Resources for Web Development Students @ Robin’s Blog

It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for! After five years without changes to the rendering engine that defines (and limits) what the Web can do, Microsoft has released IE7 Beta 2 Preview for download by developers everywhere.

If you have anything to do with the design and layout of a web site, you need to download this and get started on correcting any obvious compatibility issues.

Why the hurry, you ask? Well sure, there’s the fact that every Windows XP user in the world will be offered this browser as a free upgrade when it’s ready later this year. But more importantly in my mind is the fact that we have been clamouring for a less buggy, more standards-compliant browser from Microsoft for years. Now that Microsoft has finally responded, it’s up to us to show them they were right to do so.

Quoted from the SitePoint Times Email Newsletter. You can subscribe to these great newsletters @ SitePoint.

You can download (at home) and learn more about the beta release @ the Internet Explorer Beta 2 Preview Release Site. The IE Blog also has information on what is new with the release and other important notes about Internet Explorer improvements. Remember that this is a “beta” release, so there may be bugs, install with caution. I found a few issues when I went to install the beta version on my laptop:

1. After downloading the software and running the exe file your operating system installation needs to be validated before you can install. So information has to be sent to Microsoft.
2. I found that I couldn’t validate easily with Firefox. I ended up resetting my default browser to IE to validate.
3. I had to install an Active X control in order to validate and even then I got a validation error in IE.
4. I ignored the validation error in the browser and clicked Validate again in the install screen and it finally let me install the software.
5. Internet Explorer 6 will be replaced by this beta version, so only install if you’re ready to make the switch.

If you have already developed “live” web sites may want to download this preview release. Since the IE team has promised that they have fixed many of Internet Explorer bugs, you need to check your sites to see how they look in this new browser. If you have used CSS hacks on your site you may need to consider removing these hacks and using alternative methods to get your layout to display properly. I will install the preview release on the instructor workstation so that you will be able to check your sites here if you do not want to install the beta release at home.

I checked my blog and other sites in Internet Explorer 7 and the fonts were beyond tiny! Everything laid out well (thank heaven for small miracles), but I couldn’t read the text. Yikes! I discovered the the default text size for Internet Explorer 7 is set to smallest. You can change this in View > Text Size. I set mine to medium which is the default for IE 6.

Internet Explorer 7 now offers tabbed browsing just like Firefox. It also offers built in RSS support with a nice RSS feed reader built in. You can access your feeds by selecting View > Explorer Bar > Feeds. The interface is sleaker, a nice improvement over Internet Explorer 6. There are also some other nice new tools like a pop-up blocker and support for add-on programs, similar to Firefox extensions (it’s looking a lot like Firefox, IMHO).

Of course the biggest issue being discussed about the new beta release among developers is the “improved” CSS support. Since I just downloaded the software today I will wait a bit to comment on CSS and IE 7. Again, you can read more about the Internet Explorer 7 CSS support improvements at the IE blog. This resource blog also includes information on uninstalling the beta preview if necessary.

I will post more notes about this release as I have an opportunity to explore it. I will install the release on the instructor station this afternoon so that we can take a look at Internet Explorer 7 together.

Technorati tags: internet explorer, browsers, support, css, beta