IE8 and the vaunted Acid2 pass
Call me the suspicious type but when people (read Microsoft) started trumpeting all over the web that their new baby, Internet Explorer 8, had passed the Acid2 test I just couldn’t get excited. Something in their reports kept ringing alarm bells.
It kept talking about IE8 standards mode. I made a tongue in cheek comment about it at the time on a blog where people were saying how great it would be only having to design for one browser, no more hacks. My comment was along the lines of, don’t get too excited, you might end up designing for IE6, IE7, IE8 Standards Mode, IE8 Quirks mode…..
Well the following has appeared on Wikipedia and it would seem that Microsoft have a surprise in store if the info is correct. I’ve broken the info out a bit from the original to make it more readable.
- Version 8 of Internet Explorer is in development. A beta version will be made available in the first half of 2008.
- From the blog and based on the conferences of MIX 2007; RSS, CSS, Ajax, microformats, more options for user interface customization and improved web development tools are possibilities for inclusion into the forthcoming version of Internet Explorer, with security still being the top priority.
- Microsoft is investing in support for more of the CSS 2.1 specification as well as changes to the DOM for interoperability with other web browsers.
- HasLayout functionality will also be done away with in IE8.
- IE8 includes a new rendering mode known as “IE8 standards mode”.
- IE8 standards mode breaks compatibility with previous versions of Internet Explorer by more strictly adhering to web standards.
- IE8 standards mode is not enabled by default, but can be triggered by inserting a special flag into a web page.
- IE8 supports Data: URIs, HTML object fallback, abbr tag, CSS generated content and display: table display type, in addition to fixing a lot of CSS and HTML parsing bugs.
As a result, according to Microsoft, an internal debug build of IE8 passes the Acid2 test in IE8 standards mode. However, the version of IE8 that will be released will not pass Acid2 as it will require pages to specifically request to be rendered in IE8 standards mode, and Acid2 does not request this.
Wikipedia - Internet Explorer 8
So IE8 doesn’t pass the Acid2 test. More to the point, if compliant sites are to render correctly in IE8 then developers have to put a “special flag” in their pages.
This leads me and my suspicious nature to wonder exactly what this flag will be. I’m now taking bets on it being some special MS Meta, insertion of which will mean your pages no longer validate. Any takers?
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: January 19th, 2008 at 1:10 am →
IE6, 6, 7, 8, 9… all I can say is thank goodness for conditional comments. As far as developing for one browser, I suspect that’s at least ten years away. We can’t even get everyone to adopt web standards so we’re on a long road me thinks.
Jaybee responds:
Posted: January 23rd, 2008 at 1:13 am →
This article on A List Apart reveals what the Meta tag will be and how it will be used. The good news is it won’t invalidate your code. Other than that I’m appalled.
What on earth were the WSG thinking going along with Microsoft on this? If your site is compliant you must add the Meta tag. If your site is a heap of button pushing garbage then fine, as you were, just carry on developing junk.
This is the perfect time for Microsoft to admit the mess they’ve made, produce a fully compliant browser and give the garbage sites six months to bring their sites up to scratch or, add in a Meta tag to say they’re garbage, prior to the release of IE8.
If they don’t and the sites break then fine, they’re either forced to fix them or old, unloved, sites that haven’t been updated in years will finally disappear.
Obsolescence is a fact of life. Digital TV is nigh, analogue sets will no longer work. Betamax tapes have been consigned to the scrap heap of time. It’s about time Microsoft bit the bullet and followed suit but I suspect, that their corporate weight has sent the so called standardistas into a shirt tail tugging panic. Looks like it’s going to be down to the complying developers to shout and scream again.