New Accessibility Features in IE8

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Caio Alexandre (Brazilian) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:34:31 GMT

Internet Explorer 8 should test Acid3. It would be rejected by other users and would not be abandoned in comparison with other browsers.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

8675309 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:35:53 GMT

will the highlighter feature be coming back?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Arieta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:00:14 GMT

Internet Explorer 8 should NOT pass Acid3. It needs to fix its numerous rendering bugs that prevent full compatibility with at least some level of webstandards. IE8 needs to learn how to walk before it tries running into more advanced standards that Acid3 uses.

All the people crying about standards should take this into consideration before whining about Acid3.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Tom — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:32:05 GMT

Do any of the other browsers pass the full suite of CSS 2.1 tests that IE submitted?

Standards compliance: be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Public — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:08:20 GMT

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/12/11/new-ie8-build-available-for-program-participants

"Internet Explorer 8 beta participants today received a surprising e-mail about 'IE8 Partner Build' released to the IE8 Technical Beta to test and find issues. This build represents a preview of IE8's progress and is best used to verify issues fixed since releasing Beta 2. While Microsoft believes it to be of adequate quality for you to use, is not as extensively tested as a milestone build, so it is not meant for the general public but only for testing purposes."

Make this build public, MS. Beta 2 has such horrible bugs and regressions, you can't test anything on it.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Vygantas — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:46:30 GMT

Adaptive zoom is a must. Good that you are adding it!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

18343 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:48:00 GMT

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1760

"The new IE 8 build is numbered 8.0.6001.18343, testers said."

I saw a screenshot of this new release, it's already tagged as Release Candidate 1. So without even confirming with the public testers here that the severe bugs are fixed, MS is just gonna go ahead and release it like that?

"MS is just gonna go ahead and release it like that?"

Blaise Kal — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:00:58 GMT

Probably. They need to finish IE8 pretty soon, or they'll have to delay Windows 7 (which contains IE8). Delaying Windows 7 would cost a lot of money.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Rob Parsons — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:03:35 GMT

Great! I did not know that my keyboard had a context menu key until you pointed it out.

You should also mention the Accessibility validators that are available on the Developer Tool.

Happy Holidays.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Rob Parsons — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:48:41 GMT

http://colorlab.wickline.org/colorblind/colorlab

Some tab colors will be invisible to users with color blindness.

Regards.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

James — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:01:16 GMT

18343: Just because a build is tagged "Release Candidate 1" just means that it is part of the RC1 tree. It doesn't mean that it is the final build of the RC1 milestone.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

erictee — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:14:00 GMT

Dear IE team, please remove the option to "customize title width" of the feeds because it is useless:

"short title" cannot provide further information about the feeds and "icons only" cannot be used because in the most recent build of IE the feeds show only blank page icon

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:54:24 GMT

Just got this post in my RSS agregator.

So, I'm downloading the not-so-public partner release, as well as reading this post.

Has the zoom performance been fixed? being able to zoom is great, but the performance tanked when zoomed in up until IE8Beta2.

Also, will Bugs in IE Feedback on Connect be updated to match the status as of this partner build?

Thanks

PS @erictee - from the PDF that came with the partner release, I believe this is for the links bar, such that it will be a usable toolbar now.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:06:16 GMT

OMG! Why are all the open issues in Feedback now set globally to resolved - can't repro with this blanket statement:

"In our investigations to date we have not been able to reproduce this problem as described. However, with the release of IE8 Beta 2 this bug is outdated; it may have been fixed by the many changes we’ve made since Beta 1. If your issue still reproduces on the latest IE build, please update the repro steps and re-activate your bug."

For 1, this release is the private partner build, not Beta 2, thus the old build is not Beta 1. - Please stop this blanket tagging without testing as it serves no purpose other than frustrating your un-paid developers that are testing your application.

If upon installing this partner build, all bugs are magically fixed, then I digress, but otherwise this is not a professional approach to public bug tracking.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Chris Cressman — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:10:37 GMT

This is the first time I have read about caret browsing. Looking forward to trying it out - and adaptive zoom. IE8 should be a nice improvement over previous releases.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

david — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:30:21 GMT

Ok what is with the inline advertising in the address bar - prompting me to download Windows Search to improve History and Favorites results?

Isn't this anti-competitive against My Google Desktop Search? sure seems like it.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

david — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:31:39 GMT

navigator.appMinorVersion returns: Release Candidate 1

Is this the same RC1 that you told us would be released in Q1, 2009? or is this a different one?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:50:13 GMT

First impressions of IE8 "partner release"

1.) window.resize event handling - still broken

2.) td.valign - new quirky behavior causes jumping text when clicked on

3.) z-index stacking bug with alpha:opacity layers placed below tables now appears to work again (broke in beta 2)

4.) de-theming of select controls in Windows XP - still broken

5.) drop arrow for Back/Forward browser navigation bar has odd oversized, "smudged" arrow on some tabs (can't figure out what triggers it.

