detail and quirk of every browser I use. I'm sure you'd love for people to come up with a nice, itemised Bugzilla-style list of requested improvements, and I'd love to give you one - but I'm afraid there's no particular set of features or fixes that would make make me happy.

The basic problem is that when I sit down with a copy of the W3C specs and a text editor, and try to make a page that's reasonably semantic and CSS-enabled, that page usually works first go in Firefox and usually takes a lot of tweaking or outright re-writing to work on IE.

That said, here's some choice items from our internal wiki page on IE flaws:

* Putting a floated element inside another floated element causes random chunks of the page to not be drawn. Floated elements are rather useful for making toolbars and tab-bars and the like.
* IE makes a dog's breakfast of the <button> tag.
* <input> elements with "width: 100%" tend to have their right-hand ends cropped off.
* When Windows is in High Contrast mode, IE interprets "font-size: 100%" as something like "font-size: 110%". Implementing "font-size: inherit" would be much nicer.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:10 PM by Cody
The thing that really irks me is that despite claiming not to, you are really just offering more excuses here. Yes, in 1996 IE3 had the first widely-available CSS1 implementation. So what? That was almost NINE years ago. And for almost the last FOUR of those nine years we have been stuck with IE6 and its quirks upon quirks. For all the debate for and against, by integrating the browser with Windows you had such an opportunity to make web development so much easier because of this quasi-standardization of the platform on which the majority of mainstream users surf the web. I really cannot imagine a way in which this opportunity could have been more wasted. Security improvements are all well and good, but making the browser's primary function (i.e. [no pun intended!], rendering HTML) take a backseat to security is so frustrating. As a software developer, I know that you guys have been hard at work for the last four years, and I know what an enormous project IE must be, but there are SO MANY immediately recognizable problems with IE that cause so much frustration to such a huge number of web developers. And the fact is you haven't despite all the work I know you've been doing, you haven't really got anything to show for it, and you haven't alleviated any of that frustration.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I think you guys have really screwed up. I don't hold it against you, so you don't need to apologize. All you really need to do, to make everyone happy, is deliver a really EXCELLENT product. These are features I would like to see and that would placate me:

CSS descendant, adjacent, and attribute selectors, and the :first-child pseudo class, :before and :after pseudo-elements, the content property, automatic counters and numbering, etc., and position:fixed.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:22 PM by Lachlan Hunt
Obviously CSS is a major standard that needs better support, but HTML also needs to be more well supported. These elements aren't supported correctly:

abbr - Should work essentially the same as acronym, but it has slightly different meaning.
button - Should default to a submit button rather than a push button.
object - See these test cases:
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-001.html
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-002.html
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-003.html
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-004.html
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-005.html

Object should also not be treated as an ActiveX object all the time. When IE is set to high security and an object element is present that loads an image, IE will give an ActiveX security warning. Set the security level to high to the internet zone and view any of those test cases to see this problem.

I'd also like to see you implement a conforming SGML parser and support the SHORTTAG features, but even Mozilla won't be doing that properly. You should pass these tests at least as well as other browsers do.
http://www.hixie.ch/tests/

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:34 PM by Matt
Cody,
The opportunity for a quasi-standard has not been lost. IE is and will remain that quasi-standard for the foreseeable future.
All this moaning about web standards is indicative of a simple problem - that web developers have gotten caught up in Firefox hype and chosen to develop for a minor platform. They then have the hide to complain about the changes they need to make to get things working on the major platform. It's entirely backwards thinking.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:40 PM by Gareth Lewin
Surely you mean http://www.quirksmode.org/ not http://www.quirksmode.com/ ?

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:40 PM by John Magnus
I have one specific request; Make IE work in accordance with the standards. It's as simple as that! IEs ignorant approach towards established web standards *is* the real-world problem web developers are facing every day.

If you're looking for more work; A more comprehensive (and as such more usable) implementation of CSS2 is very much desirable!

Although not directly related to the development of IE, you might want to visit http://validator.w3.org/check/referer for some interesting reading... ;-)

Oh, and it's http://www.quirksmode.org/

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:45 PM by Bruce Morgan [MSFT]
Fixed that link; thanks.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:59 PM by Cody
Hi Matt,

I agree with you that IE's position in the market is still dominant now and for the forseeable future. I still think that the opportunities arising from this have been squandered up to this point, but definitely think they can be still be capitalized on.

