
IE9 to support SVG and some CSS3 - kilian
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx
======
endergen
Where the shit is any of the cool stuff. Specifically Canvas, Websockets,
Local Storage, etc.

I personally find the CSS stuff less interesting as you can do a lot with
clever programming to make things look great, but you can't easily emulate
local storage(flash storage), canvas(flash) or websockets(comet). (emulation
in parentheses, each being excessively complicated for the average developer)

Microsoft and Telcos just remind us that technological progress is bad for
their personal business, which is so infuriating.

(With telcos, it's the whole thing with not just letting app developers and
customers do whatever they want with their data plan and apps they use/build.

~~~
smackfu
Those are all HTML5 features, right? We've gotten into this weird place where
the standards are being implemented while they are still in flux because the
browser makers are just anxious to add new features.

~~~
tvon
True, but it's a big improvement over browser makers rolling their own
solutions.

~~~
smackfu
How many different version of CSS Gradients are out there now? It seems like
they still just roll their own, but now they do it in an "accepted way" by
using a prefix like "webkit" or "moz" on their new stuff. It doesn't do much
good for the implementers though.

~~~
tdmackey
<http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work.html>

As you can see CSS3 is very far from being "finalized" so any implementation
that mozilla or webkit or someone does is just their best guess at what the
final standard will be or experiments to provide recommendation. They leave
the prefix free version for when they actually know what it is they are
implementing to cause less pain in the long term allowing developers to know
full well that what they are using is far from finished.

------
timmorgan
_"As a developer, you want to know what’s to come in the browsers you and your
customers use.... This document instructs you, the Web developer whose
customers rely on Internet Explorer, about how to prepare to take advantage of
these new enhancements in your websites and applications."_

It's probably just me, but that sounds awfully presumptuous. Like someone's
_reminding_ me that I need IE.

 _Edit:_ Wow, this thing is full of great little nuggets:

 _"We know you don’t want to have to rewrite and retest your websites again
and again; standards adoption by browser vendors is a good way to reach that
objective."_

Hrmm. Really?

------
ZeroGravitas
Have they announced how this is going to work with Windows Phone? Apple (and
perhaps Google) seem to be driven by the needs of the phone and then the same
features end up in the desktop browser as a consequence, but the last I heard
Microsoft was re-writing mobile IE based on IE6, which is frankly
mindboggling.

edit: Slightly better news straight from the horse's mouth:

 _Andy Lees: We don't support Flash. Performance on Flash is a problem. So we
don't do that. We have Internet Explorer. It's halfway between IE7 and IE8
rendering engine._

Found via the Wikipedia page:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7_Series#Browser>

~~~
youngian
Please be wrong. Please be wrong. Please be wrong.

~~~
icefox
Why would not supporting flash be bad?

~~~
youngian
This was in reference to the pre-edit version, where he said it was to be
based on IE6.

In comparison to that prospect, an IE7/8 mishmash is oddly comforting.

~~~
freddier
It's kinda sad for Win7 Phone. Right now, all the browser innovation is
beginning to have its base on mobile devices. I think it's thanks to the
webkit implementation on the iPhone that traction for HTML5 has accelerated on
the last two years.

All modern smartphones have some kind of HTML 5 support and most mobile
websites use the iPhone as their main target. So it is sad to see so many good
decisions on Win7 Phone going to waste because of really old/legacy
technology.

I guess it's impossible for Microsoft to use Webkit, politically speaking.

------
jsdalton
Maybe it's naive of me to think this, but why don't they just go all out and
announce full support for CSS3? (And HTML5 while they are at it, though I
realize the spec is still in flux.) I mean, is rounded borders really the best
they can do in 2010?

I feel like only a bold move like that would give IE any hope of preventing a
further slide into irrelevance.

~~~
jasonkester
They're in the same damned-if-you-do position they've always been in. Every
time they release something that breaks new ground, the "standards" folks move
in the other direction and leave them behind. Look at SVG, DOM and CSS for
examples where Microsoft moved first, only to see "Standards" written to suit
the next version of Netscape's (later Mozilla's) browser.

So if they were to implement HTML5 as it stands today, they'd release IE9 to
find that the other browsers had coordinated with the W3 to release the final
standards alongside FF4 and a new version of Chrome.

That's how it worked back when NN6 came out, and how it's worked ever since.
It's hard to have sympathy for Microsoft in particular in this area, but
that's what they're up against.

~~~
eru
Why do the other guys seem to have an easier time capturing the standards
process?

~~~
youngian
The knee-jerk answer is that the IE team's ideas often seem to come from a
crack pipe. Not to say that every single one of their ideas has been bad, or
that everyone else's ideas always turn out great, but IE has a lousy track
record. There are more than a few instances where the IE version is either
internally inconsistent (many of the IE6 CSS bugs) or provably worse than the
competition (JS event handling springs to mind).