6.) new regression bug - select list with a background loses the background when user opens the list

7.) new CSS regression bug... certain div's with class names applied do not render correctly if nested in containers with other styles (e.g. inner div's are inheriting too much)

8.) new regression bug, <button> elements are inheriting focus when other form elements are manipulated (e.g. toggle a radio button, and the first <button> on the form gets the active focus ring

9.) new regression bug with window.open(), some calls are returning a JS error:

"The remote server machine does not exist or is unavailable" - when the remote server is most definitely 100% there.

10.) The "repaint" issue I logged in connect that was marked resolved, that I re-opened, is now 10x worse than in IE8 Beta 2. Open the Javascript console, or any other floatable window/control and drag over any form field with a background image: (select, input, textarea...) and the image is lost (painted white) as the other window floats over top.

Uhm, I've only been in this build for about 2 minutes. Hate to say it folks, but this build looks worse than Beta 2.

I'll continue testing in a few hours.

steve

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:59:52 GMT

Here's a few more...

11.) new regression bug - elem.attributes collection issues:

If I try to see if an inline onchange event handler is tied to an input box, It will fail BOTH of these tests.

11a.) (used to work in IE)

if(elem.attributes.getNamedItem('onchange').value != ''){

elem.onchange.apply(elem);

}

11b.) but I also can't call it like a JavaScript function using apply() if I test with if(elem['onchange'] != 'undefined'){

elem.onchange.apply(elem);

}

12.) VML support is worse than IE8 Beta 2

13.) Horrible UI tearing when zoomed in and scrolling pages

14.) new regression bug - Fieldset Legends now render "un-centered" vertically within the fieldset border

15.) new regression bug - If an HTML comment resides between tags in a table, extra row padding occurs

16.) new regression bug - changing a selection in a select list with size > 1 causes odd flicker from last option when changing selected option

17.) Woot! - disabled options in a select list now work!!!!! (yahoo!)

18.) navigating directly to "about:inprivate" says that Private Browsing is turned on, but it isn't.

19.) Odd rendering glitch - Go to a few Google sites (in tabs) then go to about:tabs... Now press CTRL+Tab to cycle through your tabs. Why does the Google favicon sometimes display a vertical gradient from white down to gray, then other times show gray to white to gray?

20.) new regression bug - Frames set with a physical dimension (width/height) that didn't show borders in IE6/IE7 now show frameborder (even with frameborder set to "no" or "0"

21.) elem.attributes.length still returns null (can't recall if this was fixed in Beta2 or not)

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:06:33 GMT

22.) Zooming pages allows table cell text content to "escape" from the table cell (as if it was floating rather than contained). (this may be similar to what I was seeing in #2)

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:15:47 GMT

23.) new regression bug - mousewheel scrolling in a textarea (zoomed or un-zoomed) causes intermitted hover/de-hover CSS events (e.g. set a different border color for :hover on a textarea, fill the text area with text that overflows, then focus the text box and scroll... border will flash wildly.

24.) new regression bug - Scrollbars of textareas pixelate rather than gracefully stretch when page zoomed in

25.) Same as #24 for Div's with overflow:auto set, when there is overflow, and page is zoomed

26.) new regression bug - JavaScript activity stops animated GIF images from animating... (even if in separate JS threads) which therefore makes all AJAX activity indicators appear to hang.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

I say that, I say nothing — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:26:43 GMT

Why not focus on Canvas tag from HTML 5 instead of some zoom stuff? Every web developer is asking it.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:44:33 GMT

@I say silly things: Any time anyone tries to speak for all web developers, it's clear that they have little perspective on the breadth of important issues in the browser.

People with accessibility needs find those far more important than supporting a tag in a non-complete draft of a standard expected to be finalized 2-3 years from now.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:48:58 GMT

@David: No, it's not anti-competitive. If folks want a different search engine, they can install one. Keep in mind that Windows Vista includes WS by default, and THAT passed regulatory approval.

As for the "RC1" marker, I'm sure all of the builds currently say that, since that's the next public milestone drop.

@Steve: I trust you filed all the bugs in the bug database you have access to?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Markus — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:52:01 GMT

"18.) navigating directly to "about:inprivate" says that Private Browsing is turned on, but it isn't."

