Chris Wilson: If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple <meta> element. Aaron gives more details on this in his article.
Aaron Gustafson: This option, though strongly discouraged, will cause a site to target the latest IE browser versions as they release.
My basic problem is that I don’t know what features are in and out of IE8 or when it will be released. I don’t even have access to a simple screenshot.
I simply want to code to standards, and hope that Microsoft will keep up as best of their ability. Accordingly, I’ve implemented the following in my .htaccess file:
BrowserMatch MSIE best-standards-support
Header set X-UA-Compatible IE=edge env=best-standards-support
Update: Upon further reflection, I now have some questions:
What is MySpace supposed to do? Users copy/paste input into text areas and the result is wrapped in a template. Multiply this question by all of the sites (Blogger, WordPress, etc.) that do similarly.
How does this affect feed aggregators? Use xhtml:meta as extension elements? How are planet / river of news aggregators supposed to cope?
Btw, if you want CSS rules to apply to unknown elements in IE, you just have to do document.createElement(elementName). This somehow lets the CSS engine know that elements with that name exist.
Hmmm. Trading off cache efficiency for consistent rendering in IE. Tough call. For now, I’ll leave it as is as there are no released browsers that support this. Eventually, I may have to send the header unconditionally. I just hope that every browser vendor doesn’t feel entitled to create headers such as this.
Julian Reschke: as a second thought, since there is indeed a BrowserMatch combined with the env parameter of Header, there should be a Vary: User-Agent in the HTTP headers. Otherwise, there is a risk that some Internet Explorer clients may receive from a cache a version without this X-UA-Compatible header (if it was first requested by a non-IE client).
But if one decide to use this feature, is it interesting to send this X-UA-Compatible only to IE clients? IMHO, there would be less harm in sending this header to any client, than to send it to IE only and reduce caching efficiency.
This is ridiculous. This is the bobbing head bird with the glass of water. Yes, Microsoft. Indeed, Microsoft. Whatever you want, Microsoft.
If you want to code to standards, code to standards. Either IE does it right, without these little embellishments, or it doesn’t and people will eventually realize that IE is Bad.
I cannot believe how many people are following along on this one. We’re adding crap to our pages purely because Microsoft screwed up.
Com o IE8 vindo por aí, com um renderizador completamente novo, é óbvio que uma das maiores preocupações dos desenvolvedores é o quanto essas mudanças vão ajudar–ou atrapalhar–a criação de novos sites e aplicativos e como fica a questão...
I was astonished to read the A List Apart article Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 and even more astonished to read compliance with the message from Eric Meyer, Molly Holzschlag, and the WaSP organization. How the mighty...
If you want CSS rules to apply to unknown elements in IE, you just have to do document.createElement(elementName). This somehow lets the CSS engine know that elements with that name exist. - Sjoerd Visscher...
If you want compatibility to work well in IE8 and lower, then it is time to get to know the X-UA-Compatible header. This is according to Chris Wilson in his post on compatibility and IE8. He links to Aaron Gustafson’s new article on the issue, and...
One of the things that worries me about the proposed implementation (this has nothing to do with the actual idea itself, for which I have my own opinion, and which I will not rehash here) is the precedence of HTTP headers versus META tags. The ALA article states that, “For example, it is possible to set a baseline lock on a whole site using the header method and then override that header on individual pages, as needed, using the meta element.” This is simply not how it works for other HTTP headers; the Content-type/encoding header is one that particularly pops into mind. For this header, the HTTP header takes precedence over META; the reason for this decision is to prevent the browser from having to parse the document until the META section, find out the document is in a different encoding, throw out the parse tree, and start again. X-UA-Compatible completely reverses this, and will add more confusion to an already muddled situation with Content-type (a lot of websites serve HTTP headers that contradict their page’s meta parameters).