~~~
jasonkester
Ah, but their Box Model is miles faster. Common sense would tell you that
knowing an element specified to have a width:100px will actually take up 100px
on the screen will speed up rendering. Actual practice shows that it is indeed
really fast.

There's a reason why Twiddla is so fast on IE. It's because we intentionally
leave the Doctype of the whiteboard, thus enabling IE to use its fast
Quirksmode rendering engine. Testing showed that adding a Doctype didn't
effect FF or Chrome performance at all, but simply slowed IE down to their
level.

------
cookiecaper
Microsoft does not want IE to work according to standard and they don't want
to provide a full featureset. A lot of smart people work at Microsoft, it's
not like they can't figure this out. Microsoft's business strategy involves
differentiating IE in basics like rendering and performance so that you have
to buy Windows, test your websites in IE, and I think they still hope that
they'll return to utter dominance one day. In so doing, they want you to
decide that it's only worth your time to support IE since that's what most of
your userbase uses anyway, thereby also requiring Windows for the web.

They won't support HTML5/Canvas fully until IE13 at this rate. It conflicts
with their proprietary Silverlight technology, so any implementation of such
in IE is going to be broken and incomplete, as we've come to expect as the
standard.

Microsoft wants Windows to be mandatory for web surfing. That's the goal,
that's why IE still exists.

~~~
barredo
_"Microsoft's business strategy involves differentiating IE in basics like
rendering and performance so that you have to buy Windows, test your websites
in IE"_

So. Microsoft is losing lots of browser marketshare every year to keep selling
Windows copies to web developers that represent, say, 0.05% of all users?

 _"It conflicts with their proprietary Silverlight technology, so any
implementation of such in IE is going to be broken and incomplete, as we've
come to expect as the standard._

That make more sense. And I think you're right with that.

~~~
cookiecaper
Well, developers write the applications that the masses use. The strategy is a
relic from IE's days as the only significant force in browser marketshare.
Microsoft wants you to consider that almost all of your users will be using
IE. They want you to see that and then decide that IE is the only browser you
can afford to support. And then everyone is stuck with Windows, and it self-
perpetuates, because users need IE to go to the websites they like, and then
more users are using IE/Windows. You see? That's why IE features are always
"broken" and half-implemented. If HTML etc. worked as defined in IE, people
could abandon IE at will.

IE is still the dominant browser on most sites, so maybe that strategy still
has value. It's becoming less and less significant as OS X (which comes with
Safari by default) and Firefox gain marketshare. I wonder when they'll decide
they need to reconsider; IE has certainly cost them a lot so far, legally.

~~~
barredo
_You see? That's why IE features are always "broken" and half-implemented. If
HTML etc. worked as defined in IE, people could abandon IE at will._

If IE worked fine people will abandon it? I think it's backwards.

And remember we are not talking only about implementing web standards, but
also security issues, stability and velocity.

 _It's becoming less and less significant as OS X (which comes with Safari by
default) and Firefox gain marketshare_

I think Chrome will _eat_ more IE market share than Firefox and Safari in the
following years, mostly because Google's massive advertisement capacity.

~~~
aphyr
I don't believe it's primarily about advertising.

Chrome startup on my Ubuntu and Windows boxes is an _order of magnitude_
faster than Firefox, and significantly faster than IE. I can open a Chrome
window and navigate through two pages before FF even opens--even if I started
FF first.

That's a tremendous incentive to switch, even if Youtube videos are broken
sometimes. :) I haven't looked back.

------
dhyasama
I attended a presentation by Molly Halzschlag at Microsoft Mix a few days ago
and she mentioned an interesting factoid. IE6 was going to be the last version
because the browser was going to be fully integrated into Windows. We all know
that didn't happen for a variety of reasons. So IE development stopped for
five full years and lagged FAR behind other browsers.

------
Dav3xor
Woohoo! Now I don't have to tear my web game apart for IE support.

They were hinting at doing SVG a few months ago, it's nice to see they're
stating it officially.

~~~
ryanelkins
As long as you don't plan to release for a few more years I suppose. I mean,
people are still using IE 6 today. It will be a while before IE9 1) comes out
and 2) is adopted by a large number of users.

~~~
Dav3xor
Fair enough, but I don't mind making lemonade with my low bandwidth graphics
and mapping engine that doesn't require tile reloads on zoom. And it will work
on the iPhone/iPad. IE support in a couple years is just icing on the cake.

------
barnaby
Sounds like something I'd like to try out. Will it work on Mac or Linux? Wait,
forget I asked.