So what? Navigating directly to about:NoAdd-ons will show you the page that says extensions are off. Navigating to the "SecurityAtRisk" page will show you the security at risk page. Navigating to the navcancel page will tell you that navigation was cancelled. Etc, etc, etc.

Who cares?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Sharon [MSFT] — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:34:46 GMT

@david - here's some info about Windows Desktop Search in the address bar

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/09/11/the-ie8-smart-address-bar-without-windows-search.aspx

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:40:50 GMT

@Dan - No I haven't filed any of these bugs in Connect yet.

I want confirmation of where this build sits in the roadmap first. I wasn't expecting a build until next year, which was to be the more complete, stable, almost ready to ship RC1. Currently IE8 "Partner Release" is turning out to be 1 step forward, 3 steps back in terms of progress.

I was hoping that with this build I would be able to start testing/pushing code to be production ready in waiting for IE8 RTM but I've put all those thoughts on hold.

If any filed bugs in connect are going to get shut down again by an RC release in 30 days or so then I won't waste any of my time filing them (beyond the public "filing" above).

What would be really nice is the "change log" for fixes/implementations between IE8B2 and the IE8PR1 version so we can test specific changes, and find regressions.

As for #18 above, IMHO, entering this URL should "take you" into private mode, just as typing "c:\" as the url will take you into windows exploring.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:14:09 GMT

27.) The Gmail "more options" list doesn't render any text in IE8 PR1. - guess I'll have to go open up chrome or Firefox to mark my email as read! ;-)

re: IE8 Partner Build

Kellie [MSFT] — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:26:01 GMT

Regarding comments about the IE8 Partner Build: It is standard practice for Microsoft to provide custom builds to select audiences to test our products before they are released broadly, and we are currently doing that with the IE8 Partner Build that was released on December 10th, 2008 to our Tech Beta participants. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 was released in September 2008 in 25 languages and is available for public testing. We plan to make another public version available for broad trial purposes in the first quarter of 2009 prior to delivering the final version of Internet Explorer 8.

New Tab/Window freeze problem

Atul — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:19:37 GMT

When trying to "Open in New Tab/New Window", none succeeds in opening any new URL. Just the new Tab/Window shows up with the Icon animation and it is endless, no website shows up.

Please can one of you experts share/advise on how to resolve this. I read in the Community pages, and tried disabling Quick Tabs and then Logging Off/Restarting/Administrator login, etc, but it still does not work.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Regards,

Atul.

IE8 partner pre-RC1 build 6001.18343 and filed bugs

Gérard Talbot — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:12:39 GMT

@steve

> will Bugs in IE Feedback on Connect be updated to match the status as of this partner build?

You can do that yourself, I suppose, by adding a comment like

"IE 8 Partner pre-RC1 build 6001.18343 passes this test" or something like that, assuming you can download+install+use that IE 8 Partner build. This is what I've done with my IE 8 bugs list.

One major regression I noticed is bug #14:

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE6Bugs/SelectAddOptionNull.html

Beta 2 build 6001.18241 passed it while pre-RC1 build 6001.18343 FAILS (line 67 identified in Webpage Error report).

---------

I get contradictory result when trying testcase of IE beta feedback bug 361181:

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=361181

IE team says "This issue has been resolved fixed. It can be seen in the IE8 Partner Build (...)" but I do not get expected results with IE8 Partner Build 6001.18343

--------------

Some testcases will trigger IE8 Partner Build 6001.18343 to switch *_automatically_* into compatibility view. E.g.:

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/background-color-change-hover-ie8b2.html

brunildo.org/test/IE8b1_clickablearea.html

------------

Bug 153 still fails despite Microsoft White Papers and repeated claims of native support of PNG image:

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/#bug153

-----------

A few testcases are better rendered despite failing the tested cases. E.g. at my IE 8 bugs webpage: bugs #151, #193, #197 and a few others..

Regards, Gérard

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

hAl — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:33:29 GMT

Amazing that the new build introduces so many regressions.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wai — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:24:48 GMT

it is good that that bottom button - "InPrivate Blocking: off" is being labelled. For the other buttons (popup blocker, add-on, SmartScreenFilter etc), please try to label them too, with text or icon, to help the user to know there are some buttons and what functions are they

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Andrew — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:08:56 GMT

whats happens with my sidebar gadgets after installing new 8.0.6001.18343 build???

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Interoperability — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:02:12 GMT

So after 3 months since the release of Beta 2, Pre-RC1 has even more bugs and regressions that cripples it and makes it useless for testing? Can't say I'm surprised much though. I think this article says it best.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080615-microsoft-to-developers-fix-your-broken-web-pages-for-ie8.html

"Both WebKit (the rendering engine of Safari) and Firefox offer nightly builds"

"These regular releases make it much quicker for bug fixes to get into developers' hands, making it easier for them to update their sites now rather than having to wait months between betas."

