When will we see features that Internet Explorer lacks in Internet Explorer? | The Coffeehouse

Jazzynupe

Aardvark wrote:
I Just want the damn thing to print web pages w/o cutting off a characters on the right. Maybe some type of scaling?

That does irk me too...

Since some of the standards (xhtml 1 & 1.1 particularly) have been recomendations for awhile, I think it is about time they were added. I mean do something like every 2 to 5 years update the browser engine to support the latest recomendations at the time. Maybe even add a few that are close to being ratified. That way, we know the browser will move forward, but not so fast that is takes all of Microsoft's time.

dalangalma

I'm simply irked that Microsoft can just abandon what is arguably their most popular application, after getting it to 90% market share. They have a responsibility to keep it updated, because for most people, moving to Firefox isn't a choice, either because they don't control the computer they're using, or because they don't know Firefox exists. For a company that's ostensibly so invested in the web (and they have to be - the web is important whether they like it or not), to abandon their _web browser_ is crazy. They're singlehandedly holding back the development of the whole web by not keeping IE fresh. I just... expect better of Microsoft.

Shining Arcanine

dalangalma wrote:
I'm simply irked that Microsoft can just abandon what is arguably their most popular application, after getting it to 90% market share. They have a responsibility to keep it updated, because for most people, moving to Firefox isn't a choice, either because they don't control the computer they're using, or because they don't know Firefox exists. For a company that's ostensibly so invested in the web (and they have to be - the web is important whether they like it or not), to abandon their _web browser_ is crazy. They're singlehandedly holding back the development of the whole web by not keeping IE fresh. I just... expect better of Microsoft.

IE is 2nd in popularity only to Windows and I expect better from Microsoft as well.

Imagine what would happen if someone was to mention this to the US Department of Justice... They would probably reopen the Antitrust lawsuit.

Richie
Richie

The easy way for them to implement standards compliance is to include Mozilla (Firefox) with the operating system. Then have IE configued to hand over the web pages to mozilla whenever an xhtml 1.1 web page is served (correctly) as application/xhtml ! ! ! The web can only then move to xhtml 1.1 and find harmony. Wink

ALL THE WORK HAS BEEN DONE.... NO EXCUSES ! ! ! (even the bean counters should like this one) MS can still have their precious IE in the OS for software upgrade and all those other propritary 'features' or however you'd like to characterize them... Thanks Rich

Shining Arcanine

Richie wrote:
The easy way for them to implement standards compliance is to include Mozilla (Firefox) with the operating system. Then have IE configued to hand over the web pages to mozilla whenever an xhtml 1.1 web page is served (correctly) as application/xhtml ! ! ! The web can only then move to xhtml 1.1 and find harmony. ALL THE WORK HAS BEEN DONE.... NO EXCUSES ! ! ! (even the bean counters should like this one) MS can still have their precious IE in the OS for software upgrade and all those other propritary 'features' or however you'd like to characterize them... Thanks Rich

That would be a hack and I would think Microsoft strictly prohibits its developers to use hacks.

Richie
Richie

Shining Arcanine wrote:

That would be a hack and I would think Microsoft strictly prohibits its developers to use hacks.

Nope it is NOT a hack... it's NO DIFFERENT than a PDF file is handed off to Adobe ! ! !

I've done this before... IE can be set to hand off application/xhtml (which is by NO means a hack) to Firefox.

WHERE IS THE HACK? ? ? ?

Thanks...

Rich

I did this last year when my web pages were on AT&T Worldnet and I asked them to serve *.xhtml as application/xhtml It works... and as I said before...

NO EXCUSES ! ! !

Richie
Richie

I just thought of the answer to my question...

"WHERE IS THE HACK? ? ? ?"

The hack is W3C's Appendix C...

Which is to say... ALL THE XHTML 1.0 pages on the web now are served as text/html ! ! ! ! !

