IE9 has been released | Hacker News Reader

IE9 has been released

beautyoftheweb.com

65 pointsmelling46 comments

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Just a little reminder:

> Let me just list some of the stuff IE9 doesn't support:

* Application Cache (offline)

* Web Workers (threads in JavaScript)

* HTML5 Forms (validation mechanism, CSS3 selectors)

* JavaScript Strict Mode

* ForeignObject (embed external content in SVG)

* SMIL Animations (SVG animations)

* File API

* WebGL (3D)

* CSS3 Transitions (for animations)

* CSS3 Text Shadow

* CSS3 Gradients

* CSS3 Border Image

* CSS3 Flex box model

* ClassList APIs

* FormData

* HTML5 History API

* Drag'n Drop from Desktop

...

> Let me list stuff that IE9 can do others don't:

* text-overflow doesn't work in Firefox 4.

* Calc is not supported in Chrome 9.

> So that's why I don't consider IE9 a Modern Browser.

Source: http://people.mozilla.com/~prouget/ie9/

Is spell checking in IE9 now, or is this feature that's been standard in other browsers for about 5 years now not considered cool enough to even mention its glaring absence from IE in this (admittedly non-comprehensive) list?

It does not have a spell checker. The Microsoft Connect issue for this (with 40+ duplicate suggestions) that's closed as "By Design" is: https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/598257/spe...

it drives me nuts that I still have to write IE specific CSS.

You don't have to, you just need to find a market with better users (or go into the mobile sphere, where there are really only two browsers).

Or give up on the idea that everybody has to see you page in exactly the same way - as long as it works and isn't totally broken, who cares?

Exactly. When I'm doing something that I'd like to be pixel perfect (or have a clever layout by some other measure) my current priories are:

1. works perfectly as intended in Firefox and Chrome at reasonable window sizes (this usually means it should in other reasonably compliant browsers too)

2. degrades gracefully (i.e. some display discrepancies but no behavioural problems or illogical on-screen layout that inhibit viewing/use of the content) in other browsers (including IE8), and/or when pressed into a very small viewport (such as on a mobile device, though obviously some content is never going to be particularly usable at QVGA resolutions)

3. try not to do anything that will break the design on IE6, but no care overly if that does happen (and give users a warning that it might at the top of each page: the one IE specific CSS hack I use is one to make that message display to IE6 users)

True, most of the time I really don't have to worry about IE. Occasionally, though, I'll have a job with 40%+ IE visitors. Those times, I really have to make things look right, and it's always something hacky.

Does it also drive you nuts that you have to write FF-specific CSS and Chrome-specific CSS.

If not, why not?

There are still lots of browsers out there, and they all work in slightly different ways. It's been this way since Netscape came out and was different from Mosaic. It'll continue to be this way until one browser dominates to the point where others go away.

Personally, I'm rooting for Chrome. Like you, I get tired of having to cross-tweak my code. But realistically I find I spend more of my time these days working around FF issues than IE ones.

Its becoming a pretty common practice to charge extra for IE6 support. If you hate IE that much its always an option to charge for the full gamut, but don't act surprised when the phone stops ringing as much ;)

On a serious note, IE has always been a challenge for front end dev, but its at least up front about its lack of support. Chrome, FF and Safari will sometimes have a minor margin bug that will drive me more insane then the expected behavior of IE.

Stop write -o -moz -webkit in yours, too.

Are any of those things an actual standards? There is plenty of CSS that you need to write specifically for Chrome and Firefox.

The standard is defined by what browsers implement. Thus Microsoft is keeping the standard back.

That's OK, consider Javascript Web Workers; apps will be able to run without direct support, but on capable browsers will get a performance boost. That's fine by me, more reasons for people to upgrade from IExplorer.

Yeah, but... not even text-shadow and gradients? Come on, IE :(

I was hoping the text on my site was going to look proper in IE9. What the heck is this?

Anyone here from MS care to explain why they continue to hold back the web and make us front end engineers work harder? Uggghh...

> Anyone here from MS care to explain why they continue to hold back the web

I am not from MS, but I can explain.

Most of their money comes, directly and indirectly, from selling Windows and Office licenses. Making the web functional enough that it would compete with desktop apps would lessen their lock-in and reduce their future revenue. IE has been, since its very first release, designed to fragment the web and to prevent it from becoming a viable applications platform. It and its matching development tools are designed to lure companies into writing IE-specific code, locking themselves into Microsoft ecosystem. That's why they are having difficulties getting rid of IE 6 and XP - it worked too well.

I am sure you were expecting their PR spin on this ;-) I am curious about what would it be.

This argument has always baffled me.

First, don't attribute to malice what could better be explained by incompetence.

Second, isn't Ajax the most fundamental usability feature that allows web apps to compete with desktop apps?

And who created the XMLHttpRequest object?

Exactly.

> Anyone here from MS care to explain why they continue to hold back the web and make us front end engineers work harder?

Web sockets. Consider for a moment the issue with web sockets, and how the implementation was wrong, despite being put into browsers. Browsers had support for web sockets, and developers were developing for it. That obviously changed rather quickly.

Microsoft's idea is not to support things before they are relatively stable and supportable. Basically, their idea is if they put something into IE9, they aren't removing support.

That doesn't mean they aren't working on new features, nor are they preventing developers from adding it to their version of IE9 to test out the technologies. They call this "Site Ready". Basically, they feel the technology is ready for end users.

Now, I'm merely providing the information they are providing to developers. Do not argue with me.

It pains me that I have to hack for IE f'n 9 -- their best browser to date.