"But with Microsoft's lack of clear objectives, infrequent releases, and poor communication, IE8 will be struggling to even achieve parity with its competitors."

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wai — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:19:07 GMT

@Interoperability

nightly build may good for developer, but for general users, monthly patches are good enough already.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

erictee — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:01:43 GMT

the favorite bar is useless in IE Partner Build as I cannot update the feeds and the feeds do not show the favicon

SharePoint Daily for December 12, 2008

SharePoint Daily — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:24:53 GMT

Top News Stories Microsoft and HP Extend Private-Label Hosting Opportunities to Value-Added Resellers

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:38:21 GMT

@Gérard Talbot: - yeah as soon as I checked I saw lots of auto updates (mostly typos saying that beta1 doesn't repro, closing, try beta2 and reopen if necs.) - argh...

So I went through most of them last night, 1 or 2 were fixed, the rest were just as broken if not more so, thus re-opened them accordingly.

Also noticed that this post shows a nice new bug. scroll the page until the big images are under the cursor, then try to scroll... notice how it is significantly slower than when over text. It is really obvious if you use the scroll portion of a laptop touchpad.

If you compare it to Chrome or Firefox there is a huge difference.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:43:24 GMT

another odd quirk.

In IE8PR1 do a [CTRL]+F on this page. Search for "Translate with Windows Live"... What is up with that huge vertical text span? - Try in any other browser.

Even just try highlighting some text in that line in Firefox, then in IE8PR1. This just looks real quirky and odd.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

justin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:48:56 GMT

In Windows I always set the "Show extensions for known file types" to [checked] because not seeing the extension is a pain and only adds more confusion when trying to find files.

However in IE when I right click on an image and choose "Save picture as", the dialog (first off is very old looking) doesn't show me the filename extension!?

Why does this dialog ignore my specific request to ALWAYS see the file extensions?

Please note this only happens in IE, all other browsers obey my settings.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

OK — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:20:18 GMT

wai,

This blog (and IE Partner Builds) is not intended for general users. We are developers here.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

geldlening — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:40:18 GMT

These are only a couple of UI improvements. Why aren't we getting Canvas support?

IE 8 and Accessibility: Microsoft Improves IE8 for Disabled Users

Public Sector Developer Weblog — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:01:40 GMT

From the article:   A post on the IEBlog by Accessibility Program Manager JP Gonzalez-Castellan

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

EricLaw [MSFT] — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:12:34 GMT

@Andrew: Great question. What DOES happen on your computer?

@Gerard Talbot: Thanks!

Test case #153 still passes in the partner build, just as it passed in Beta-2. When you install QuickTime, you need to remove its registration for the PNG file format. I have no idea why Quicktime thinks *it* should handle PNGs, but it leads to problems like the one you mention.

I'm not able to reproduce the problem where Compatibility Mode is used for your link hover tests in current builds. It's likely that this is a rendering issue which was recently fixed.

I agree that 361181 does not appear to be fixed, even in the latest builds.

Did you file a CONNECT bug for issue #14?

@Atul: The most common problem for these symptoms is a buggy addon. Please see http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp#crash for step-by-step instructions on how to check.

@steve_web: Navigating to the "about:" pages is not expected to activate any features; it's only expected to tell you about the features. Otherwise (among many other problems) any website could navigate you to the about page to activate the feature specified. That would be seriously annoying.

I'm not able to reproduce most of the "regressions" you've reported. It would be very helpful if you linked to relevant test cases. Thanks!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:07:20 GMT

@EricLaw - can you clarify which of the "most" that you can't reproduce? I was able to reproduce all of them thus before creating unique test cases for each I'd like to know which ones I need to do it for if "some" were reproducible.

thanks,

steve

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dan [MSFT] — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:56:34 GMT

@steve_web, regarding: 9.) new regression bug with window.open(), some calls are returning a JS error:

"The remote server machine does not exist or is unavailable" - when the remote server is most definitely 100% there.

Can you provide us with specifics of what the script is doing when you encounter this error? The remote server it is referring to is not a web server but a local RPC COM server, that is, the other window that the script opened.

Thanks

More Accessibility For All - Not Just "The Disabled"

Richard Fink — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:41:33 GMT

Back on topic:

MS has always had a strong commitment to accessibility and it's good to see ARIA in IE8. However, ARIA is a tool that is meant to benefit, directly at least, those with relatively severe vision problems.

That's great, truly, but how about everyone else?