They should ALL be served as application/xhtml but of course we can't because IE will NOT render them. It will just display the source code ! ! ! ! (talk about brain dead) Wink

Thanks

Rich

vanlandw

I would like to see tabbed browsing...default popup blocker....active x installers obliterated completly...and tighter security from spyware.

dalangalma

First, I just want everyone to keep in mind that popup blocking and spyware/security control is already in IE for Service Pack 2.

Also, while I'd love to see Microsoft just move over to the gecko renderer, it's not going to happen. Microsoft can't support it, and thus can't provide it. Richie's example about PDFs is dead on - Windows dosen't come with Acrobat Reader.

Shining Arcanine

dalangalma wrote:
First, I just want everyone to keep in mind that popup blocking and spyware/security control is already in IE for Service Pack 2.

Also, while I'd love to see Microsoft just move over to the gecko renderer, it's not going to happen. Microsoft can't support it, and thus can't provide it. Richie's example about PDFs is dead on - Windows dosen't come with Acrobat Reader.

I don't believe that there is anything wrong with the Mosaic engine, excluding the fact that it needs standards support which I believe can be put into it.

dalangalma

Hmm, I certainly don't disagree... What I meant was that if they just replaced IE's engine with Mozilla's (gecko), they would have to support that component (as in, when it breaks, they need to fix it), and they wouldn't want to do that for an OSS app.

DMassy
Driving!

The Group Program Manager of Internet Explorer just left my office and he's promised that he and his team will respond here on Channel 9 to the several threads in this forum.
We are well aware of the issues in this area and believe me we are not ignoring the feedback that we have heard over the past year or so. The Internet Explorer team has been focused on security issues as a priority and we believe you'll see some good results in that area with Windows XP SP2 this summer.

I can't really speak for the IE team but I will admit that one of my previous jobs here at Microsoft was as a Program Manager on that team from IE4 to IE6. I can assure you that while the issues might look incredibly simple they are usually anything but. The need to maintain compatibility and not break the rendering on thousands or millions of websites makes for an interesting set of challenges.
I'm using a release candidate of Windows XP SP2 here and the security enhancements in IE are really very good http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx

Taildragger

BTW, one of the SP2 enhancements is a popup blocker, to address a point earlier in this thread.

Kevin Daly
Of course it *looks* like my nick is just my name, but actually, well, it's just my name.

Shining Arcanine wrote:

This was actually supposed to be a feature and not a lack of standards compliance discussion.

There's the rub. Many people (especially web designers) would say don't add any features the standards compliance has been taken care of. Until the renderer is fixed, the browser isn't finished, so it's irresponsible to go adding bells and whistles.

This is very similar to the situation with Netscape at version 4.anything - at that point Netscape really needed to knuckle down and fix their DHTML and CSS support - instead they chose to add endless add-ons that amounted to basically a pair of fluffy dice dangling from the rear-view mirror, while the engine desperately needed attention.

We have moved considerably from the nightmare situation we used to have in terms of having to either support a lowest common denominator or go through hoops with browser detection and multiple versions of code. Now unfortunately it is IE that is dragging the chain, when a desirable destination is just in sight. That's a shame. So please, no more fluffy dice.

jonathanh
My mod color is red

I've started an experimental wiki page for Internet Explorer feedback - more details here

Richie
Richie

dalangalma wrote:
Also, while I'd love to see Microsoft just move over to the gecko renderer, it's not going to happen. Microsoft can't support it, and thus can't provide it. Richie's example about PDFs is dead on - Windows dosen't come with Acrobat Reader.

I'm not saying MS should MOVE to the gecko renderer per se... I'd just like to see them include a version of Firefox in all their OS's and OS updates and default IE to hand off the web pages to Firefox wheneverpages are served to IE as application/xhtml. This would allow us (the web) to move on to xhtml 1.1 and have *.xhtml served and used correctly.

BTW, xhtml 1.0 in all it's forms could be served as application/xhtml rather than the text/html of appendix C as *.xhtml files. So we would still have all our choices and we (the global community) have a future... NOW ! ! ! The work has been done it all works TODAY... LAST YEAR... I've done it. But... a web community of one is lonely. Wink

Welcome... to the future.

