I just learned today that Microsoft has introduced a beta version of a new IE browser, IE7. I thought IE was going to be replaced by an integrated browser in MS new OS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...aredirect.mspx

Will this trouble for the IE7 script we have on out sites to deal with IE6 and earlies?

Microsoft originally announced they weren't going to release a new version of IE until the release of Vista. They changed their minds, obviously. In light of mounting critism on multiple fronts, security, web standards, the rising popularity of Firefox, I'd say they made the right decision. The announcement that there would be an IE7 before Vista wasn't made until maybe a month or so after Beginning CSS hit the shelves, and at that, the final product might not come until Vista's release, which is expected some time this year.

I've only been able to look at IE7 breifly, it has its own bugs naturally, but my first reaction is there have been loads of fixes, and while it's not perfect, it's an improvement by leaps and bounds. I looked at some of the examples from Beginning CSS in it, and alot of the examples I tested appear either as intended or close. Looking at the WASP Acid 2 test for standards compliance in IE6 beside the rendering in IE7, shows that alot has changed. Even though it doesn't pass the test, it's much closer to that goal than IE6 ever was.

http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top

Dean Edwards's IE7 JavaScript is intended to target IE6 and older. Dean has said in the past he'll devise a new solution for IE7 (IE8?) if all of the bugs he's targeted aren't fixed, but obviously, he's only just seeing the beta too, so that's still some time off.

Hope that answers your question.

Regards,
Rich

--
[http://www.smilingsouls.net]
Mail_IMAP: A PHP/C-Client/PEAR solution for webmail
Author: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets For Web Design

It is great to hear IE7 has alot of improvements for the world of CSS but what bugs me is why can't MS push down a service pack for IE6 that would also include those same fixes? IE 6 is still going to be around for a long time.

You're right, IE6 is going to be around for quite some time still. There are millions of people still using a version of Windows less than XP. Especially corporatations who are mostly on Windows 2K. I think Microsoft's dilemma with this has several mitigating factors:

 * Microsoft wants to encourage companies and individuals to upgrade their OS
 * Microsoft wants to give the impression that the browser is tied to the OS (to curtail future anti-trust lawsuits)
 * Several (security) components of IE7 are dependent on features of XP SP2 and Vista

Personally, I agree, I'd rather Microsoft make a version of IE7 with the rendering enhancements to Trident (the program in IE that does the heavy-lifting as far as rendering goes) available to previous OSs, at least as a gesture to the web development community. But that will probably never happen. And of course, I have no idea how modularized Trident is with respect to other parts of IE. It's probably not possible to take just those enhancements in lieu of all the other stuff.



Regards,
Rich

--
[http://www.smilingsouls.net]
Mail_IMAP: A PHP/C-Client/PEAR solution for webmail
Author: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets For Web Design