How about the hundreds of million of users with mild disabilities like presbyopia? [The medical term for "aging eyes" - a condition that begins to affect nearly everyone over the age of forty. Sometimes before. In other words, you, me, and EVERYONE, sooner or later.]

All we need or want is a small boost in the size of text by a pixel or two to make things more easily readable. And most of the time, it doesn't even break the layout.

But, of course, the problems with IE's Text Size menu - what some call the "Text Size Bug" make that a very, very difficult issue to address. (Don't, please don't tell me it can be done satisfactorily using ems and/or percents, accross a broad variety of layouts. It can't. )

Please realize that Adaptive Zoom, even though it's been implemented in FF3, Opera, and now IE8, is no magic bullet.

Just a few issues that jump out:

a) Rarely does every page on a site use the same font-sizing and layout. A Zoom setting for a page containing an full-page article might work fine but be completely unsuitable two minutes later when the user goes back to the home page, where text will undoubtedly be much smaller. Zoom is a blunt, and dumb, instrument that requires a lot of distractive fiddling around.

b) If the user has the status bar turned off, the user has absolutely no clue whether the page is being rendered at 100%, 120%, 90%, or what? Keying errors - hitting Ctrl+ or Ctrl- by mistake - happen all the time. Leaving users perplexed and, perhaps, clicking away from the unlucky site where the user-error occurred because the page is looking and, seemingly behaving, weird.

c)Adaptive Zoom works pretty much like a window resize and therefore favors layouts that use em and percent based sizing, and penalizes pixel-based sizing with the unwanted side effect of, among other things, horizontal scrollbars. Zoomed, these pages become a usability nightmare.

How about a system that allows designers and developers to influence the kind of zoom, degree of zoom, and do the same for Text Size, as well? Both features could be made to function a lot smarter with just a little bit of input from the designer and/or developer.

I could go on and on about this (and I will, at another time and place) but it sure isn't time to do an accessibility dance, just yet.

Great effort but there's still some miles to go.

Lastly, thanks for the surprise "sneak peek" Partners Build. It's been helpful to me in completing MY development work, at least.

Some bugs I recently found and were about to report, are gone. (Weird rendering with text-align:justify; in IE8 Strict Mode.)

I hope we'll see more of this kind of communication going forward.

Thanks!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Mahdi Yousefi — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:03:05 GMT

Nice, But i think one major problem that IE has is in saving web pages,

IE can not save pages from downloaded content like firefox and other browser, User must download a webpage content to view why user must wait another time for saving files.

Also when saving a page you can not do anything until saving complete!!!! why IE can not save web page without lock windows?

Why any one do not thing about saving webpages in IE6,IE7,IE8.

Why when i stop a page but flash content in IE continue to loading content?

Can you answer?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

tim — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:40:52 GMT

How soon can developers wrap the IE browser for commercial applications at kiosks?

Using IE6 which is the default at most kiosks is a royal pain.

It looks horrible and won't render half of the content of the web properly.

Is it as easy as wrapping IE6 was? or has it been made harder now with IE7 and IE8?

thanks

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Andrew — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:10:37 GMT

@EricLaw: About 50% gadgets not visible or not working with RC1, but with beta 2 working good :(

Try http://www.wunderground.com/download/vista.asp gadget or GMail Counter from Live Gallery or http://download.yandex.ru/widgets/clock/YandexClock.1.0.0.15.Gadget

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Michael — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:28:19 GMT

1. While zooming in the new build is far better than in beta 2, it is still slow on my quad core machine.

2. The page information dialog should be changed to somenthing like the one in firefox -- it makes the browser look really old when anyone views it

3. The icons in the browers now look ok when DPI upscaling is turned on. Thanks!

re: Why the change in Ctrl+/Ctrl- Zoom Increments?

Richard Fink — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:03:14 GMT

Dec. Partners build:

Noticed that Ctrl+ and Ctrl- now change the Zoom increment by 25%.

In IE7 and previous IE8 builds it was 110%.

What was the thinking and/or feedback that brought about the change?

Will that change persist onto RC1 and RTM?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

hAl — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:01:16 GMT

@Michael

How is zoom slow for you ?

Its speed looks fine on my poor celeron.

Is is slow on a specific page ?

Is is slow still in no-addons mode as well ?

re: IE8

Ginni Schaeffer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:10:33 GMT

Hello -

I just downloaded IE 8 Beta version. Since this download, my computer freezes up when I click on Yahoo TV listings. Can you please help me?

Thank you in advance,

Ginni

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

EricLaw [MSFT] — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:17:50 GMT

@Ginni: Try pushing the "Compatibility View" button at the right hand side of the address bar.