If I were Microsoft I would absolutely NOT want to remove IE or modify it for better standards compliance because it wouldn't fit how Microsoft is using IE at all.

I'm saying draw a line in the sand and move on to the future (XHTML 1.1... and beyond)

Microsoft is perfectly able to create their own NEW standards compliant renderer exspecially if NOT burdened with all that IE baggage.

Thanks

Rich

Eurasian
A mysterious smirk...an epiphany perhaps?

Aidan - powerful functionality like VML? You must be kidding, that puppy was orphaned long ago inside MSFT.

As many have stated, I too believe MSFT would make the IE community happy is to implement W3C standards, like SVG. Unfortunately, as is often the case, their agenda comes first - so to set my own expectations properly, I don't expect this miracle to occur.

By the way, SVG is gaining tremendous traction - Adobe especially embracing it - I would like to hear opinions about when, if ever, MSFT will make it native to IE as they have unfortunately with their homebrew non-W3C variant, VML.

SVG thoughts from the peanut gallery???

prog_dotnet

And we need a security push.
When running IE in admin mode, all code executed by the browser has full contorl over the system (admin rights) You can use the secondary logon/run as service, but how many non geeks use that feature, not to mention coders and admins that browse with admin rights cuz its easier. IE should run by default with a service account with minimal privilegies. When you need to access the configuration (internet options)a msg box will pop up, asking you for proper credentials, or a security code. The latter can be included in the auto complete feature. By using such a procedure, one can seperate the user mode from the configuration mode, and any irregular attemt to change the system, will be futile/unsuccesful.

By the way, have already added it to the http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerFeatureRequests

TonyCh
Cheers!

This thread illustrates some of the challenges we face on the IE team wrt adding new features -- everyone wants something different.

While I can't comment on specific features in upcoming browsers, you'll see from my post in the IE Stds thread, that I like talking about the principles by which we make decisions. I'd love to hear if you think these are the right principles since the individual features won't add up to much if you don't buy into the goals.

So, in no particular order, here's a set of goals that I'm using to lead our planning for the version of IE. They're draft right now, so fire away.

Keep users secure. This is a combination of below-the-cover changes and features to help users make informed decisions.
Provide the best-of-breed web browsing experience, both for general browsing and around key scenarios (this could be tasks like email or modes like anonymous browsing or offline/online.)
Innovate the platform. Provide the developers with the best way to build and deploy their applications.

In practice, the next release will be a combination of these goals. I admit the points are squishy still, especially the last one. In any case, let me know what you think.

warren
atom heart mother

TonyCh wrote:
Innovate the platform. Provide the developers with the best way to build and deploy their applications.

My opinion...

Web site developers are less interested in whiz-bang features, than they are in being able to develop their sites quickly, effectively, and in a fashion that creates consistent results across multiple browsers and platforms. The quality of the work that web developers do suffers because they have to deal with idiosyncracies and inconsistences, and are forced to fiddle with table layouts, CSS hacks, and significantly longer test cycles.

At the very least, Microsoft should be listening to what web developers have been saying for the last three years about IE 6, in terms of its quirks and bugs, and get all those fixed. I don't mean stuff like CSS3, since that's obviously a big undertaking -- I mean fixes to existing stuff. If you're going to offers a "standards-compliance" mode, in deference to the W3C's published documents, then your implementation of this mode needs to be absolutely solid.

I think we can accept that Microsoft, and the W3C, have differing visions of where markup is going, but not supporting the W3C's vision is a major detrement to Microsoft, and is (after security) the most significant reason why Firewhatever and Mozilla are gaining traction on the Windows platform, when they really shouldn't be.

jamie

There use to be a screenshot at Paul Thurots site
( http://www.winsupersite.com/longhorn/ )

that showed an "Aero version of IE". The screen shot has since been removed ( hmmm..) but what it showed was small graphical representations of the actual websites - in the top right of the new elongated ie menu bar.