Sam, your specific concerns have to do with HTML fragments that need to be remixed outside of the original document. I’d say, “Forget about it!” This would mean Internet Explorer would need to support multiple engines for one page, which compounds what already seems to be a formidable maintenance problem. Additional, practical considerations dictate content inside these fragments likely would not care too much about the rendering engine (MySpace might be a formidable exception, but RSS feeds certainly shouldn’t need to worry about it).
The web is bustling with dialog about IE8’s proposed behaviors for selecting the engine that should render a page. Sam Ruby proposed a simple .htaccess addition that would make the added complexity disappear. And while the use of the “IE=edge”......
Ronaldo Ferraz - IE8 e Compatibilidade: Em última instância, a mudança demonstra um interesse por parte da Microsoft em lidar com problemas de compatibilidade e não fazer com que tudo pare de funcionar quando uma nova versão do IE sair. Nesse ponto,...
The web is bustling with dialog about IE8’s proposed behaviors for selecting the engine that should render a page. Sam Ruby proposed a simple .htaccess addition that would make the added complexity disappear. And while the use of the “IE=edge”......
My suggestion would be for IE8 to (in addition) add application/xhtml+xml to it’s accept-type header, and use the latest and greatest rendering engine for this mime-type by unchangeable default.
First read this (although you probably have already): Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 Then take a look at these: Broken (If you only read one of these, make it this one) From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s...
Shelley - it’s easy to code to standards when you design a new website. What if you’re the webmaster of a 10,000 page dynamic website that’s been going for 5 years, are you supposed to fix it all so it works in the latest, standards-compliant browser? The IEBlog mentions how IE7 broke half of the top 100 websites. Coding workarounds is painful, but I can’t imagine how much more painful it must be to fix existing implementations.
Sam - considering most MySpace is coded by novices for people who know nothing about HTML, and consequently, most MySpace profile pages with third party templates look absolutely atrocious or simply don’t work at all in standards compliant browsers, I fail to see why this is a problem ;) Your point about mashups is more valid. Shouldn’t mashups communicate with XML then format the content on the “mashing” server, though? I thought that was what web services were all about...
There were several announcements yesterday. First: The W3C finally got around to publishing one of the drafts of the HTML5 spec as a “first public working draft” (a misnomer if ever there was one, given the history of HTML5). This is news for one...
Dave, you actually make the best point of having the switch Microsoft has proposed, but in inverse. If you have an old web site that relies on rendering bugs in Internet Explorer 6 or even 7, that’s a problem between you and Microsoft. So you and Microsoft should find a solution. The solution can be a switch like this, but instead of using it to opt in to standards, it should be used to opt out.
Instead of fixing each and every one of those 10.000 web pages to actually follow web standards, you can add whatever Microsoft wants you to add to say “these pages are unfortunately targeted at Internet Explorer version so and so”. That way, Microsoft proves its commitment to web standards by forcing people to opt out instead of in and renders all newly created web pages in standards mode. Now and for all eternity.
After all, those who code for, with and by web standards don’t target a specific rendering engine, so why on earth would they want to add a rendering engine target switch? It makes no sense. Those targeting rendering engines and opting out of following and using web standards should be the ones using such a switch, not everyone else.
Internet Explorer aura un système pour activer leur nouveau modèle de rendu dans sa version 8 sans pour autant que les sites précédents ne cessent d’être aussi “jolis” dessus. Il s’agit d’utiliser une balise meta qui...
deusx : Sam Ruby: Best Standards Support - “Accordingly, I’ve implemented the following in my .htaccess file” Tags : apache ie8 msft standards webdev...
Microsoft’s “Super Standards” Mode: Important Facts
The IEBlog let the world know how you’re going to have to opt in for their third (and counting) rendering mode that IE8 will support. You know, the one that should support CSS2 the way other browsers already do without such a mode. Put the...
Chris Wilson : If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple element. Aaron gives more details on this in his article . I’ve implemented the following in my .htaccess file:...