@tim: IE7 and IE8 can be wrapped exactly like IE6 was for building kiosk applications or other programs that need to render HTML.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wai — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:10:52 GMT

the page layout of spreadsheet in docs.google.com is wrong no matter Compatibility View is turned on or off, anyone have the same problem?

And sometime IE turns into Compatibility View when it detects some incompatibility, it may be better to have an option to toggle this detection.

Using XP SP3 ENU, IE8 RC.

iddaa, iddaa tahminleri, banko kupon

iddaa — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:29:36 GMT

the favorite bar is useless in IE Partner Build as I cannot update the feeds and the feeds do not show the favicon

New Accessibility Features in IE8

Mirrored Blogs — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:19:38 GMT

The IE team has been working towards making IE8 the most accessible browser possible. Latest entry from

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Hypotheken — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:34:05 GMT

The adaptive zoom is great for usability. Visually impaired users, as wel as everyone else profits by this enlarged user interface. Great work!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

someone — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:19:10 GMT

1.please allow to use both the old javascript method of IE6 zoom and the newer IE7 zoom method . sometimes they are better than the zoom method of IE8 .

2.is it true that the autocomplete feature is gone? why?

3.how can i get IE8rc1 ? i can't find it anywhere.

4.will all the features be available and work well on IE-based browsers as well?

5.about the webslices feature, can you please make it to work on all websites? you can just mark with the mouse the area to check , and IE8 will make a webslice of it to monitor.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

EricLaw [MSFT] — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:41:07 GMT

@someone: #2: No. Inline autocomplete in the addressbar was replaced with the "Unified List View" dropdown, but it still autocompletes. Autocomplete within web pages still works.

#3: IE8 RC1 will be released in the first quarter of next year.

#4: Many features are available in IE-based browsers; some require opt-in, but most IE-based browser authors tend to opt-in.

#5: The problem with allowing user-selection is that this would not likely work because if the layout of the page were to change, the slice wouldn't work. By having the web developer mark the slice, we have confidence that the markup will remain available in the future.

@wai: Please keep in mind that you are using the December Partner Build, not the "RC" build, which has not yet been finished.

"And sometime IE turns into Compatibility View when it detects some incompatibility, it may be better to have an option to toggle this detection."

To be clear, when IE automatically enters compatibility view, this means that it has encountered a fatal rendering error, and the page would render blank if not for the compatibility fallback. You can disable the fallback if you'd like using Tools > Internet Options > Advanced, "Automatically recover from page layout errors using compatibility view."

Our goal for the release is to resolve these fatal layout errors so that automatic fallbacks are not needed.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

steve_web — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:38:54 GMT

@EricLaw [MSFT]

Didn't hear back in terms of which of the new regression issues didn't repro, but I built and uploaded a test case for #10 in the list, which also shows #4, and #6.

Feedback ID:386338

Please advise which other ones you could repro, I don't want to make too many test cases unless I have to. ;-)

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Ivan — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:48:51 GMT

Change he IE8 toolbar, it is disgusting! Make the tabs like Google Chrome with WPF!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

SylvainG [MSFT] — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:19:26 GMT

@steve_web,

re:

>> 7.) new CSS regression bug... certain div's

>> with class names applied do not render

>> correctly if nested in containers with other

>> styles (e.g. inner div's are inheriting too

>> much)

I'd love to see a test case reproducing this !

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

mike — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:55:38 GMT

Will there be a Partner Release 2 before the Public RC1? - I'm not overly excited about the PR1 because it seems less polished than the Beta2 (and I'm finding more bugs in PR1 than Beta2). If there is a better version in the pipes I don't want to waste time trying out bugs/issues on PR1 if there is a PR2 comming soon.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

mike — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:06:15 GMT

@SylvainG [MSFT] / @steve

I noticed (as did you) that the VML support in IE8 PR1 is worse than IE8B2 (requires stricter namespacing at least, but I haven't tested beyond that) but a side effect is that *if* you were using it to reproduce rounded corners in IE 6/7 (since they don't support it at all) it doesn't work in IE8 PR1, and moreso, it wipes all of the "class" based CSS features from rendering which then makes it appear that IE isn't rendering stuff correctly.

e.g. if I have this class

.foo {

background-color:#ccddee;

border:1px solid #0000ff;

-moz-border-radius:5px;

-webkit-border-radius:5px;

}

It works fine in IE (well except for the rounded corners)

but if you had:

.foo {

background-color:#ccddee;

border:1px solid #0000ff;

-moz-border-radius:5px;

-webkit-border-radius:5px;

behavior:url(border-radius.htc);/*IE Hack*/

}

This will FAIL miserably in IE8 PR1 - rendering no background/border styles. I believe it is due to the way these hacks work, sucking the style properties from the original element, de-styling them, then layering in the VML element with the stolen styles + the rounded corners.