So instead of having text based tabs ( like Frontpage has) it showed a mini Google and a mini msn icon ..etc.

That's a WAY better way to do tabs..

Anyone know if that's how it will actually work in Longhorn/Aero?

jamie

TonyCh
Cheers!

I'd be surprised if anyone knows, since I don't yet (and I manage the IE Program Management team) Smiley

. We're still playing with lots of ideas on this front.

I'm glad you liked the shot that you saw. I'm hopeful we can do something even cooler.

TonyCh
Cheers!

Thanks for reply. I think your take is pretty reasonable. As with all IE releases we need to balance the various constituencies. Clearly, devs are important to IE, and I've heard the asks pretty clearly.

However, if you want people running the new IE so you can take advantage of the platform updates, then end users need something attractive to get them to upgrade. I'm guessing most people running Firefox and Mozilla are in it for the end user features at least as much as the platform. That's certainly true for folks running IE-based browsers like MyIE2, AvantBrowser, and iRider since the rendering engine is the same for all of these.

In any case, we need to appeal to many kinds of users in order to be successful. I'm glad to hear your thoughts and welcome more.

Thanks.

Lwatson
One ugly mug...

vazz wrote:
This has been discussed over at Scoble's blog too. But I dont thing anyone in Microsoft is interested in fixing this. The answer will be that if they fix this they will break 1000 other softwares which uses IE's rendering engine. But I dont buy it.

The come up with a new rendering engine in a truely standalone application so you can have a simple place this application is a directory of your choice and run it bu clicking on the icon, Or Download Firefox and start using that instead.

Shining Arcanine

TonyCh wrote:
Thanks for reply. I think your take is pretty reasonable. As with all IE releases we need to balance the various constituencies. Clearly, devs are important to IE, and I've heard the asks pretty clearly.

However, if you want people running the new IE so you can take advantage of the platform updates, then end users need something attractive to get them to upgrade. I'm guessing most people running Firefox and Mozilla are in it for the end user features at least as much as the platform. That's certainly true for folks running IE-based browsers like MyIE2, AvantBrowser, and iRider since the rendering engine is the same for all of these.

In any case, we need to appeal to many kinds of users in order to be successful. I'm glad to hear your thoughts and welcome more.

Thanks.

Regarding Bells and Whistles, I think I can suggest a few things. First off, here are the things that I know are going to be in IE in the future

Download Manager (Longhorn)
Cookie Management (I recall reading a post by someone who doesn't work at Microsoft stating that it would be in Longhorn)
Addon Management (XP SP2)
Popup blocking (XP SP2)
Javascripts won't be able to move things outside of the Window (XP SP2)
Warning Message regarding downloads with cancel set to default (XP SP2)
Always disallow ActiveX control option (I think this is in XP SP2 but I don't recall)

I would have suggested them if I had not known that they were already being added. Here is a list of things that I suggested in the wiki:

Drag 'N Drop Tabbed Browsing (Document Exporer 7.0 has this and in addition, horizontal and vertical tab groups which are really cool and great for managing screen space as changing window sizes I find to be cumbersome, just be sure to add a new tab button or an option when right clicking the tab bar, the lack of that prevented me from using Document Explorer 7.0 for tabbed browsing)
Bit Torrent support (in the Download Manager)

Here are things that other people suggested:

Image/Site Blocker (Have this in the, I'm not sure about the proper term, right click menu)
Find As You Type

I think those are pretty much all of the major Bells and Whistles that IE lacks and would probably lure a good amount of people to the new version.

Edit: I have another feature idea. This is relatively minor but would resolve an annoyance of Internet Explorer. Have an option that will allow people to change the behavior of Internet Explorer so that form data is preserved over over soft refreshes (F5) while hard refeshes (Ctrl + F5) will stay the same. Firefox does it this way by default and prevented me from having to retype quite a bit. I accidentally did a soft refresh half way through typing this post so to say the least I was a bit upset.