Archive for January, 2008
A quick update with regards to the beta. A number of issues have been found concerning page zoom and Firefox. These issues should all be fixed now. Other changes include:
- Several bugfixes regarding
forceSingleLine. - The XHTML demo was not built properly by the build script.
- Added support for
.sIFR-root { cursor: pointer; }. - Print preview in Firefox/Windows no longer throws errors.
- The
fixFocuscaused infinite recursion, but no more! - sIFR should no longer cause the page to “jump” when the window is resized, although the sIFR elements may flicker a bit.
- Text replaced through
replaceTextis now remembered after moving back to the page through browser history in Firefox.
You can get r372 from the nightlies.
Useful links:
- Check out the sIFR 3 demo.
- Download the latest sIFR version.
- Subscribe to a feed for the nigthlies.
- Join the sIFR 3 Announce mailing list.
- Join the sIFR 3 Development mailing list.
- Join the forum.
- Edit the Documentation Wiki.
So. The good news is that IE8 will be much, much better than anything before it. The bad news, Microsoft doesn’t dare release it and make it render existing websites, because there’s no way they’re going to render properly. Why? Because of the browser specific hacks put in to make the site render properly in IE6/7.
A “kill switch” is proposed, which will cause websites to render in the new or updated engine, whilst not breaking existing websites relying on IEs quirks.
Fair enough.
Except that, what if insert <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" /> into this website? IE6/7 won’t recognize it, so I can’t really rely on the new CSS support in IE8. In fact, conditional comments are going to be needed so I can load the IE6/7 CSS, and the IE8 CSS, depending on the user agent.
Clumsy, but possible.
The really interesting bit is going to be a few years from now, when IE9 is released. Will I have to insert <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9" />?. What’s IE8 going to do with this switch? And how different will IE8 and IE9 be? Perhaps I’ll need to conditionally load CSS for IE6/7, IE8 and IE9.
And then IE10, IE11, et cetera…
Seems to me this meta switch is quite reasonable, as long as it kills off the old Trident engine, and activates a proper engine which sees continuous improvement. Much like, you know, modern browsers.
January 26th, Jeremy Keith describes the issue much better than I’d have the patience for. Recommended reading
