Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

I'm not sure what to complain about: IE saving as bmp or that site sending images with a pragma: no-cache header. I think I'll complain about the second .
Thanks for nabbing the IE guys for an interview, Charles!
By the way, here's some markup and CSS that doesn't work right in IE 8 RC1 in EmulateIE7 mode but works in IE 6, IE 7, IE 8 beta 2, and IE 8 RC1 in IE 8 strict mode.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Centered Table</title>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
<style type="text/css">
body, table, td { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; }
body { font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; margin: 1em; }
table { border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px auto; }
td { background: url('https://i2.microsoft.com/en/shared/templates/components/cspMscomMasterNavigation/m.m.nav.png') repeat-x; }
td { border-right: dotted 1px #000; }
td { padding: 0.5em; }
td.nosep { border-right: none; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Windows</td>
<td>Office</td>
<td>Partner & Customer Solutions</td>
<td>Support</td>
<td class="nosep">About Microsoft</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>
The silliest comments I have seen in a long time... If a site says no-cache and IE don’t cache then fine.
Something that always bugged me about browsers such as Firefox was that the rendering of certain elements with CSS would flicker and change with a mouse hover, even when the css had no mention of mouse events. Obviously this was due to the way they managed CSS internally. IE6 and 7 were always the exception to this, if something rendered and you hovered, that's the way it stayed. I was quite worried to see IE8 fall into to this strange habit (admittedly perhaps the CSS was poorly written, but it's not the point, it shouldn't flicker and change once rendered). Could you perhaps explain why IE8 works this way?
Could you post some examples of this flickering?
Hi,
I've got this senario: IE 8RC1 running on Windows XP. In 1 tab I'm on a website (say, channel 9). In a second tab, I'm on Windows Update. When I click the 'Install Updates' in the second tab, a download box appears showing the progress of the download and installation.
However, I can not navigate back to the first tab while this box is still there.
Why can't I leave Windows Update running in one tab and continue my 'browsing experience' in another?
Upgraded to RC1 and now I'm getting prompted for the Adobe FlashPlayer where I previously was not.
I have the flashplayer installed but disabled for all sites other than those I specifically enable it for (because I generally hate flash).
Anyway, I reported it, along with a screenshot of the C9 homepage asking for Adobe Flash to be enabled.
That's because of a script many Microsoft sites use for Flash installation and version detection.
var i,flash; if (window.ActiveXObject){ for(i=10;i>0;i--){ try{ flash=new ActiveXObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash."+i); WT.fi="Yes"; return i+".0"; } catch(e){ } } }
The non-IE branch does this in a better way, querying the navigator's plugins collections to determine which version (if any) of Flash is installed. IE needs a better way for scripts to query if certain ActiveX objects are available. Otherwise, scripts like this will (incorrectly) trigger IE to report that a page uses Flash. The way this script conflates detection with instantiation is ugly.
This is probably one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios. Exposing this collection, even a "safe for scripting and user-enabled only" subset, would just make it easier for those malware (expletive)s.
Mine were not enabled until I had the latest version of live addons. Make sure your addons are upto date, it seems addons will be disabled until they are.
This is a funny bug. I didn't know of this until RoyalSchrubber mentioned it, but now that I know about it, I'm noticing it.
Dean and Jason should not downplay performance. It is important. I like my page to render fast. More and more website are using pretty neat javascript. Live Maps and Google Maps for instance. Zooming and panning loads multiple images, and I want it to work
in a very fast manner. I suspect Google did street view in Flash because javascript in browser just simply isn't fast enough. Chrome really makes live maps fly for me, as does Firefox 3.1 Beta. IE8 is not horrible, but it isn't up to par with the competition.
This is "real life" perception differences. I do not care about numbers, I want my browser to load quickly and scroll smoothly and quickly.
Another example is, scrolling on www.anandtech.com in IE8 is kind of slow at the top with the flash banners, then speeds up as they dissappear off screen. This does not happen in Firefox. I will have to post video of this,
as no one will probably believe me. It is not my computer either, 4GB ram and a QX9650 and all...
I would love to use IE8 as my main browser again, but if sites are going to be noticably choppy to me when scrolling, I simply cannot deal with it when the alternatives provide better performance.
Can any IE7 user print http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_NMR with a normal second and first page?
So IE8 now officially in released crap phase, I have to wonder what on earth I was thinking installing this and going through a system restart for it (When will IE become less entrenched within the Windows OS !!!, I should have known nothing would have really improved since its last beta ...I mean royalscrubbers first comment made laugh just that it was him actually complaining about one of many retarded things to plague the IE browser for years & years.. but your response "We're looking into the issue now. Thanks for pointing it out!" ..what only.. now?