I am not a fan of targeting browser versions. Nor am I a fan of the “opt-out” proposal. I am also unhappy about the idea about going back and adding a new meta element to every site I have done. It seems many others aren’t happy...
Assuming that it’ll be a while before most browsers attempt to implement most of HTML 5 (a perfectly reasonable assumption) we need to start thinking of ways to tackle the creation and rendering of HTML 5 components in the meantime. Obviously, using...
So retroactively targetting old browser engine versions on every website we’ve designed is a better idea somehow? I respectfully disagree. You should never have to change old code to keep up with new updates to the platform you’re writing for. Of course in the real world, backwards compatibility is rarely flawless, but it’s the principle that matters.
At the end of the day it’s about practicalities, which is something some of the standards-at-all-costs people seem to be forgetting. If I run a business, I want the least work for the best outcome.
Changing all of my old websites is not cost effective.
Continuing the nightmare of endless situational hacks, fixes, tweaks and workarounds is also a massive waste of resources.
Adding one meta tag to every new page I add is the simplest, cheapest solution.
Standards are great, idealism has its place, but the bottom line is more important.
Testing for compatibility for each specific browser version for each browser for each web page on the internet and inserting specific annotations recording the results (and thereby possibly changing the results if less popular browsers find that they are in the position of having to implement each others quirks mode) is also not cost effective.
At the end of the day, the conclusion seems to be that somehow Microsoft is special and deserves to handled uniquely. Standards are things everybody else implements. If you want to play with Microsoft, you do so on their terms.
Come prontamente segnalato da Giacomo Dotta, ieri, su Webnews, il W3C ha pubblicato la prima bozza pubblica della specifica HTML 5 . La notizia ha certamente un suo interesse perché il marchio di working draft ufficiale del W3C segna una tappa...
Btw, if you want CSS rules to apply to unknown elements in IE, you just have to do document.createElement(elementName). This somehow lets the CSS engine know that elements with that name exist. This was uttered by Sjoerd Visscher innocently on a...
Ok, the Mozilla blog articles were a lot more informative than a lot of other rants I’ve read about this, and makes some good points. I just wish people wouldn’t always assume everything Microsoft does is to serve their own interests. If the impact of IE 8 rendering in full standards mode on workaround-packed sites is minimal then fair enough. I’m all for interoperability - however I can get it ;)
Microsoft might change the behavior of the “edge” value in the future, so I would guess a big integer (or even a “small” integer > 12) will do the job better?
I cannot think of a week for the Web in all of the years that I have been a Web developer. Let’s go over the highlights. Ten years of Mozilla — I know that this is relatively minor, but it is worth pointing out that it has been 10 years...
There’s been something that cropped up as of late thanks to a comment made by Sjoerd Visscher and expanded on further by John Resig here … it seems that by using document.createElement() for a previously unknown tag makes IE start...
I love it when a plan comes together. Matt Terenzio : “Why we wouldn’t use XMPP as the basis for a decentralized microblogging platform?” XMPP is getting on the scale radar - at last. Dave Winer has picked up on the idea , despite rejecting it...
As usually the problem is with Microsoft keeping us all in the dark with scarcely any information on the features of IE8. Adopting the new switch mechanism in perhaps not a perfect solution but a good temporary one. Of course it would be better if they decided to fully adopt the standards. I’m also curious who and how will store the acronyms of all the user agents (WASP perhaps?)
I’ve read opinions that the switch solution offered by Microsoft is better than chaotic problems with proper pages rendering, but I don’t find it a convincing argument. Accepting something just because the alternative is even worse is not a way we should think. The fact that there are worse ideas and solutions doesn’t make the one proposed by Microsoft more sensible. Let’s face it, full adoption of web standards by IE8 would resolve this issue completely.
Primeiramente, não vou repetir aqui o que já foi dito em milhares de sites por aí, portanto, se quiserem mais informações sobre esse assunto que rolou durante essa semana no mundo dos WebStandards, é bom dar uma olhada...
