Dare Obasanjo - Is Microsoft supporting XML standards?

It would be really nice if the adherence to standards would extend to things like css in IE. I'm also not convinced by the argument about "different customers"; I can't see how people would actually want products that have incomplete or broken implementations of standards, given a choice. I think Dare's example about implementing support for negative regex expressions is a good one - it's nice to know that people are at least trying to support some parts of some of the standards.

If I may, I'd like to see tabbed browser support, revert to "true" error reporting on unsuccessful page requests, and syntax highlighting when choosing "View Source".

My thinking behind them would be to have tabs like MyIE2 or Firefox has.  This would include the ability to save current open tabs in case of a forced reboot or something similar.

I believe it was IE5 that did away with showing a "real" error when pages were unsuccessfully loaded (i.e., a hostname not resolving, page timeout, etc).  Coming from the support side of things, nothing is as useless as receiving a report that a user simply got a "Page cannot be displayed" message.  Even using IE myself to troubleshoot problems forces me to be on my toes when requested a page.  I think some of it was done to make it more for the general type of user like the "Show friendly HTTP error messages" box that is enabled by default.  Maybe there could be a way to return both a less technical response with a javascript method for displaying a more technical reason for the error.  I'm picturing it being displayed similarly to the MS security bulletins that give both the general roundup of the problem as well as the technical details for those inclined.

I realize that syntax highlighting may be more of a limitation with Notepad itself, but maybe a read-only viewer that accomplished the syntax highlighting would be helpful.

Geoff

If there were three things (be specific) that you'd like the IE team to implement, what would they be?

My (ordered) list would be:

1. Native SVG/MathML, and the requisite namespace-style extensibility mechanism—hopefully compatable with existing implementations like moz. Additional XML schema should be easy to add to the system, perhaps via a managed dll which can be auto-loaded, producing either 'render-engine commands' (ie, MathML rendered internally as css-styled text.) I don't like the idea of plugins. They do not scroll naturally, they can not interact with the content naturally (dom), and they flicker when starting up—just like java applets. They should draw right to the same canvas <em/> and <h1/>, etc. do. Such a thing would be a wet-dream for web developers. Using SVG for rounded corners, fancy borders, background watermarks, logos, and so on would save billions of dollars in bandwidth for the world when critical mass is achieved—and look good to boot.
   
2.  A central website/blog about everything wrong with IE (bugs, security, render problems, feature requests), richly cross linked with relevant patches and KB articles. MSN alerts and/or RSS delivered whenever a new patch is available. The infrastructure is there...
3. 'Full' CSS2(.1) support, and maybe some CSS3 (not sure on its status). At least for xhtml doctypes… break the old 'IE hacks' if need be (what a wonderful problem to have, removing hacks). I know the standard is not fully sane, but anything is better than the current situation.
   

I have more in one of my old blog entries, but many of them are special cases of the above big three. I would add a close fourth though: the same version should be rammed down windows update to everyone with winxp/2k or above.
Wouldn't that be nice!

Ready to lose weight? Tired of wasting money on fat loss diets that don't work? Try fat loss 4 idiots and start losing fat today. Fat Loss 4 Idiots is the top rated fat loss diet on the internet. Fat Loss 4 Idiots has helped people all over the world lose weight. So if you are serious about losing weight, it's time you try the Fat Loss 4 Idiots diet right away.........