.. I don't think C9 has/DISPLAYS emoticons that could have shown my expression on reading that response.
What about downloading files with IE and on the miss hap that the file isn't fully downloaded and is left corrupted in the IE temp cache.. even as quick work around of restarting the download and renaming the saved targets filename, IE will still get the cached version and copy that to the new location/file-rename.. lol so stupid, having to manually clear browser cache just to get something like that to work. It would make more sense that if the user is wanting to save the file out to a different name it shouldn't use the existing cached file regardless of its filename being the same! Its just stupid by design, but then a lot about Internet Explorer seems to have been left that way for so long or developed at the bare minimum, many other areas of IE downloading that should be improved like file resume support if a cached version wasn't finished, or actually just saving the file directly to its targeted location and not to the cache +then waiting for copying process, a mini download manager isn't required(it would be good) but at least do something to improve things.
And the InPrivate browsing is a bit of a primitive feature its major weakness being a user will always have to go through the same login steps, maybe someday when IE doesn't suck, you might also provide the option of allowing encrypted user profiles (inc
temp /cookie data etc) with the option of providing online roaming profile support(perhaps using Live) to keep a users browser settings/favs/rss feeds/addons/skins(perhaps when IE GUI sucks less) as done in Maxthon2 (really feel sorry for that browser . its
biggest downfall was being built to use the IE engine they should have dumped it years ago and moved on during M2's development tbh.
I guess the only reason I am even bothering to write here is that my default browser is Maxthon and it does unfortunately use the IE engine, despite having Firefox +bucket load of extensions to achieve the same+ more power features I'm accustomed to, it doesn't provide the same experience (better Maxthon addons/ skins) or overall speeds in general workflow usage. I guess I was hoping IE8 engine might have improved general page rendering speeds yet you still lag way behind. You make a point about lab testing performance speeds aren't the deciding factor in a users browser choice (and you're right they aren't, afteral I would dumped Maxthon and this IE engine years ago as I'm sure most web developers would like too as well ) yet after saying that the experience of using IE8/engine isn't better or faster at all, I don't need to see script/css etc benchmarks to feel that this browser still isn't performing as good as other browser engines. Also while I won't attest to using the IE8 browser all that much(its rubbish in so many other ways that even the small improvements like the floating web accelerator and improved address bar features don't at all make a difference) And the delay on opening even a blank tab is silly (even when set to about:blank).. notice the delay when opening a blank tab and it says "Connecting.." lol, does it not know its opening empty tab! (oh it’s an extra useless iexploder.exe being created, great! IE8 GUI and tab support is just terrible, its slower and worse than FF +the many tab addons, even Maxthon classic/2 implements a better tab support in combined features/options and speed using the ie engine, not to mention the IE8 tab options are just plain weak! where are the options to remove the useless [x] close button, I'd imagine a lot of users have mice with middle mouse buttons why not provide a tip, its generally used by all other tabbed document GUIs for closing tabs!... and while i'm on this point as IE is related to how Win7 taskbar usage of the [MMB] on its new crap default iconized noob bar as a way of creating an empty app document/instance. Which I think is just STUPID! its pretty much a standardized thing that in any MDI application with doc/ tab support, has implemented the [MMB] for closing, it’s perfectly suited as a universal option for closing running tasks on the taskbar(especially now that the [RMB] Context menu on the taskbar no longer appears directly next to the mouse position, but instead positioned somewhere above the taskbar.. not only looks crap, workflow wise it’s also lame(like a lot Vista/7 changes !not improvements) ..And how many programs/apps that display on the taskbar would make use of a [MMB] for creating a new document/instance, SOME... Vs. how many would all benefit from a quicker closing down method using the [MMB], the answer is ALL!. Heck there was even demand for an addon for the implementing said feature on the taskbar(taskix), yet you Micronubs go and implement the exact opposite functionality while still as usual providing some piss poor taskbar customizability, let alone anything else that could have been developed like mousewheel support on the taskbar as quicker alternative to use the keyboard methods of switching applications or quicker toggling for that matter!.. but instead we get noob crap!, thanks i'm sure Win7 will be raging success NOT.