However, I disagree with what you go on to say. It's absurd to claim that the moaning about lack of compliance with web standards is the problem. When the web community constructs and agrees upon a standard for the furtherance of the medium, it is not unwarranted to call for compliance. It is certainly not unreasonable to call for such compliance years after the advent of the standard. (Remember, CSS2 was recommended in May of 1998, almost SEVEN years ago). Developers have indeed been caught up in the Firefox 'hype'. But it is not so much hype, as you call it, as it is relief and excitement at a browser capable of rendering content in a way far closer to the standard than IE is capable of. To say that developers are developing for a minor platform, and that this is the problem, is just plain wrong. Developers are still developing for IE by and large, because the target audience is IE and it would be impossible not to develop for it. However, it is the glaring contrast between Firefox and IE that really brought this issue to a head. It is not cheek to complain about IE's shortcomings, nor backwards thinking to ask that the flagship browser of the flagship operating system installed on the vast majority of the world's PC workstations render at least as well as other browsers with nothing more than a negligible minority of the market.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:00 PM by Block Sheep
It's real nice you supported CSS right away -- it would have been nice if you ever finished support for HTML (what's a Q element, anyway?) !!

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:07 PM by Jeremy
Another great post. Keep it up!

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:12 PM by Jim
> there is no CSS3 standard yet

No, but several of the specifications have reached candidate recommendation status, which means they are ready for implementing.

I don't care about CSS 3 (yet), so long as you fix the more immediate problems. But at least say "we don't plan on implementing it yet" instead of hiding behind excuses.

From the IE7 post:

> I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”

I've been holding my tongue for the past few posts, because "IE and standards" was on your list of upcoming posts, so I was hoping it was only a matter of time.

But as I read this post, it struck me that you've said absolutely nothing about what specifications you plan on supporting. Where is all that commitment you guys have been talking about? Commit to something already! I've never read so many words that say so little. I can sum up this post in a couple of short sentences:

* Internet Explorer has not regressed in support for the W3C specifications.

* People who trigger strict mode won't be ensured backwards compatibility, people who trigger quirks mode will.

* You are aware of the problems everybody is complaining about.

However you have managed to use some seven hundred words to say this, while completely skipping the one thing that everybody wants to know - what specifications will you attempt to comply with?

Ian asked a very specific question with respect to the support for CSS 1; it has been ignored in favour of arguing whether something should be called a "Windows patch" or an "Internet Explorer patch".

I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and lay off a bit, but guys, you're making it really difficult for us to do anything but criticise, and I'm sure it's even less fun for you than it is for us. How about you simply cut out the verbiage and the marketing speak, and write in short, succinct sentences instead of padding it out as if it were a school essay? Ten words are far more valuable than a hundred if they say the same thing.

Here's a really easy one: the PNG alpha channel. Fixing it won't break backwards compatibility, and the support is already sort-of there. Can you commit to implementing the PNG alpha channel? A simple yes or no, please.

> vague demands for open-ended “standards support” [...] don’t really help us

When people say that without elaborating, I assume it's because they are tired of listing the same items over and over again. for what it's worth, here's my list:

CSS 2 or CSS 2.1, at your discretion.
PNG 1.
HTML 4.01.
HTTP 1.1.

Excluding the special circumstances surrounding CSS 2.1, all of those specifications are over five years old - published before Internet Explorer 5.5 was released. If Internet Explorer 7.0 doesn't implement them, then us web developers will be working around the problems for another five years.

> All this moaning about web standards is indicative of a simple problem - that web developers have gotten caught up in Firefox hype and chosen to develop for a minor platform.

The W3C specifications are implemented across Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, Omniweb and a few others. Microsoft helped develop those specifications, and then did a half-hearted job of implementing them. It isn't "Firefox hype", it's Microsoft not playing nice with the rest of the industry and holding back the web.

# IE Team is asking for feedback on Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:23 PM by venkatna's WebLog

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:52 PM by David
Oh my gosh! I just thought of something! You gotta implement updates for standards via Windows Update. When CSS3 is finalized...2 days later I wanna see Windows Update push to millions of people the update for that.

Now THAT is not only awesome, but is sooo required.

I mean I'm still not going to use it...I need my Firefox extentions and tabs(and stability).

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:52 PM by Another Anon
What Jim said two posts up. Amen.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 9:06 PM by hoovernj
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/03/09/391362.aspx#391456

Can I hear a 'pwned'?

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 10:18 PM by Adnan
It would be nice if we can see TAB based support in future IE version

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 10:57 PM by Dave Child
Nice semtiments, but how about some specific promises? Will you be supporting PNGs properly in IE7? position: fixed? :hover on all elements? Will the strange bug that causes text to move when hovered over be sorted? overflow: hidden?

Sorry, but saying you know about standards means nothing when you've promised support for so many things before and failed to deliver...

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:11 PM by Chris M
I'm sure you've heard it well over 1000 times, but full CSS2 support would be pretty darn high on my list. Full PNG support would be amazing as well. Jim said it very well.

# re: IE and Standards

Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:23 PM by ShadowChaser
I would really like to see full PNG support (with alpha) and JPEG 2000.