Until I can resolve the namespace issue, I am removing the rounded borders for IE8 rendering and only keeping them in for IE6/IE7.

mike

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

VistaUserXDD — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:54:14 GMT

Uhh, keep up the good work.

But Compatibility Mode = Epic Fail

Privacy Policy Bug!

JAB Creations — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:11:51 GMT

The privacy policy summary does *NOT* send the referrer and thus triggers my site's Apache based anti-hotlinking script. Please simply have IE send the referrers and problem solved.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Frosty — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:04:48 GMT

Scolling speed when the page has zoom is absolutely horrible.

Infact, scrolling performance in IE vs Firefox and Chrome is horrible. This needs fixed.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wheres the patch? — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:33:49 GMT

If you seriously want to keep us using IE, timely patches to security holes with known active exploits should be the #1 priority!

Many sites are actively suggesting users use a different browser until this fix is pushed out.

BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Trend Micro:

http://blog.trendmicro.com/zero-day-ie-flaw-being-actively-exploited/

Shadow Server:

http://www.shadowserver.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Calendar.20081210

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wheres the patch? — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:37:24 GMT

more...

Geeks are Sexy:

http : / / w w w .geeksaresexy.net/2008/12/11/ie7-0-day-exploit-compromising-thousands-of-hosts/

SoftPedia:

http : / / news.softpedia.com/news/Critical-0Day-Vulnerability-in-IE8-Beta-2-and-IE7-on-Vista-SP1-and-XP-SP3-99966.shtml

Generation IT:

http : / / www.generation-nt.com/microsoft-exploit-ie-vulnerabilite-wordpad-actualite-202301.html

Washington Post:

http : / / voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/microsoft_big_security_hole_in.html

And this is the kicker, even Microsoft is encouraging users to switch!

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Microsoft-encourages-users-to-switch-to-other-browsers/article/122909/

(sorry about the spacing but the spam filter on this blog is sooo agressive)

Concerned [strike]IE[/strike]Firefox user.

This is the kind of patch that should come before Patch Choose Day, right?

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

ivitza — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:41:19 GMT

@JAB Creations

Since Microsoft has already indicated that they won't fix REFERER bug 421

http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/2008/11/bug-421-ie-fails-to-pass-http-referer.html

I don't think they'll be in any hurry to fix it for a privacy policy link.

Bugs fixing, filing and pre-RC1 build 6001.18343

Gérard Talbot — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:22:31 GMT

@Eric Law

> Test case #153 still passes in the partner

> build, just as it passed in Beta-2. When

> you install QuickTime,

I do NOT have QuickTime, I do not use QuickTime.

> Did you file a CONNECT bug for issue #14?

No, I did not. Lack of time. This bug should be re-fixed in my opinion.

I remember I originally assumed that fixing bug 338795

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=338795

would obligatorily imply the fixing of my bug #14.

Regards, Gérard

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dan — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:43:39 GMT

@patch: "And this is the kicker, even Microsoft is encouraging users to switch!"

Bull. Read the article and you'll not that NO ONE from Microsoft makes any such statement.

Text Size Bug and IE 8 Partner pre-RC1 build

Gérard Talbot — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:36:57 GMT

@Richard Fink

> the problems with IE's Text Size menu - what

> some call the "Text Size Bug"

This particular bug

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=339085

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE7Bugs/#bug79

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/#bug38

has been FIXED in IE 8 Partner pre-RC1 build 6001.18343.

Regards, Gérard

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Chris — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:37:30 GMT

Was this considered a feature by design? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm) I'm curious because this will help me greatly in developing a cross-country intranet through IE8's Add-on. I wouldn't mind if I have to open up some security issues since I have Spy Sheriff as my anti-virus program to take care of any problems that will occur.

Wishful thinker,

Chris

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dennis at Web Axe — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:51:36 GMT

Instead of adding frivolous features, Microsoft should concentrate on making the browser robust and standards-compliant. That will inherently make it more accessible. See comments from Steve above.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

wai — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:38:33 GMT

i am not sure is it a bug

1) Start the browser

2) click New Tab, before the new tab load completely, use the middle button to close the new tab

3) if your cursor moves fast enough, use the middle button to click on the first tab. The browser will close completely

Normally when there is only one tab, you cannot use the middle button to click on it to "close". If the function can present, do something like firefox or chrome would be good enough.

It is obvious when the computer is not that fast ;P..... using P4D 2.8GHz, 2GB ram

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Dave — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:55:21 GMT

Fixed that monstrous security hole yet? Nope? Good! Thanks for keeping pushing folks to Mozilla!