Anyway back to IE8, newly created tabs appear at the end of the tab bar?-that is stupid, especially when there is no option to have newly created tabs opened adjacent/right side of the currently opened tab... Session restore (this features implementation just makes me laugh compared to Maxthon's out of all browsers.) And Automatic Crash Recovery... this feature alone says it all about IE, the very fact it is mentioned as feature is shameful, you should be designing browser engine to avoid crashing in the first place (crashie.com just makes me laugh), and if a tab did crash the user should be notified about whether they want the same site url to be opened again!! pff afteral it did just cause a crash! Also multiple iexplorer.exe tab processes in the taskmanager is just annoying, need I just point at the chrome browser for how it should have been done tbh, apart from the main reason being its impossible to see visually (without testing and checking cpu usage,) in Windows still barely improving crap taskmanager which iexplorer.exe process belongs to which tab document.
And why has the Autoscroll feature suddenly becoming an autoscroll_JUMP feature, where it jumps you to the bottom or top of page, you barely have to move the mouse position away ~170px away(that’s NOTHING!).... its about the exact distance I would naturally move my mouse position away from the initial invoked location in an instant of using the [MMB] only now it skips everything on the page, unless you keep within those bounds and put up with a terribly slow scrolling speed(might aswel just forgot autoscrolling and use the mousewheel), you could say desktop resolution(large) and mouse speed effect this and its a per user preference, which means if there was any sense in the implementation of this change, you would have provided the ability to adjust its settings? a reg tweak even? I just hope it isn't a hard coded setting, doing things like that really piss me off.
I'll let you know that out of all other browsers that have implemented autoscroll, IE has surprisingly been the one I have always preferred(perhaps because its always been the same for years & years, and as user of the IE engine have become accustomed to
its scrolling speed/mouse distance, beats using the mousewheel when you're just wanting to skim through,) its also the most directly input responsive autoscroll feature be it in sticky mode or held down, so why after years & years & years & years of leaving
this feature alone do you go and make a change like this? Its just one more thing to put me off the engine now. I mean you slack on not improving the poor autoscroll gfx
(a minor detail, but coupled with everything else also says alot about the LACK of polish IE really has) but to change what might appear to be such a small detail on how it functions. And I know IE has the crappest page rendering performance out of all browsers
you only have to use the autoscroll feature to notice the jitteriness(specially scrolling past animated objects(that also stop animating when scrolling, just compare that to other engines), large resized images! transparency effects, or just going through
heavily designed/content loaded pages etc),sloww... but skipping the entire page contents for a feature that’s meant to scroll past! only a noob would think of that as useful, for anyone else who knew they wanted to get to the bottom of the page contents,
would use mouse gesturing / shift clicking the scrollbar / using the [home]/[end] keys all of which are better suited or just simply scrolling faster!. Please tell me you didn't implement this autoscroll page jumping, as way of saving face on what is still
embarrassing page rendering speeds, coupled with page/css compatibility issues, scripting performance, and a reluctance to further implement up and coming specs. I guess the question is when will IE ever catch up, IE9?
Well thats my harsh words over there are good signs of improvement in IE8 -features & dev tools, just overal not enough at all.
That autoscroll icon does bother me as well. In addition there are some nice advanced features in Firefox that I use on a daily or weekly basis that prove to be useful.
Take for instance this page.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining4.htm
See that beautiful flash animation, I want to see it bigger. I use Firefox's page info to find the direct link put it in the address bar and it is now blown up.
In IE, the only way I can do that is view the source, and assuming I know what the extension is, search for that.
The biggest advantage to Firefox is I can explain to someone how to do that easier in Firefox than in IE. I always get asked "how did you ______".
This is the last time I'm going to try to explain this to you.
This page tries to instantiate Adobe Flash. IE 8 RC1 detects that and assumes that this page needs Flash. It looks in its set of sites that are allowed to instantiate the Adobe Flash ActiveX control and notices that C9 is not one of those. It tells you so and asks if you would like to add C9 to the list of sites that can instantiate the Adobe Flash ActiveX control.
The default policy for which sites are allowed to instantiate which ActiveX controls may have become stricter between IE 8 Beta 2 and IE 8 RC1. Or perhaps IE 8 RC1 just forgot all those permissions you set in IE 8 Beta 2, because the internal data structures used to track such information changed, and they didn't bother to write code to migrate those settings from the Beta 2 format to the RC 1 format.
Click Tools | Manage Add-ons, select the Shockwave Flash ActiveX object, click the More information link, and see which sites have been approved to run the ActiveX object.
That's how it works. There's no mystical "Ajax sites cause Flash not work in IE8" BS going on, ok? Many sites use some Web analytics software (like Microsoft uses WebTrends) that, as part of their analysis, has script to detect which version of Flash your browser has installed. That's what's causing this problem, not a site being an "Ajax site."