Internet Explorer 7

19 October 2006

So, Internet Explorer 7 is finally out. Yes, it’s obviously much better then version 6; no, it’s still not great – certainly no better then Firefox or Opera. It does, however, have quite a few nice touches – the integration of RSS works nicely, and will surely mean that RSS adoption gets much larger. Also, I think the tab implementation is really quite nice; while it’s nothing revolutionary, the tab preview function works well as does the tab menu.

I do think though that both IE and Firefox 2 are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to the way they handle a large amount of tabs; both these browsers present left and right arrows that let you scroll through tabs if you have too many to fit on the screen and it’s a piece of UI that in my opinion just doesn’t work well. If you really have a lot of tabs, scrolling though them using scroll arrows is an exercise in frustration. OmniWeb is currently the only browser that I think gets tabs right – using tab thumbnails which scroll vertically works incredibly well, allowing you to manage a large amount of tabs easily.

So, what now?

With Internet Explorer 7 actually out us web designers have to change the attitude and mindset that has crept in over the last few years that Internet Explorer is a huge pain that doesn’t support anything. The new IE isn’t great at CSS and rendering, but it’s a whole lot better then IE 6 was, supporting more CSS and transparent PNGs to boot.

In the short to medium term it simply means that we have yet another browser to support; with it’s own specific standards support and bugs no doubt. Conversely, a better Internet Explorer actually makes a developers life harder not easier; at least until IE 7 becomes widespread.

How long will that take though?

Will people really upgrade to IE 7? It’s going to be pushed out via Windows Update within a few weeks, but still as an optional download. What about all those still on Windows 2000? As much as I don’t want to consider it, I can still see IE 6 having a sizeable market share for many years – probably hanging on to at least 5-10% for a while, much to the exasperation of everybody else.

It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if many people stop supporting IE 6 sooner rather then later. It’s such a time sink to make a site work, especially when you add javascript and AJAX that the cost/benefit may well make it favourable to drop support. This may also coincide nicely with a movement towards having a “simple” version of a site optimised for mobile phones and older browsers.

The mobile web – long promised – may actually now be gathering steam now that we have fast connections and hi-rez screens; it would be fitting to see it play a hand in the demise of Internet Explorer 6.

The next evolutionary step for the web helping the last generation on it’s way down…

From: Articles

19 October 2006