Internet Explorer 9
Microsoft has released its developer preview of Internet Explorer 9. We thought we'd take a quick look at what the future might bring.
07 April 2010
The preview is definitely just for developers - although the IE9 'preview platform' works, it isn't a fully functioning browser. (For example, there's no address bar or back button.) And IE9 isn't due anytime soon: it's currently scheduled for a 2011 release. So why the early preview?
Microsoft is actually pretty open about its development processes - far more so than Apple, for example, which keeps productions pretty much under wraps until launch. So an early preview is, for Microsoft, business as usual. Sure, there's a more cynical view that says Microsoft's taken something of a spanking from other browsers in the field - and there's probably some truth in that, too. Chrome, Firefox and Safari remain (in many respects) technically further ahead of the field than Internet Explorer. They have faster JavaScript and better support for more modern Web standards, such as CSS3 and HTML 5.
That's all going to change with IE9, which takes a very impressive leap forward in terms of standards support. This is definitely not just a good thing, but a great thing. It's far better for Microsoft to bring Internet Explorer up-to-date than it is to add in new user features. The Web is currently fracturing, as developers want to make use of the advanced layout and animation features of CSS3 and HTML 5, but are currently held back because support for these technologies isn't consistent: some browsers support some things, some don't. (IE8 and before mostly don't, and since it's still the major browsing platform, this is something of a headache.) So, what's new?
Support for HTML 5
HTML 5 is the newest version of HTML. In many ways, it's designed to enable HTML to do properly what designers have been trying to do for years. Remember, at its heart, HTML was a mark-up language designed for sharing academic papers. Today, websites are brochures, on-line stores and even applications. HTML 5 provides much better support for the Web of today and tomorrow. Google Chrome and Apple Safari (both based on the same Webkit rendering engine) already have pretty good support for HTML 5, so this is one area where IE9 is definitely catching up. (Indeed, some Web specialists have commented that it would make much more sense for Microsoft to adopt the Webkit engine than carry on patching Internet Explorer. This would be pretty good news for website designers too, as having fewer rendering engines cuts down on testing.)
Support for CSS3
CSS3 (version three of the Cascading Style Sheets display mark-up language) also brings more desirable design standards to the Web; some are long overdue. Take rounded corners - these are a standard feature of website design, but there's actually no support for creating a rounded box in CSS2. So designers have to fudge things, using background images that contain the rounded corners. It looks the same, sure - but it's much more work. CSS3 supports other desirable design features, such as drop shadows, multi-column text (just like newspapers and magazines) and Web fonts. With support for CSS3 in IE9, we could really see better-designed websites taking less time to develop.
Improved JavaScript
With IE8, Microsoft boasted a faster JavaScript engine: the problem was, it isn't nearly fast enough. It's still one of the slowest JavaScript engines out there, soundly trounced by Safari, Chrome and (to a lesser degree) Firefox. Microsoft quite rightly said that JavaScript is used on a small percentage of websites - but the problem is, that small percentage takes up a lot of our browsing time. Facebook, for example, uses tons of the stuff. With lots of companies moving to Web-based applications such as Google Apps, this is a real problem: a tardy JavaScript engine is a production bottleneck. This is a real focus for Microsoft and it looks like the work will pay off with a very rapid JavaScript engine. Here's a first look at the new JavaScript engine (working, in this demo, within IE8).
Support for embedded ICC colour profiles
One of the headaches with website design that becomes critical with certain types of website is that of colour accuracy within images. Images can look radically different from computer to computer, since all monitors display images in a different way. Most of the time, this isn't an issue - but if your website sells fabric, wallpaper, paint and so on, then it is a problem. People want to buy what they see. It's also a problem if you're an art gallery or even if you sell library images. ICC (International Colour Consortium) profiles allow colour information to be embedded within an image in a way that can be translated by a rendering device - such as a screen or printer. This makes the display of colours within images much, much more accurate.
Hardware accelerated rendering
As websites become more graphically complex, they put more strain on the PC that's displaying them. This will become truer when HTML really takes off. Even today, a website with intensive Flash can drain a laptop's battery far faster than one without, and you can often hear your machine's fans go into overdrive as the Flash demands more of the processer. Hardware accelerated rendering should make better use of today's more powerful graphics cards and processors by passing the rendering directly out to them.
We're sure that IE9 will also feature some must-haves for users - interface changes and new features. But the focus at Microsoft right now is on the things that will excite developers (hence the developer preview). From our look at the preview, it certainly does excite - top-of-the-line support for all of these highly desirable Web standards could put Internet Explorer right back at the top, not just in terms of market share, but also in terms of technical ability.
IE9 isn't expected until 2011, so a lot could change by then. If you're of a technical bent, take the time to download and play with the IE9 preview.
