Further Reading for Internet Explorer 8

The Internet Explorer 8 team have been busy - not just preparing the final release of the version 8 browser, but busy writing some very useful articles for CoDe Magazine detailing exactly what’s new in Internet Explorer 8 and what it means for us web developers. The following articles are well worth a read:

• What’s New in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2?
• Making Your Web site Compatible Across Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer
• Introducing Compatibility View
• Create Your Own Web Slices
• Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
• Developer Tools in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
• Better AJAX Development with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
• AJAX Performance Measurement Methodology for Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
• Performance Improvements in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
• Secure Coding with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

As you may already know, Microsoft are hard at work on a new version of Internet Explorer (IE8). After years of frustration from web developers world-wide it seems the new browser will finally adhere to standards as much as the opposition’s browsers do.

Recently, Internet Explorer 8 passed the Acid2 test, a test web page written by the Web Standards Project (WaSP) to help browser creators ensure proper support for web standards. Other browsers to have passed the test include Opera 9 and Firefox 3 (not yet available).

Today Microsoft have announced that Internet Explorer 8 will offer both interoperability with web standards, and backwards compatibility with websites built for older versions of Internet Explorer.

The idea behind this is that has become unfair for web developers to have to change a website’s HTML and CSS code to work with the latest version of Internet Explorer, when with previous versions the site had worked fine. When Internet Explorer 7 was released many, many sites broke and many, many web developers found themselves scrambling to try and fix them immediately. Similarly, it was becoming a longer and longer job as many web developers now find them having to support IE 5.5, 6 and 7, as well as Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Working with WaSP, Microsoft have come to the conclusion that a web developer should be allowed to tell Internet Explorer how to render a page, whether to render in ‘backwards compatibility’ mode or use IE8’s standards compliant mode. If you want the former, no changes are required. If you wish for the latter, a single line in your HTML code will construct this setting, with the following setting your website to be rendered in IE8 mode.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

If you’re feeling really brave and want your website to always use the latest browser, you could try living on the edge:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />

In some ways, this new mode seems like a kick in the teeth to moving toward a world where browsers are compliant with standards, as everyone will initially just make IE8 render their sites in IE7 mode. But it actually means the job of making your previously perfect website work in every browser is no longer an extended task every time a new browser is released. And hopefully from there on, on new sites web developers will be mindful of the new practices of IE8 and future browsers.

For once, Microsoft have been mindful of the poor web developer in making this change. Thank you to the IE team!