Internet Explorer 8 - My first test

Quick links:
Download Internet Explorer 8 (Beta 1)
Internet Explorer Team Blog
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Release Notes
Internet Explorer site

Today I installed the first beta version of Internet Explorer 8. I downloaded the installer from the Microsoft website with Firefox 2. The first attempt to install didn’t succeed because I had to install another Microsoft update first. A website with the link to this download opened in Firefox because this is my default browser. I tried to download the update but I had to do the WGA check first. The stupid check didn’t work in Firefox so I downloaded the update trough IE 7. After installing the update my system needed a reboot. After the reboot I executed the installer for IE8 again. The install finally worked out and I had to reboot again.

Finally up and running and IE 8 started automatically. The first thing I could do was importing data from my other browsers. I was amazed I could import my installed Firefox extensions! After doing this, two tabs where opened. The first tab showed me some information about the new features in Internet Explorer 8 and the second tab showed me the Windows Marketplace website.

And there was the first thing that made me laugh. If you look at the second tab, you can see that the Windows Marketplace website isn’t rendered as it’s supposed to be. The top menus aren’t at the right place. So it looks like Microsoft isn’t prepared for his own new browser

The first impression is the best impression right?  But I don’t see it as a negative point. It seems to be that Internet Explorer 8 is finally supporting the web standards for the first time. So my wish is coming true!  Can a front-end XHTML/CSS developer finally create a website over a couple of years without having to write filthy CSS hacks and workarounds for Internet Explorer? That would save me loads of time with designing a web page. So the Windows Marketplace website is probably not supporting the web standards or it has some filthy IE hacks that scramble up the menu lay-out

Internet Explorer 8 is also succeeding in the Acid2 Browser Test. And I must say I’m impressed by Microsoft for the first time.

Click the thumbnail to see the Acid2 test result:

Internet Explorer 8 has also some new features. One of them are WebSlices. I can explain it on my way, but I rather like to copy/paste some explaination from Microsoft self:

 

"WebSlices allow users to subscribe to portions of a Web page. Users commonly visit many Web sites several times a day to see if there are new updates. RSS feeds make this experience easier: Users can subscribe to updates and view summaries of them without having to navigate to each site individually. Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers supports subscribing to feeds today and adds support for WebSlices. WebSlices are a new feature for Web sites to connect with users by allowing users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page. WebSlices behave just as feeds do, where clients can subscribe to get updates and notification of changes.

 

A WebSlice is a portion within a Web page that is treated as an item that can be subscribed to, just as a feed can. To enable WebSlices on your Web site, annotate your Web page with class names for the title, description, and other properties that can be subscribed to. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers users can discover WebSlices within a Web page and add them to the Favorites Bar, a dedicated row below the Address Bar for easy access to links. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers subscribes to the Web page, detects changes in the WebSlice, and notifies users of updates. Users can preview these updates directly from the Favorites Bar and click through to the Web site for more information."

I thought this was an interesting new feature so I enabled this website for WebSlices for you and myself to check it out. If you are interested about doing this yourself:

  WebSlices.pdf (tutorial) (666 KB, 81 hits)

Here are some printscreens from this website in IE 8.

While adding the (x)HTML code to enable my website for WebSlices I found it a bit ambiguous to add an: "ref" attribute to my link anchors for the posts. Because the ref attribute isn’t an attribute subscribed by the W3C standards organization. As follows the WebSlices tutorial, this attribute enables me to refer to my RSS feed.

Example from the tutorial:

<a rel="feedurl" ref="auction.microsoft.com/item.xml">Subscribe to WebSlice</a>

So it seems to be it’s going much better now with Microsofts IE. If you have any questions about this post or have any additions to this post, don’t be shy to leave a reply