JPEG 2000 will never be adopted until IE implements it. It's time has come! :-)

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:12 AM by Nico
I would personnaly enjoy CSS 2.1 and PNG 24-bit full correct support.
Even position:fixed, etc. (I would really enjoy SVG too)

But I disagree when I heard that "CSS 1 is fully supported".
background-attachment: fixed; works only with the body tag, not for all tags.

# IE e gli Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:15 AM by Di .NET e di altre amenita'

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:23 AM by José Jeria
> When we shipped IE 6.0, we finally fully supported CSS 1,

If this is true, how come this testcase fails?
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/demo.html

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:33 AM by DNagel
My biggest gripe is that theres no way to write a single line of DHTML code that will work in more than one browser. The DOMs are far enough apart that writing a dynamic web page becomes a nightmare, even with the help of XB scripting libs. Then top that off with the rendering issues (select boxes that float to the top of everything but an IFrame, Abs positioned Divs that don't float right or play well with others...). The page might look great in IE but appears as a pile of excrement in Moz... Then there's support for events in IE that are not standard or available in other browsers... I'm not playing a favorite and personally, I don't want to. I just want to be able to develop a page with a single set of source that will work in every renderer out there that has more than a 5 percent market share... is that too much to ask?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:36 AM by José Jeria
DNagel:
You can today create cross-browser applications that work fine in IE 6, Mozilla and Opera. Just look at google maps, google suggest and tons of DHTML apps out there.
You just need to spend some time learning the standards better and you will be able to write code that works in all browsers without browser sniffers.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:48 AM by Jim
> You just need to spend some time learning the standards better

This is simply not true. Internet Explorer doesn't support the DOM event model. If DNagel "learned the standards better" as you suggest, it wouldn't help him in the slightest, because nothing he would write would work in Internet Explorer.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:00 AM by José Jeria
Yes, about the event model, true. But still, learning some tweaks you can make things work in all browsers.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:12 AM by Jim
> learning some tweaks you can make things work in all browsers.

DNagel's whole point is that web developers shouldn't have to waste time learning and using workarounds to make things work in more than one browser.

There are some techniques to reduce the need to branch for different browsers a little, but in general, once you start doing something the least bit complicated, it's a huge mess that only the browser vendors can clean up.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:23 AM by minghong
Full (but wrong) CSS1 support? Remember your wrong box model?

# IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:47 AM by frankarr - an aussie microsoft blogger

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:50 AM by Jim
minghong, they fixed the box model in Internet Explorer 6.0.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:13 AM by Bob
Ignoring that the CSS/XHTML 'specs' aren't as much a standard as a set of specifications which browsers can comply with, the greater webdev community would be making a very large, and very smelly mistake by allowing Microsoft/IE to implement these specs at their discretion.

All I want from IE, is a fast rendering engine, a 100% 'compliance' with each W3C specification (no leeway, and no IE only features please), and secure browsing. Bonus features would be things such as theming, tabbed browsing, an inbuilt web search client and a truly intelligent pop up/under/over blocker, as well as anti-spyware/phishing technology.

It would also be fantastic to completely get rid of Active X, whilst the intent was a really good idea, the execution was not. Java has somewhat manage to get it right. Active X should be JiT, it should be secure, it should not have limitless access to the computer, it should run in a virtual machine.

Additionally, IE should be an optional installation in the Windows XP installation process, that completely removes any and all IE7 related system files/references such that it never exists at all. Why? Because we like control.

And if they can do all this, and have a system memory footprint of under 20Mb, I'd be impressed.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:15 AM by JF
Having the :hover pseudo class work for all elements would be very nice.

There are a number of issues I have come up against when using <li> and css, if these could be fixed that would be great.

Also if the above is a commitment to making strict mode better regardless of how it affects existing pages then I applaud it.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:16 AM by DrPizza
"The W3C specifications are implemented across Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, Omniweb and a few others."
But not identically. And not completely.

Which is rather the point.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:29 AM by Paul Quinn
Please, please please, as well as all the above, could you please include an XForms 1.0 implementation: http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xforms-20031014/

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:43 AM by Phil Randal
How about a proper CSS 2 implementation, with particular attention being paid to getting layout to render fully compliant pages correctly (hint, your arithmetic doesn't seem to comply with the specs). position:fixed is essential, not an option. And how about fully compliant ECMAScript support. Get rid of all your non-standard extensions (OK, so you can follow mozilla.org's example and use an undetected document.all if you must).

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:56 AM by NoName
Please Please and Please : keep compatibility when running in quirks mode if you won't. I personally don't care about that mode.

But you should ! No ! You *MUST* improve the standard compliance mode without asking you if it'll break something. If you follow W3C specs you don't have to bother about if it would break some pages or not.

If a webpage got a DOCTYPE that means the developper knows what he's doing. If his page isn't valid, that's his problem not yours.

