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201113 Apr
With Internet Explorer 9 barely out of the labs, Microsoft yesterday caught many developers by surprise, with the launch of the first platform preview of the latest incarnation of their popular web browser, Internet Explorer 10, at this years Mix conference.
The latest version of Internet Explorer, currently only three weeks into the development cycle, already boasts an impressive array of improvements, particularly in terms of CSS3 support, addressing many of the areas missed by IE9. For this release, Microsoft has paid particular attention to the CSS3 layout modules, with the platform preview offering implementations of the CSS3 Multi-column Layout module, the Flexible Box Layout module, and the recently announced CSS3 Grid Layout module.
In addition to the improved support for the differing CSS3 layout techniques, the platform preview also offers support for CSS3 gradients, which should make many developers happy, having previously voiced disappointment that support for gradients was not included in Internet Explorer 9. Additional CSS3 support has already been promised for future IE10 preview releases including CSS3 Transitions and 3D Transforms.
The development process looks set to follow a similar timescale to IE9, which was announced at last years Mix conference, with regular platform previews scheduled for release every 8 – 12 weeks.
You can download the platform preview here and read more on the IEBlog here.
Several new demos, showing off some of the new functionality included in IE10, have been added to the IE Test Drive site.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
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Comments
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finally?!
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Didn’t they do the same when they released IE8? As soon as they released IE8 they showed signs of them getting straight to work on IE9. It’s nice to see that Microsoft are really commited to keeping IE up-to-date with the latest tech.
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Fre says:Comment » April 13th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
It’s a surprising move, but a logical one indeed. If you look at other browser like Google Chrome, they’re already up to version 10 because of their tight release and versioning schedule. There are monthly updates for Chrome, and not only security patches but real improvements to their Javascript engine and Webkit.
Microsoft seems to have finally woken up and is now trying hard to fight the competition.
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Took them long enough!
But seriously, I am very glad to see them supporting more CSS3, especially gradients.
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I have to say, I don’t see why Microsoft have to work on an all-new browser when they could just upgrade IE9 to better support HTML5 and CSS3.
IE9 is Microsoft’s best attempt to support standards, but they still have so far to go to allow the latest functionality of CSS3. It would be nice to be able to have confidence in Internet Explorer as a web design and maybe IE10 will finally meet that expectation.
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Neal G says:Comment » April 13th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
I still wish Microsoft would just implement an open source rendering engine like Webkit and just let the community do all the hard work for them. I would think most web developers would rather have IE running off of Webkit vs their own Trident rendering engine which is still almost a generation behind the competition.
Regardless it is nice to seem them implement CSS Gradients. I have a feeling Microsoft has most of the CSS3 features implemented already but are using their old methods of IE Filters and that they’re just tweaking those filters to work with the CSS3 syntax.
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Now another one!… will wait how IE10 behave and the platforms it will be running.
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Cool, but… can we have text-shadow support already, please…?
Believe it or not, text-shadows can be a pretty damn crucial part of design (especially when working with textured backgrounds).
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What MS really needs to do is to find a way to update their browser seamlessly the way Chrome does. It’s great to see their IE team joining the web community, but what is it to us if they keep releasing browsers? It’s more hassle honestly. Because now we are degrading websites for 10, 9, 8, 7 and still 6 in some cases. It’s just more to deal with.
I have to agree with the one dude above that said stick with IE9. A major release for every new CSS3 feature they are implementing? Come on!!
Just my $0.02. In about 10 years, this will all be figured out.
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Whilst I find it difficult to disagree with a lot of the criticism aimed at MS, I think that at least now we’re getting regular updates to IE. Chrome has gone from launch to version 10 in just over 2 years, and I think the expectation on IE7 has made each release of IE seem like an important step.
Yes, they could do more to include cutting-edge features, but good on them for doing what they are.
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Well, now i have to deal with IE6, 7, 8 and 9, and in some time with 10…that is not serious! It`s a pain to keep your applications well designed and nice coded cross-browser compatibility…
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JM says:Comment » April 23rd, 2011 at 9:46 am
@redordead Why do some of web developers think that new Internet Explorer behaves totally differently compared to previous version? I was developing most of my sites when IE7 came out. Since than I’ve never had any problem with its newer versions. It might sound like FUD from MS, but the “same markup” principle is what did the trick. Don’t expect IE to be the only bad browser like if it were IE6.
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Never know they might even support windows xp. Wonder what their reasoning was for not supporting xp on IE9? Maybe they just don’t like working with outdated technology, I can relate to that
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lol @ olly MS are a joke was good when bill gates used to code for them but now they are crap. I cant wait till Ubuntu or a linux distro to take over windows and programs like photoshop be installed without wine. And also bye bye IE hello Firefox as a default browser.
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@redordead Totally agree. I’m sure most designer/developers are waiting for IE6,7 & 8 to die out so we don’t have to waste a lot of time dealing with them. Soon enough we’ll be waiting for IE9 to die out so we don’t have to deal with that.
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Well, i’ve tested this “platform preview” and… still one degree lower than others. I could note some troubles, specially with @font-face (doesn’t work with ttf, for example – it means: let’s keep doing the otf thing…)
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I’m very impressed with IE9. It functions and renders closely enough to the other 3 major browsers that I no longer have to dread cross-browser testing on it. IE10 can only improve on that.
Can’t wait until IE7/IE8 are completely fazed out, and clients no longer request compatibility with them.
That will be a day to celebrate!
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I can’t wait until Internet Explorer is completely fazed out as a browser altogether. It is a nightmare to design for and program for. They have bugs in the browser that have existed since IE5.5 that still aren’t fixed. They are so far behind in the CSS3 game by the time they catch up CSS5 standards will be released.
If it wasn’t for the fact it comes installed on your operating system it would be a long-gone browser. Safari looks better. Firefox is faster. And Chrome is much more stable.
And finally, IE9 doesn’t even install properly on a good many machines due to a hot fix problem (if you have hot fixes past a certain point you have to remove ALL hot fixes, install IE9 then reapply all hot fixes again… who the heck wants to do that?) And this is THEIR operating system.
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20.
…unfortunately, nothing cool to expect… although this, great news about supporting CSS3.
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Luke says:Comment » February 10th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Haha! People complaining about IE6, IE7 and IE8 just make me laugh. The fact they exist is something you will just have to deal with, every profession has it’s downsides and IE is one of them for web development. Every developer should have some sort of toolkit by now to deal with common IE issues and most CSS3 features fail gracefully, so it should be no big deal.
Another note, if the DESIGNER says for example, curved corners… You shouldn’t be using CSS3 to achieve this, the design needs to be implemented for everyone to see, not just modern browser users.
CSS3 is great for polish, but until legacy browsers, including older versions of Safari and Firefox(becoming more of a problem), not just IE are phased out, that is all they will be in my eyes.@LKenneth I am a Linux fan myself, but even I can safely say Linux will never replace Windows.
Nice to see Microsoft are moving quickly, yes, OK, still not quick enough.
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Im grateful for the blog post. Fantastic.
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