Take Advantage of the New Features in Internet Explorer 8
Introduction
Internet Explorer 8 is more standards compliant than any earlier version of Internet Explorer. This means that pages you have written to standards will work better with Internet Explorer 8. Cross-browser compatibility is much easier because you don't have to modify your pages as much to display on specific browsers.
Note Even browsers that are standards-compliant will interpret some part of standards slightly differently. The Internet Explorer team has published the test cases used for testing Internet Explorer CSS compliance. You can use these test cases as samples for determining differences in the various browsers' interpretations of standards. Those test cases are located HERE World Wide Web link.
Internet Explorer 8 also adds some new end-user features that you can take advantage of on your sites. The new features are Web Slices, Accelerators, and Search Suggestions for Search Providers. Big improvements have been made to AJAX, JScript, and Developer Tools.
This article assumes that your site works well with Internet Explorer 8 and that you have decided against using the META tag to force rendering to the Internet Explorer 7 engine. If this is a problem for you, please see How Do I Fix My Site Today?. You should also consider using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). If your site looks better in Internet Explorer 7 than in Internet Explorer 8, set the META tag and continue reading to see how you can take advantage of new and updated features of Internet Explorer 8.
For more information on all the new features for developers in Internet Explorer 8, see What's New in Internet Explorer 8.
CSS Support
Internet Explorer 8 fully supports CSS 2.1 and more of CSS 3. See CSS Overviews and Tutorials for a full history of CSS support in Internet Explorer, including Internet Explorer 8 support.
For more information, see CSS Improvements in Internet Explorer 8.
HTML and DOM Support
Internet Explorer 8 has improved support for HTML 4.01 and 5, also for DOM 2 and 3. Internet Explorer 8 also more strictly adheres to those standards. In terms of compatibility between Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8, this area will cause you the most problems. Some objects you used with Internet Explorer 7 have changed to work according the various standards specifications. In other words, some methods, properties, and so on that worked in a non-standard way in Internet Explorer 7 now comply with standards in Internet Explorer 8.
Test your site in Internet Explorer 8 to look for problems caused by non-standard usage. For more information, see HTML Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8 and Standards Compliance Updates in Internet Explorer 8.
Better AJAX Support
Internet Explorer 8 more easily supports backward navigation of page fragments. It provides better communication between pages, frames, sites, and domains. JScript also now provides native JSON support. See the following pages for more information:
* An Introduction to Cross-Document Messaging in Internet Explorer 8
* XMLHttpRequest Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8
* Connectivity Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8
* Introducing AJAX Navigations
* JSON Object
Developer Tools Built In
You may have used downloaded and used the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar. This add-on was released at nearly the same time that Internet Explorer 7 was released. The toolbar's functionality has been incorporated into the browser, so there's no need for an additional installation. The Developer Tools have been greatly improved to include a debugger, a profiler, and more. When using Internet Explorer 8, press F12 and try it out. For more information, see Developer Tools User Interface Reference.
Accelerators
You can make your Web services available to users as Accelerators. Users can add Accelerators to Internet Explorer 8 and use them anywhere they browse. The user selects some text (for example, an address on a page) and can select an Accelerator for a mapping Web service to see the location. Accelerators offer a preview of results so users don't have to navigate away from the page they are looking at and disrupt the flow of their work.
Setting up a Web service as an Accelerator is easy. It requires an XML file, similar to a manifest file, on your server. There are also scripting methods for adding the Accelerator to Internet Explorer. Microsoft has set up a Gallery (http://ieaddons.com/) where you can make your Accelerators available.
For more information about Accelerators, see OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide.
Web Slices
Like an RSS feed, you can set up portions of your Web pages that contain frequently updated information as Web Slices for your users. Users subscribe to a Web Slice and can monitor changes without having to navigate back to the original page unless they want to see more information. Microsoft has set up a Gallery (http://ieaddons.com/) where you can advertise your Web Slices.
For example, news feeds, auctions, social networking updates, and weather updates are all good scenarios for Web Slices, but there are many more.
For more information about setting up a Web Slice, see Subscribing to Content with Web Slices.
Posted in: Others| Tags: Introduction IE IE 8 New Advantage explorer version internet note cross-browser compliant compatibilityWhat's New in Internet Explorer 8
64-Bit Downloads
Internet Explorer now supports download of files whose size exceeds 4 gigabytes (GB). Users of Internet Explorer 8 can take advantage of this functionality by default. Third-party extensions need to implement IBindStatusCallbackEx and return BINDF2_READ_DATA_GREATER_THAN_4GB from their GetBindInfoEx callback method. Download progress is reported through OnProgress by using the BINDSTATUS_64BIT_PROGRESS flag. These callback methods are supported by IMoniker::BindToObject and IMoniker::BindToStorage.