BTW what I would really like to see in IE7 (in no particular order):
- Real PNG support (with alpha layer)
- application/xhtml+xml MIME type support (with correct ACCEPT header sended by the browser)
- Full CSS 1 & 2 support (nevermind CSS 3 for now)
- Full HTML and XHTML (all versions) support
- Full ECMAScript support

with all of that included I think you could call MSIE a browser...

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:57 AM by Carlo Folini
Hi,
as for new requests.... (tried to open a request but the answer is "By design").

The behavior of "save page" and "send page by email" isn't very ortogonal.
If the page is displayed from a "POST" request doing a "save page, html only" works ok (it takes page content from the browser cache)
Others save methods and "send page by email" didn't take the content from the cache and does a GET (instead of POST) resulting in wrong infos handled.

So the feature should be corrected or the menu text corrected (something like "Save as->RELOADED Web page, complete")

# links for 2005-03-10

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:19 AM by Journal
IE Blog: IE and Standards Chris Wilson guarantees the IE team cares about and will improve standards support - on a webpage that doesn&#8217;t validate, no less (categories: webdesign standards IE)...

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:27 AM by micros
日本人！！

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:46 AM by Bruce Boughton
I second the above mentioned standards. But how about this, which would not even break backwards compliance:

Fix whitespace issues for styled lists. You need to remove all whitespace in the HTML source to avoid extra line breaks in some styled lists.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:55 AM by Nick
Jim hit the nail on the head here in his post above. I came here and saw the title "IE and Standards" and thought, "Finally, we can get some answers about the future of standards support in IE7." While reading your post I kept waiting for some of those answers to show up and by the end I was sighing and thinking that once again, no answers were provided and there was a lot of filler to dance around the issue.

I'll ask Jim's question again for him in case you need it:

"What specifications will you attempt to comply with?"

Why won't you answer?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:57 AM by Kev
Blimey Dean, I can feel myself coming over all paranoid again ;o)

There are a lot of words there but not a lot of promises. Its getting to the stage now where even an admission that you plan to make no standards based changes to IE's rendering engine would be better than the above. Should I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was a pre-emptive post to the one you'll be very soon be making about what you plan to support/not support?

You asked for specifics, so:

CSS2 (full)
PNG (full)

are absolute must haves.

XHTML

would be nice.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:57 AM by Alex
>>>It would also be fantastic to completely get rid of Active X, whilst the intent was a really good idea, the execution was not. Java has somewhat manage to get it right. Active X should be JiT, it should be secure, it should not have limitless access to the computer, it should run in a virtual machine.

Already done. IE already supports the step up from ActiveX .Net Applets - for an example see:

http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo/play/applet/fisheyecalendar.shtml

They support all the features you just mentioned all you need is the Framework (get from Windows Update or Microsoft Downloads).

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:02 AM by Urs Schaltegger
CSS2 Support
CSS3 Support as far as defined by now

I'm sure the fact that CSS2 support has been weak so far is a political issue. Microsoft wants the people to use ActiveX for having a proper user interface on a website. Each time I tried to implement pulldown menus with CSS2 over the past 6 years I almost went crazy with IE, no matter what version. With Gecko or Opera or Safari nowadays no problem.

So for the future:
1st priority -> Security
2nd priority -> W3C-Standards
3rd priority -> Features like tabbed browsing etc.

# EZblog &raquo; Linkdump 10 maart

Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:34 AM by TrackBack
EZblog &raquo; Linkdump 10 maart

# IE7 wishlist &lt;Anne's Weblog about Markup &amp; Style&gt;

Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:36 AM by TrackBack
IE7 wishlist &lt;Anne's Weblog about Markup &amp; Style&gt;

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:49 AM by Rob Mientjes
Some stuff to clear up here:

- CSS3 most probably won't ever be a full spec. That's why they modularised it. Several modules have reached CR status. No excuses.

- Oh, and Matt:
"All this moaning about web standards is indicative of a simple problem - that web developers have gotten caught up in Firefox hype and chosen to develop for a minor platform. They then have the hide to complain about the changes they need to make to get things working on the major platform. It's entirely backwards thinking."
Backwards thinking _by supporting standards_? Do you care about standards? Would you care about standards if you were blind and needed a screenreader that happens to be quite strict on sensible code? I most certainly think so sir.

There's no point _at all_ in saying that HTML support is an aside job. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought HTML was the most-used web language. Oh, sorry. I guess I'm just thinking backwards.

# IE standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:53 AM by Developer

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:53 AM by francesco
i just restate some point made by others above:
AT LEAST:
- css 2.1
- html 4.01
- DOM 1.0 (and the DOM Event Model, that's definitely a show-stopper for *real* rich web applications)
- PNG (and, not to be just *following* who's doing better, what about SVG?)

also, mantaini quirks mode for compatibility and make standard mode *really* standard seems to be the best option.

