Internet Explorer 7

[Vangs]

It has now been fully released, and for all you developers out there who haven't checked your site in it yet, do so NOW! Instead of waiting for people to upgrade their browsers, Microsoft is forcing the upgrade to all Windows XP users by the end of the year, so anyone running Windows XP will have IE 7, which is great because it improves a great deal on the IE6 and under issues! More people will be able to see your site as intended!

Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1

[Blackstone]

ROFL! I just deleted that thing from my computer. Well, the beta one anyways. I just did that yesterday. O.o It was messing up my computer, I couldn't get into Norton Antivirius. x.x

Anyways, they're forcing the upgrade? How can they do that? o.O

I heard somewhere that IE 7 processes web coding a lot differently than 6. Have you heard anything about that?

I guess I should go and download it again... *sighs*

[Vangs]

Just the same as they did with the Service Pack 2, its like a program checking for updates, say for example MSN, whenever the older versions become redundant they force an upgrade.

I'm not too sure what way they'll manage it, but by the New Year anyone who is online with Windows XP should in theory have IE7.

IE7 has fixed alot of the CSS problems of IE6 and under. It has conformed to web standards alot more, although it still isn't quite there. There is one particular thing that bothers me, it seems to anti-alias text, and the option is on by default, so fonts look bolder in IE than any other browser. Other than that though it does a really good job of displaying websites the way they should be.

An issue though is that hacks for IE5 affect IE7, but not IE6, hacks are really frowned upon now, conditional statements are the way to go. Personally how I manage is a java class which detects the browser and version the user is using, and then a conditional statement to set seperate CSS files, alot more reliable than the built in HTML coditional statements.

You don't neccessarily have to download it, especially since you use Opera, but I'd recommend you get it, you'll need it for debugging your sites.

Although with the way things are going to be, I can see alot of sites developing for IE7 and ignoring IE6 and under now, resulting in alot of bad sites. As far as I know Windows XP is required to run IE7 (I could be wrong on that though), if that is the case then people without Windows XP will really suffer online.

Your Norton Anti-virus issue sounds like a shared file problem, try searching on the development blog for a similar issue, and if you can't find one, post a message informing them of it.

[Blackstone]

Hmm... okay...

Yeah, I have two computers, so I'm going to try and keep IE 6 on one of them so that I can still check layouts in in and make sure they look semi-okay, like I've always done. And I'll download IE7 onto one so that I can check layouts on that one. O.o

All these troublesome browsers... O.o There should just be one browser. xD

And thanks for the Norton tip. Maybe they fixed it in the latest release of the browser as well... that would be nice. LOL

[Vangs]

Better yet, heres a link you'll like, it allows you to download old versions of browsers that work as stand-alone programs. Using this site I have IE3 - IE7, plus other browsers, all on the one PC.

Evolt.org

Yeah I agree, there should be 1 universal browser.

[Blackstone]

Oh, cool. ^^ Thanks. I'll have to try that. That way I don't have to switch back and forth between computers. O.o


One universal browser would make it a lot easy on all the designers in the world. o.o

[Vangs]

Yeah but if there was a universal browser the next complaint would be resolutions, it would just never end. Plus who would govern the browser? No big company would want another single company running the show so they would produce competition for it, to get a part of the revenue.

[Blackstone]

Ahhh, the wonders of being a human. xD Something might be easier for one person or group, but certainly not for another. O.o

Yes, it will never end, but maybe we can help it along?


*shrugs* Sometimes I like the various browsers. I like the challenge of trying to get something to work in all of them.

[KellyD]

That's the only big issue I have with it personally.

[Vangs]

Internet Explorer 7 has been confirmed to be publically launching at the end of this month. It will be downloaded in a Windows XP update, but the installion will be optional now, they were going to force installation before. However the installer will recommend people to install the new browser, so the vast majority will.

So if any of you haven't already checked your sites in Internet Explorer 7, do so now, before its too late!

[americanangel]

I don't use IE, but will look into it. Thanks for the heads up Vangs ^^...funny thing...my site layout works in IE 3 XD (my friend has an insanely old computer that still has IE 3 or something like that)

[Vangs]

Your computer doesn't have to be old to have IE 3. I have IE 3, 4, 5, 5.5, 6 and 7. You can get them from: http://browsers.evolt.org/

[americanangel]

:P my friend I think runs 95 still...or whatever OS was out when IE 3 came out XD