Accelerators
Because the Internet has become increasingly interactive, Internet Explorer 8 makes it easier to interact with content on a Web page. Accelerators are a type of browser extensions that act on Web page content by sending the information to a service of the user's choosing. Services then perform actions on the content (such as "email" or "bookmark") or provide more information ("translate" or "map"). Users can install and access Accelerators from the browser shortcut menu, making their browsing experience more efficient.
For more information, see OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide.
Accessibility and ARIA
In response to the increase in user interface (UI) complexity on the Web, the Web Accessibility Initiative World Wide Web link group has defined a roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA), which introduces ways for Web site authors to define how custom UI elements are accessed. ARIA accomplishes this by defining a set of HTML attributes that map back to common UI controls. As a result, users with disabilities can access Web sites with a rich interaction model. By exposing ARIA through the Microsoft Active Accessibility API in Internet Explorer 8, assistive technologies that already use Microsoft Active Accessibility can also support ARIA easily.
* The alt attribute is no longer displayed as the image tooltip when the browser is running in IE8 mode. Instead, the target of the longDesc attribute is used as the tooltip if present; otherwise, the title is displayed. The alt attribute is still used as the Microsoft Active Accessibility name, and the title attribute is used as the fallback name only if alt is not present.
* ARIA attribute syntax is the same in both IE8 mode and IE7 mode. Earlier releases of Internet Explorer 8 required a legacy property syntax when setting ARIA attributes in compatibility view. For cross-browser compatibility, always use the WAI-ARIA attribute syntax to access and modify ARIA properties, for example object.setAttribute("aria-valuenow", newValue).
For more information, see:
* ARIA Implementation Guide for AT Vendors: Internet Explorer 8
* Mapping ARIA Roles, States, and Properties to UI Automation
* What's New for Accessibility in Internet Explorer 8
ActiveX Improvements
Internet Explorer 8 offers greater control over your Microsoft ActiveX installation and debugging.
* Per-site ActiveX Nearly half of all ActiveX controls meant to run on only one site do not use any form of site locking technology. This means that many controls are not secure by default and could be misused by malicious Web sites. To prevent this in Internet Explorer 8, users can decide whether to allow ActiveX controls to run on a site-by-site basis. For more information, see Per-Site ActiveX Controls.
* Non-administrator installation Standard users (those without administrator privileges) can install ActiveX controls to their user profiles without a UAC prompt or administrator involvement of any kind. In the event that a user does install a malicious ActiveX control, only the user profile is affected; the system itself is not compromised. For more information, see Non-Admin ActiveX Controls.
* ActiveX Logging Internet Explorer 8 can report the most common installation and instantiation failures, such as security restrictions preventing an ActiveX control from being instantiated properly. ActiveX logging is performed the same as other Internet Explorer compatibility logging, by using the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility Toolkit. For more information, see Using the Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool.
AJAX Enhancements
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) is changing the way Web applications are built. Internet Explorer 8 brings new functionality to the XMLHttpRequest object that enables AJAX applications.
* AJAX Navigation Client requests that do not trigger traditional Web page navigation can now update the hash property, which allows the Back button to function appropriately.
* Connection Events Where data reliability is a priority, AJAX applications can choose to save data locally if they are disconnected from a network. See onoffline, ononline.
* Connections Per Server Internet Explorer 8 raises the number of connections per host by default, for a potential drop in Web page load times and increased parallelism in AJAX scenarios.
* Cross-document Messaging Documents in different domains can securely exchange data using postMessage. Documents that receive messages listen for the onmessage event.
* Cross-domain Request (XDR) To allow developers to more safely combine services from different Web sites, the XDomainRequest object restricts and secures communication between untrusted modules in a Web page. The browser shields the user from potential threats while allowing powerful cross-site interaction.
* Timeout Requests Internet Explorer 8 adds the ability to set a timeout property on server requests.
* Sanitize HTML Easily remove event properties and script from HTML fragments with window.toStaticHTML.
* Native JSON Support JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) objects (used widely in AJAX scenarios) can now be serialized and parsed directly in Microsoft JScript. Use JSON.stringify to transform object data to a string and JSON.parse to revive JSON-formatted text. You can also fine-tune your object's output by implementing a toJSON method. These new methods are much faster than script, and safer than using eval.