# BPWrap - Internet Marketing From A Different Point Of View

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:04 AM by TrackBack
BPWrap - Internet Marketing From A Different Point Of View

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:48 AM by Everyone
- CSS2
- PNG24
- That annoying bug with divs over select boxes where the select box shows through
- tabbed browsing
- xhtml
- mime types (XML)
- automatic RSS handlng
- DOM/ECMAScript

I'm not so bothered about having a search box built into the browser, but the above in no particular order would be nice. I also agree with the poster who suggests JPEG2000 - makes a lot of sense.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:58 AM by Simon Jessey
I am doing my best to look at this from a Microsoft perspective. What must I do to make my browser be the best in the business? Coming from that direction, here would be my wish list, in order of importance:

1. Security is, and must always be, the number one concern.
2. Complete support for HTML 4.01.
3. Complete support for CSS 2.1.
4. Complete, *native* support for PNG.
5. Complete support for DOM Level 2.
6. Complete support for HTTP 1.1.
7. Complete support for XHTML, when served as "application/xhtml+xml".
8. Complete support for SVG 1.1.
9. Complete support for those modules of CSS 3.0 that have achieved Candidate Recommendation status.

It occurs to me that "application/xhtml+xml" may provide Microsoft with a mechanism to help with backwards-compatibility, much in the same way as DOCTYPE switching did. IE developers can safely introduce rigid compliance of W3C recommendations, activated only upon receipt of pages served with that MIME type. Such pages should, of course, be handled by the XML parser, and thus be subject to the usual checks of well-formedness.

I would also encourage IE developers to seek W3C clarification when faced with ambiguities in a W3C Recommendation, so as to avoid situations like that encountered with the CSS Box Model.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:01 AM by shaner
I'd like full support for:
PNG
css2

a valiant effort for:
css3
xforms
xhtml2

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:02 AM by John Oxton
Of course, I don't understand the complications of building a browser but full support of CSS 2.1 is what we want, when do we want it? Version 7 please :-)

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:03 AM by Doug
Has Microsoft ever delivered what is said it would when it said it would?
Why bother talking to Microsoft?
They simply ask for comments to appease their customers and then do as they always have, what ever they please with total disregard to their customer's wishes and requests.
It is like talking to a wall, you are better off saving your breath and developing for the minor browsers. Then Microsoft will get the point. We won't stand for their bull any longer. We can speak with our wallets and force them to listen. If we develop our webpages to the standards and their competition does a better job of rendering those standards, then Microsoft will eventually be forced to comply also by virtue of ecomonics.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:05 AM by tc
IE 6.0 has not fully fixed positioning within a box. On some of my pages I place rounded corners in the top left and right of pages. I have to "hack" the CSS for IE 6.0, even in "fixed" box modeling mode. There appears to be about a 3 px difference between IE and Firefox (i.e., for the top left corner the absolute positioned element, I have as left: -3px; top: -3px in Firefox, I have to have left: -3px; top: 0px in IE).

I would expect full support for CSS 2.1 without having do do work-arounds. See http://www.positioniseverything.net/ for more quirks information on IE's lack of full CSS support.

The biggest items as a web developer are:
1. PNG Transparency support
2. Be able to use li items for menu that can flyout either from top or left without a bunch of hacks.
3. Be able to position "stuff" properly and let the browser figure out heights. An object should expand to fit its container if you specify the height to be 100%. Let's get rid of having to do FAUX columns.
4. Support :hover on all elements and make background swapping of images not present the jitter-bug effect, instead of having to work-around by having to store a larger image and shift it, which is the current work-around.
5. For CSS 3 support, my main interest are the selectors support (first or last item in a list, etc.)
6. I am not sure if it is a standard, but I could sure use some way to repeat page headers and footers without having to put the whole page into a table. Maybe access to IE's header and footer controls at the on print event.

Cheers,
TC

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:10 AM by Eric Irvine
Strict mode in IE7 has to be one of two things: when it comes to css, fully complaint so that hacks are no longer needed except for the older versions of your browser, Or partially complaint and still requiring hacks.

I have little doubt that the second option is for you based on your past performance, and that the standard will not be fully implimented. If this is the case please fix some of the major issues that is holding back css for design, the preferable way to make webpages.

The major things that have held me back in the past is position: fixed, :hover anything, height: auto etc. i've run into the majority of bugs on sites like positioniseverything.net, these in my opinion are the biggest things that you should fix.

Full PNG support is just a must, the graphics formats of the web are outdated and it's your fault. Please fix this as well, they have so much potential.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:31 AM by Mick T
i'm an enterprise web app developer. My list of stuff I'd like to see in IE7:

- PNG (transparency)
- CSS2
- the <button> tag (please, please fix !!!!)
- those many annoying positioning bugs (in CSS1?)