Text-shadow and gradients would move design ahead in a good way. At least there are hacks, ms-filter cruft for text shadow and svg for gradients

  Are any of those things an actual standards?

Well, depends how do you define "actual standards". But pretty much yes, there is an big effort to have this consistent across browsers. Links to some:

  > * Application Cache (offline)

http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/

  > * Web Workers (threads in JavaScript)

http://www.w3.org/TR/workers/

  > * HTML5 Forms (validation mechanism, CSS3 selectors)

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/association-of-controls-and-forms...

  > * File API

http://www.w3.org/TR/FileAPI/

  > * WebGL (3D)

http://www.khronos.org/registry/webgl/specs/latest/

  > * CSS3 Transitions (for animations)

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-transitions/

  > * CSS3 Text Shadow

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#text-shadow

  > * CSS3 Gradients

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-images/#gradients

  > * CSS3 Border Image

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-background/#border-images

  > * CSS3 Flex box model

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-flexbox/

  > * ClassList APIs

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/common-dom-interfaces.html#common...

  > * FormData

http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest2/#the-formdata-interface

  > * HTML5 History API

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/history.html#the-history-interfac...

  > * Drag'n Drop from Desktop

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/dnd.html#dnd

IE9 HTML Labs site for experimental features.

http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/

Exactly. I don't see how many people can be excited about IE9. No CSS3 Transitions? Come on thats my FAVORITE part of CSS3!

and that's a very convincing reason to support it in a browser

UI feedback is very important to a well rounded user experience. CSS3 transitions will be a big part of UI design in the future. Just how far off that future is... I'm guessing around IE11, maybe IE12.

too bad it doesn't support css3 gradients -- hopefully the IE6 gradient hacks will still work.

As far as I can tell (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/08/17/ie9-opacity-an... for example), IE9 in IE9 standards mode supports neither filters nor VML. I hope I’m not too optimistic in thinking that its SVG support should be good enough to use that as a workaround.

They are using it for their own gradients:

background-image: url(http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/assets/images/layout/glass-pan...);

Awkward workaround.

Last I checked (6 months ago), cufon was broken due to VML.

EDIT: Fixed cufon-side, probably the day after I last checked. Oops.

The site has a commented out css file for Twitter's widget http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets and its code in the minified js file, it seems they chickened out on displaying realtime tweets about IE9.

Sorry, you seem to have hit Submit a little too fast. I believe you were about to explain why it's a good thing to unconditionally endorse realtime, unmoderated comments on your product's selling page. Take your time, I'll wait.

Perhaps you ought to hone your reading skills: I'm speculating Microsoft considered it seriously enough to put it in code, not that it was a good idea.

Obviously, in Microsoft case, having real-time, unmoderated and public user feedback is a horrible idea. They can use a bayesian filter and only show favorable tweets.

Well, I'd say it's a fantastic idea... if you make a good product. If you make a third rate product however, it's suicide.

"Unleashed" is probably a better word for what just happened.

I can't begin to tell you how much happy I am by the fact that IE9 has been released and I don't freaking care, it doesn't affect my work at all and I don't have to support it or even look at it anymore.

I'm sorry for my fellow devs that still have to mantain Internet Explorer, I hope you can at least share my happiness vicariously.

Does this behemoth auto update like Chrome? If it did, it would calm me down a tiny bit. The absence of gradient and text shadow is really screwy.

No, it will not.

I’m more interested in their roadmap. Is there one? What are the plans for IE10, when will it be released? Do they want to take another half-a-decade sabbatical?

> What are the plans for IE10, when will it be released?

It will be announced the moment they feel threatened again by web-based cross-platform applications and/or migrations to non-Microsoft browsers. It will be released in time to increase web standard fragmentation.

I'm not a Windows users but I hope that IE9 gets enough buzz that people feel that they need to have it. Hard to believe that (almost) more people could be running IE9 by the end of the year than users of Firefox and Chrome combined.

I'm not sure where you get this number from. Given that Windows XP users aren't able to migrate to IE9 without upgrading their OS, I think we'll see the transition from IE<9 -> IE9 to be as slow as IE<7 -> IE7.

That's going to be tricky - they would have to get nearly all IE6/7/8 users updated, and reverse Chrome's growth and convert back a number of Firefox and Chrome users, if they want to IE9 to outnumber Firefox+Chrome. See http://gs.statcounter.com/

I don't think FF has 30% market share. I used these numbers.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0

Vista and Win7 have about 30%, and it will grow because you can't buy XP.

The good thing about the statcounter site is you can narrow by geopgraphic area for free. If you do that you'll see that a big bunch of IE use is in China, where it doesn't matter if you can't buy XP any more because most of them didn't buy it even when you could. Here's their OS breakdown for China:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-CN-monthly-201003-201102

Though interestingly, since the last time I looked, IE8 has been on a tear in China, nearly catching IE6. I wonder what caused that:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-CN-monthly-201003...

Overall I think it's more realistic to expect Chrome, Firefox and IE (all versions) to be basically sharing the global market 3 ways by the end of the year, which is somewhat different from your prediction of IE9 equalling Firefox and Chrome. I guess we'll see soon enough.

:( Damn, I'm still on XP at work and XP on my laptop at home. At work my boss won't shell out for anything new. At home my laptop doesn't have drivers for Vista or Win7 :( I'm now one of those people everyone hates for holding the internet back!

(Not really - lol - I got Firefox installed up the wazoo!)

Congrats to the ie9 team. Now it's time to learn a whole new set of ie hacks.

At least now IE supports border-radius.

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