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

modo — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:56:56 GMT

The adaptive zoom could be very nice if the bugs are solved.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

hAl — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:50:04 GMT

@Dave

Need a patch ?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-dec.mspx

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Pedric — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:40:02 GMT

Now, the thing that would make IE really shine would be if you were to tear it out of Windows and made it a standalone program that can be installed and uninstalled just like any other program without messing with the entire OS...

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Gérard Talbot — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:33:47 GMT

@Eric Law

Major regression:

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE6Bugs/SelectAddOptionNull.html

> Did you file a CONNECT bug for issue #14?

Bug 388710

connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=388710

Gérard

Partner builds automatically switching into Compatibility View on hovering links

Gérard Talbot — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:03:13 GMT

@Eric Lawrence

Steps to reproduce:

-------------------

1- Load

www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/background-color-change-hover-ie8b2.html

in pre-RC1 Partner build 18344 under XP Pro SP3

2- Hover the mouse cursor over the link "connect's IE beta feedback as bug 365927"

Actual result:

--------------

A balloon will pop up saying

Compatibility View

A problem displaying gtalbot.org caused Internet Explorer to refresh the webpage using Compatibility View

and the webpage automatically switches into non-standards rendering mode.

This behavior is also reproducible 100% with some other links in the page and at

brunildo.org/test/IE8b1_clickablearea.html

Regards, Gérard

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Richard Fink — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:42:42 GMT

@Gerard Talbot

Thanks for the info. When I first glanced at your demo page some months ago, I had assumed that you were demonstrating, once again, what many consider IE's Text Size "bug", that is, it's failure to resize pixel values and the compounding of relative values

within nested elements.

This is how Text Size works by design.

But on close inspection, this was a true bug.

1em of, say, a 16px equivalent font size is 16px and the Text Size menu should, at least,

be consistent and size up and down on all of the nested text equally. They are all 1em of the same font-size. Fixed, I see!

I also am noticing on your test page that IE is interpreting a 'medium' border as thinner than in IE7. Perhaps that is because it is doing the math based on the font-size, or what. (Just thinking out loud.)

(I'm curious - I'll re-set the font sizes to 2em and see what happens.)

신현석의 생각

hyeonseok's me2DAY — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:26:54 GMT

New Accessibility Features in IE8, 꽤 좋아지는 군요.

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Chuck Morris — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:55:05 GMT

have tried IE8 (3) times and the same problem has occured. It has a problem when trying to run Ctrix apps. I only opens up a box with no address and doesn't login to the location. Which doesn't happen when using IE7.

Thickness of medium border

Gérard Talbot — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:16:54 GMT

@Richard Fink

> IE is interpreting a 'medium' border as thinner than in IE7.

Correct. IE 8 beta 2 and pre-RC1 Partner builds render thick, medium and thin as thinner than in/with IE 7.

Testcase:

http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/CSS1/20070302/sec5515.htm

There is nothing in the CSS 2.1 spec which specifies the pixel size of thick, medium and thin. Only that thick > medium > thin .

Also, the pixel size of thick, medium and thin border-width now matches Firefox's rendering (pixel size) and Opera's rendering (pixel size).

Regards, Gérard

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

EricLaw [MSFT] — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:27:08 GMT

@Gerard: I spoke to the dev team and they confirmed that the border width change for IE8 standards mode was deliberate.

Specifically, our developer noted:

"All other standards browsers use the same thickness for ‘medium’. We chose to go with the majority when in standards mode (although as noted, the standard does not define a specific size for thin/medium/thick)."

re: New Accessibility Features in IE8

Gérard Talbot — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:22:57 GMT

Perfect!

Season's Greetings to the IE team,

Gérard

Accessibility: Improved ARIA Support in the IE8 RC

IEBlog — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:46:38 GMT

Hi, my name is Tony Ross and I’m one of the Program Managers for Internet Explorer. As JP mentioned in

Internet Explorer 8의 새로운 사용자 보조 기능

IE8 팀 블로그 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:59:49 GMT

업데이트 일자: 2008 년 12 월 11 일 이 글은 Internet Explorer 개발 팀 블로그 (영어)의 번역 문서입니다. 이 글에 포함된 정보는 Internet Explorer

Why Internet Explorer 8 disappoints web developers

WOMBAT — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:23:18 GMT

Why Internet Explorer 8 disappoints web developers

Intergen, Buttercups and Silverlight Accessibility.

Nigel Parker's Outside Line — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:29:42 GMT

It seems fitting with Coldplay being in Auckland last week and Yellow producing a custom version of IE8