Thanks for this site, I appreciate you guys making a decent effort to listen to your customers.

Regards,
MT

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:48 AM by Eli
I say, forget about implementing W3C "standards" at all. They're not even standards anyway, they're just "recommendations" because, A. an actual standards body such as the ISO never published them as a standard, and B. they're not implicitly a standard since they're only in minority use. Personally, I've been unimpressed with W3C's recommendations, they're limited and unextensible, and, in some cases, in conflict with one another (specifying the encoding of an XML file over the web for example).

The IE team should be using this release to help convert web developers to Avalon/XAML which is clearly a superior platform. Fix some CSS bugs if you must but don't bother implementing some deprecated recommendation.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:58 AM by Peter
Eli what are you on about?

"but don't bother implementing some deprecated recommendation."

Which recommendation are you refering to? XHTML 1.1, CSS 2.1 and so on are all recommendations which are not deprecated.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:55 AM by dont lie
Internet Exploder DOES NOT have full support of CSS1. Example? Here you are:
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspiral/glassy.html

# IE development and standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:01 AM by blog.dreampro

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:07 AM by Mariano Delete-Bitchman
My opinion: blah blah blah.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:35 AM by William
Simon Jesey's list. I'll add E4X as a very nice to have feature... though you could hold that off for 7.1 if it came in a timely manner.

On non-standards front... remove ActiveX. It's your biggest problem with security, and what you get beat up with the most by the MS bashers. I know there are ways to disable it according to security settings, but this can be complicated to do and you've gone too far in allowing naive users to enable. Just remove the sucker entirely. The only folks that need it are corporations running intranet web applications. For them, the solution is a plugin that re-enables ActiveX (with as much security as you can possibly give the sucker, as you're doing now with the browser). Draconian and difficult, but that's the point. It encourages them to rewrite their applications to be more secure, i.e. not use ActiveX. In the mean time, it doesn't leave them with out options.

# re: CSS3

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:37 AM by Richard York
Is CSS 3 a full recommendation, no. Will it be any time soon, no. But portions of CSS 3 are *ready* for implementation.

I'd like to see some CSS3 selectors, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements. That module is a Candidate Recommendation. At least to be on par with where other browsers are in their support.

At this point I'd be happy to have fixed CSS 1 and 2 in IE before even considering CSS 3. But other browsers are already implementing CSS3, and to imply that none of it is close to stable or ready to be implemented is false.

:target and the various structural psuedo-classses in particular are immensely useful.

In fact Microsoft's own MSN for OS X already has impressive support for those stable portions of CSS3.

I have no expectations for CSS3, but one can hope, right?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:42 AM by David Naylor
Well, if you've got the time, you could always check what it is that breaks my site: http://david.naylor.se

I believe it's something to do with floating divs and a fixed div which doesn't work. Also, the PNG at the top and bottom aren't displayed correctlye. Thanks.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:42 AM by Ludo
Improved "standart" compliance are definitely important issues for the developpers but as i have no specific knowledge about it, i think the improvements have to be made also on the ease of browsing with simple things that have already been mentioned:
- tabbed browsing , it's handy for 'heavy' browsing.
- integrated msn/google search in the tool bar
- the viewer tool of the msn bar is quite cool and it would be nice to be able to do a find on the current web page with it.
- msn tool bar is good(for hotmail/spaces/msn links) it should come by default with ie 7 (but can be disabled). Also It would be nice to have a link somewhere (may be on bottom of msn search results) to new microsoft products related to browsing.
- Also as IE is integrated into windows, we shouldn't have to chose which pop up blocker to use.

Sorry to be off subject as not standart related but i haven't seen a post yet from microsoft regarding the browsing experience.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:45 AM by David Naylor
dont lie: That was a really cool demo! At first I thought AWW - cool. Then when I read 'No PNGs' I thought HOW THE?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:47 AM by Barrett
Why is everyone telling him to support everything that is already supported, future proof this browser, CSS3!

All of the CSS1 and CSS2 requests should already have been taken care of as well as standard W3C conformations.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:06 AM by David Naylor
Barrett: see "dont lie's" post.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:09 AM by Kelson Vibber
A few things I'd like to see, some of which have been mentioned before:

- Full PNG alpha transparency
- position: fixed
- width meaning *width*, not min-width
- min-width and max-width

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:48 AM by David Mead
They've been mentioned before, but I'll put my ones in:

- PNG Transparency
- :hover on all elements
- problems with the universal selector (*)
- min-width & max-width

I appreciate the time you've all taken to keep up this blog and look forward to IE7 being up to scratch with the other, more current, products out there.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:55 AM by just a regular user
I have no idea what the heck is CSS that you guys are talking about but I'm sure It'll help to improve IE and its "standards" in the near future.
I just want to say that IE is the BEST browser ever. You guys have done a really good job :-p
I've tried Opera, such a useless browser it was. It just kept crashing with no obvious reason and some web page didn't display correctly.
FireFox was even worse, it was even ridiculous. The thing had a poor user interface, poor functionality, poor usability.
In my opinion, only one good thing about firefox is that it was OVERRATED. I just couldn't see why people said negative things about IE and rushed off for Firefox.