Selected links related to Semantic Web technologies for the week ending 2008-01-28, all weeks . Also available in RDF as linked data or via GRDDL . In the Media Podcast: Jon Udell interviews Richard Wallis on libraries, the Talis and the Semantic...
My take: On IE8: Pragmatic and practical, but I still don’t like it UPDATES: Microsoft versioning: accessibility implications What Internet Explorer’s change means for accessibility. Best Standards Support Sam Ruby offers a server-side...
Se você é um desenvolvedor antenado já viu a última da Microsoft, não viu? Pois bem, o que você achou disso? Ficou boiando sobre o assunto, dê uma olhada nos seguintes links: A List Apart: Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and...
Current confusion most probably arises from lame Microsoft’s policy of not releasing any specific and detailed information on the features of their new browser, so noone really seems to know how cetrain things will work. And of soure we all tend to be a bit sceptical if they will work correctly (this is IE after all). It seems to me that the switch feature will be good enough to temporarily solve the problem, but eventually Microsoft will have to conform to web standards if they want their browser to be recognized by the web deveopers community.
I’m not really convinced by the solution adopting the doctype switch device. It’s ludicurous to believe that older versions of documents can be displayed solely be means of a single rendering mode. Such practice was applied to older versions of Word documetns and nothing good came out of it (you can read about here: [link] ). Why won’t they simply conform to the web standards?
One positive side-effect of the recent sugar storm surrounding the announcement that IE8 will, as things stand, require developers to opt in to its new standards mode is this comment by Sjoerd Visscher , which I read several days ago but have been...
Via Sam Ruby, we are pointed to this in the comments at Intertwingly: Btw, if you want CSS rules to apply to unknown elements in IE, you just have to do document.createElement(elementName). This somehow lets the CSS engine know that elements with...
There seems to be two camps on how IE8 should behave: MS & Joel: IE8 should be broken in different ways to previous IE releases, but it should nearly work on IE specific sites. Everyone else: It should be standards compliant, if sites built to work...
Two days ago I posted what I thought was just a little tip on the weblog of Sam Ruby . He was trying to style the new elements from HTML5 in Internet Explorer. Here at Xopus we have known for several years (since about 2002 or 2003) that you have...
Оказывается, есть немного кривой, но способ заставить IE показывать незнакомые ему теги в глобальном namespace ! В частности, это поможет уже сейчас использовать семантические теги из HTML5. Решение основано на интересном хаке : Btw, if you want CSS...
Let’s kick this year off with a prediction: by the end of 2009, you will be writing HTML 5. To break the ice and lead the way, I have converted this site to HTML 5. Read on for some useful resources to get you started....
Safari 4 went public beta today, and its site is in HTML5. Welcome to the mainstream, , , , , and . Apple uses the document.createElement trick to force IE to start accepting them as stylable container elements. (This was apparently discovered just...
Jesper’s beat me to the punch, but the headline says it all. To supporters of HTML5, the most important part of Safari 4 is the first line of it’s official web site: <!DOCTYPE html> It uses a trick with document.createElement to...
The world of the web is changing, perhaps more now than ever. With vast numbers of people now regularly online the web is no longer the province of geeks and academics, but a valuable part of everyday life for many. So it stands to reason that the...
You can also add the <meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=edge” /> edge value to your http headers by adding it to your .htaccess files like this: BrowserMatch MSIE best-standards-support Header set X-UA-Compatible IE=edge...
HTML5 may be the latest and greatest technology, but some browsers don’t have native support for the new semantic elements. Let’s forget for a minute about the even sexier functionality that the elements can bring, such as full control...
Disfruta de HTML5 en Internet Explorer y Firefox 2
Aunque el HTML5 está lejos, la gente ya está empezando a desarrollar cosillas usando sus nuevas capacidades. Y es que cada vez más los navegadores lo están adoptando, aunque aún es muy pronto para poder usarlo libremente sin preocuparnos de...