Well, IE could have done better, here is some "standards" i want to see:
'Download Manager' - Every browser else on earth already had it
EASY Internet Security Configurations for 'the rest of us'
Possibility to manage cookies, pop ups, plug-in, etc. EASILY
Favorites Manager!!
If possible, Please do make a plugin that integrates IE with MSN Hotmail/Messenger without forcing us to install an MSN Toolbar.
I don't hope to see all these features but it would be nice if you guys could debut them within IE7.
Well, I can't think of anything else.
You guys are so cool to have made such a nice browser, Cheers!!

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:59 AM by David Naylor
just a regular user:

Seriously, was that a joke? First you complain about the newer browsers having poor functionality, usability and interface - and then you go on asking that the IE team fix exactly those things - and in one swoop you're basically admitting they are better in Opera and Firefox.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 10:13 AM by Plop
@Just a regular user:

Use Firefox and you'll get (almost) all of the features you request and that IE lacks about.

# re: IE and Standards: Think on this

Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:26 AM by Mike Gale
The world depends in many ways on IE. Technical information, personal communications and buying things...

Developers really want some tools they have heard about.

Innovative ideas they haven't thought about are even more important.

Microsoft can gain commercially from IE and do great public service by making it easier to improve the web.

# This is what happens when you give people a soapbox

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:39 PM by ShowUsYour

# IE et les standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:39 PM by Memnoch
Non, ce n'est pas un post

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:45 AM by Thomas Tallyce
Though I'm very pro-Firefox myself, I do not understand the comments people are making that this blog entry says nothing.

This bit is particularly significant I thought:

"when we say we have a difficult challenge to change behavior (even under standards mode), we are not excusing ourselves from the need to make improvements. Given the strong usage of IE in the corporate space as well as embedded in applications, we have a strong requirement for backwards compatibility with our previous behavior, compliant or not; that requirement does not mean “don’t touch anything”, it is just a recognition that keeping our engine in sync across strict and quirks modes is challenging when quirks mode has to work nearly exactly the same as it always has. We will continue to improve our compliance under strict mode even when it breaks compatibility, and under quirks mode when it’s not damaging to our backwards compatibility."

and is the first time we seem to have indication that the issue is being worked on, e.g.

"We will continue to improve our compliance"

It seems to me that the posting above is intelligent recognition of the problem that the IE team is having to address if it is working on improved standards support. Simply moving towards compliance with the specs isn't enough when rendering engine is the most common one in use; many of the hacks which people are using to work round bugs in the rendering engine could easily break existing sites.

In other words, the IE team need to find solutions in each case where there is a CSS rendering bug which both respects the standards and doesn't also break sites which have used CSS hacks to workaround the existing bugs. After all, IE6 is still going to be around for ages.

None of this is to excuse the manifold faults with the current engine, nor the lack of detail about what the standards crew within the IE team are actually doing. But I do think we need to recognise that they have an extremely difficult engineering problem to resolve here, albeit one created through their mistakes in the past.

It would presumably be of use to the standards bit of the IE team if people pointed out instances of CSS hack usage where a fully compliant IE would break an existing site, leaving the site owner with a quandry as to what to do next.

E.g. see
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2004/12/01/unbreaking-the-web/
where Eric Meyer says:

"Now, there is one area where I think the IE team would have to be careful about adding support, and that’s selectors. A lot of hide-from-IE CSS hacks these days are based on its failure to support the child selector; in fact, I use these a few places in the S5 style sheets. It is possible that adding support for child selectors to IE6 would be more harmful than beneficial. I say it’s possible because I don’t know. Nobody does—but Microsoft of all organizations has the ability to find out, and to act accordingly. They have the funding, the personnel, the skills, and the customer base."

That I think is what the posting above is discussing.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:47 AM by Eli
Peter,

I'm trying to say that using Avalon/XAML for web development makes things like CSS and XHTML seem unnecessary. I don't know if Microsoft intends these technologies as replacements for XHTML/CSS or not. But, from what I've seen, they CAN be used for web site development and would give web developers much more flexibility than with the W3C recommendations.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:51 AM by M. Schopman
Will there be a roadmap of future IE development. When web application become more important I'd like to see a roadmap.

What is Microsoft's statement regarding future improvements, will IE7 be supplied with some sort of "windows update" functionality resulting in new functionality, improvements of standards when such gets available?

# IE et les standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:55 PM by Memnoch
Non, ce n'est pas un post

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:04 PM by M.Schopman
I forget to mention one, imo important point. If you have time left between those 1001 CSS questions, could you take a look at the garbage collectors so they detect broken circular references between the DOM and JS garbage collectors :) Javascript enabled web application will grow, and grow hard, and so will memory leaks. :)

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:04 PM by Erick Hausman
Standards be deviled. I want a way to embed .NET applications into a webpage without suffering ActiveX!

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:12 PM by cupsdell
How about planning to release 7.0, and later 7.5?

7.0 would include what is possible within the available timeframe, hopefully including full PNG, HTML 4.01, and CSS 2.1 support.

7.5 would add things which could not be ready for 7.0, but which were in great demand.

Planning for a 7.5 would ensure that further improvements to IE would not stop at 7.0, with no more improvements planned until the next version of Windows (Windows 2010?) I suspect that other designers would accept less that what they would consider ideal if they knew Microsoft was going to continue the process of improving IE, and not let IE go stagnant as happened with 6.0.


# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:59 PM by Gert Van Gool
I didn't read through all the comments, so don't shoot me when it's already in here:
but tabbed browsing would be nice :) and ofcourse the security (currently the only reason's I'm using Firefox :-x)

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:16 PM by Mike
CSS
===============
position: fixed
:hover on all elements
:before on all elements
:after on all elements
:first-child on all elements that can have children
!important needs to override previous element

Rendering Issues
================
PNG Alpha Transparency
application/xhtml+xml MIME type support
Whitespace issues in XHTML with style lists

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:18 PM by Colin
Many posters are saying that ActiveX should be removed from IE7. AX is needed for Windows Update. You will lose access to WU if you remove AX.

For MSFT if you want to improve IE's security:
1. Don't remove ActiveX from IE7. Disable AX in all zones except Trusted Sites and add http://activex.microsoft.com/, piracy check, Windows Update and Office Update to that zone by default. DISABLE means DON'T PROMPT because newbies are stupid and always click "Yes" on security warnings.
2. Another feature is "Software channel permissions". It should be set to "High safety level" in all zones except Trusted Sites by default.
3. Disable "Install on demand" for 3rd party components by default.
4. Don't allow running programs in IFRAME's in zones other that Trusted Sites. Don't even prompt for it, just don't allow the program to run. Inline frames are meant to display INLINE CONTENT, not PROGRAMS.
5. Don't allow downloaded executable/batch/script/registry files to be opened without saving (you already do it in Outlook Express but not in IE).

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:44 PM by Beretta Vexée
Eli,

Replace Avalon/XAML by Macromedia flash and you will understand the bad step you made. Are you for a Microsoft ou Macromeda only web ?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:44 PM by FlorentG
@ Eli :

XAML/Avalon should not be used for web developpment. It cannot replace XHTML & CSS. With XAML, you are bound to the windows platform. This is not the goal of the web. XHTML , combined with CSS, was designed to run everywhere : normal computers, mobile phone, text-only devices... which is impossible with XAML.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:47 PM by Chris Wilson
Would you really prioritize getting this blog to validate as a work item for the IE team over working on actual IE issues like CSS support?

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:58 PM by William
Colin,
Hogwash on losing Windows Update. WU only needs to be retooled with the new browser. For instance, .NET could be incorporated in the browser and provide the same functionality for WU with none of the security issues. Just one of many possible solutions to this "problem".

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:47 PM by atqti
in the name of the lord! plz i pray for it every day, MAKE TABBED BROWSING!!!!!

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:50 PM by Roger Johansson
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/wishlist_for_ie7/

# Wish List

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:52 PM by Allen Pike
I've worked on two projects now that don't allow MSIE user-agents because it's much less time-consuming to develop for browsers with standards support. I always add a substantial amount to any intranet development estimates that must support Internet Explorer.

Minimum things we'd want to consider IE7 support:
- PNG Alpha Transparency
- :hover on all elements
- bottom: 0px
- min/max-width
- position: fixed

Of course if IE7 has full, reliable CSS1 and CSS2.1 support, then we'd fully support it. For a complicated intranet web application, the cost of working around unexpected CSS quirks is often more than the cost of getting people to use Firefox instead.

# re: IE and Standards

Thursday, March 10, 2005 2:52 PM by Gabriel Mihalache
The obvious: catch up with Firefox, web standards-wise. As a corporate developer, a supposed target market, time and time again, I had to use hacks and work-arounds to get basic stuff working.

In a worst case scenario, you could add a "super strict mode" where IE behaves 100% standard compliant, or use Gecko for renderding :)