10 ms·

IE10 platform preview available - with native HTML 5

115 points by intranation 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kenjackson 15y ago
FlexBox, transitions, gradients, and 3D transforms... glad to see progress continuing to be made -- and they were demoing it on an ARM processor. Cool.
- Lennie 15y ago
  I've seen people mention that the demo runs on ARM, but I can't see how that works. As there is no build of Chrome for Windows ARM as far as I know. And the things isn't available from Mozilla either, which I assume would be the Firefox-button in the tray at the bottom.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    It's at about 2:03:48 in the Mix stream. There is no Chrome or FF logo in the taskbar. Its the machine they use to do the last demo. It's not the machine used in the picture on the website linked to from this story.
    - Lennie 15y ago
      I've seen the video on the blogpost, I didn't see it there. I'll take a look.
pohl 15y ago
The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9. I'm leery of the word "native" in this context. It strikes me as a marketing phrase with little or no actual meaning. They're trying to sell me on the idea that my HTML5 experience will somehow be better because it uses code provided by Windows itself rather than by some intermediary library. But what is that windows code, if not a library of code?
- Kudos 15y ago
  Yeah, it sounds like they're trying to hijack the term to give the impression that other browsers are somehow not "native." Did IE9 not have "native" HTML5, or is it just that marketing only came up with the idea now?
  - devtesla 15y ago
    Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
  - contextfree 15y ago
    They used the same messaging with IE9.
  - ryannielsen 15y ago
    Please read the post. Direct quote: > IE9 delivers native support for HTML5 on Windows. Another direct quote: > Native HTML5 support in Windows with IE9 makes a huge difference in what sites can do. And another: > The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.
    - derefr 15y ago
      The first two quotes give me more of a sense of "IE9 brings HTML5 support to your native apps, by installing a new version of the MSHTML web control."
  - experimental 15y ago
    In the sense of using the platforms' libraries and APIs, then Chrome is not native (especially some of the UI as Javascript is not native in any sense) because it comes bundled with its own runtime as well as the WebKit runtime. But in terms of systems languages they are using yes that is native.
- natesm 15y ago
  And, if that's their criteria for a web browser being "good", how would Safari on Mac OS X also not qualify?
rhygar 15y ago
Unfortunately, IE 10 is at least a year to two years away from any significant marketshare.
- melling 15y ago
  It still creates buzz. The biggest problem is getting people to upgrade. IE6/IE7 can't die soon enough. People on XP who are stuck on IE8 might start feeling abandoned and switch to Chrome or Firefox.
- cdr 15y ago
  It's a year to two years away from release, much less marketshare.
devtesla 15y ago
Glad to see that Microsoft isn't going to release IE9 and just sit on it. That is good for Windows users and good for the web.
arnorhs 15y ago
Criticizing Firefox for not rendering something correctly seems like throwing bricks in a glass house. Also, I didn't see a Javascript benchmark in there.
- melling 15y ago
  Mozilla should just thank Microsoft for finding the issue then fix it. We want one standard. Not a big deal. It'll be fixed before IE10 ships.
- arnorhs 15y ago
  Warning - Shameless plug - I elaborated on the issue here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437945 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437945
nextparadigms 15y ago
It's good that they will keep working on IE, but since they will only release these "previews" for a year, that means new features will always be way earlier in Chrome and Firefox (soon) with their fast release cycles. IE10 will launch with features that Chrome and Firefox will have 10 months before.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  I really hope that Microsoft starts to shorten their release cycles. Releasing once every few years made sense in the 1980s and 1990s. Not so much today.
  - geuis 15y ago
    They wont. It looks like IE10 is being bundled with the release of Windows 8. In late 2012. Merde.
    - city41 15y ago
      That is a fast release cycle for Microsoft! It's a step in the right direction. Microsoft is a giant cruise ship trying to compete with speed boats. It won't happen over night, but hopefully it either does happen or they give up. I still feel this is great news overall, it shows Microsoft is aware of the situation. If they ever do truly remedy this (and by remedy I mean a very fast IE release cycle, ideally with automatic updates like Chrome does) it will take them a while to get there. I'm just glad they appear to be slowly turning this cruise ship around.
blocke 15y ago
It's good that Microsoft is viewing integration into it's OS stack as a way to squeeze out performance but if that also doesn't translate into an accelerated ship schedule then who cares. One year is an eternity.
emehrkay 15y ago
Maybe we'll get text-shadow with IE10
- paulirish 15y ago
  It's not in the platform preview 1. Neither are css transitions or 3d transforms, but their messaging indicates they are coming in a subsequent PP release.
mcastner 15y ago
This reads like a political attack ad. So many half-truths in here. Just an example: they claim that Chrome "dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that [IE Team] think is fundamental to performance." Linking to this blog post: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel-update_28.html http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel... The reality is that Chrome disabled it temporarily on the dev channel due to crashing, and in fact brought it back for v11: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the fact that they don't even have a version of IE10, or even 9, for Windows XP! Is this really what the browser wars are going to come to? Lies and marketing? I thought we were over that.
- nightshowerer 15y ago
  >Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the fact that they don't even have a version of IE10, or even 9, for Windows XP! Whaa?? I'd cut them slack on not supporting XP.
  - Groxx 15y ago
    Why? Everyone else is supporting XP with no major problems. Meanwhile, MS has the source code for XP, and for some reason can't replicate that success?
    - barista 15y ago
      It's over 10 year old operating system already. Software has its shelf life. I can't blame them for wanting to not spread their support matrix too wide.
      - purephase 15y ago
        I don't think you understand. MS is criticizing Chrome for temporarily dropping support for XP (re-introduced in v11). IE9+ doesn't support XP at all. That's what you call doublespeak.
simonw 15y ago
Does it support the History API?
- kenjackson 15y ago
  No mention of this nor text shadow.
woogley 15y ago
You'd think the 'best native support' would have WebGL. Oh well, I just hope the History API makes it soon so we can stop abusing #anchors in a few years ..
iwjames 15y ago
Going by the rest of the article, I'm assuming by native HTML5 they mean hardware accelerated compositing? Good for them if so, but 'native' is definitely the wrong word to use, and the development channel of Chrome has supported hardware accelerated compositing for quite some time. https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig... Can even try it out in the current stable channel if you enable it: about:flags IE10 and WebGL is the big question for me, which will be interesting to see pan out given their obviously conflicting position with OpenGL.
- doublec 15y ago
  By 'native' they mean built for Windows without any cross-platform framework getting in the way.
axefrog 15y ago
IE9 renders nice and quickly but in contrast to their claims of speed, I've found their DOM manipulation to significantly underperform in contrast to the other browsers. Firefox 4 and Chrome 10+ are able to create and insert large numbers of new elements at the same time significantly faster than IE9, while IE9 stutters and lags under the same conditions.
azakai 15y ago
1. All this talk about 'Native' is basically propaganda. There is no such thing. All modern browsers generate native code when running JavaScript, and most use GPU acceleration to render content (for example, Firefox uses Direct2D, exactly the same as IE9). IE9 and 10 are not more 'native' than other browsers. 2. I am impressed by the work on implementing new standards - kudos to Microsoft. But I did not see anything about WebGL, which is a very important standard that is already implemented in Firefox, Chrome, Safari and (soon, or already) Opera.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  WebGL won't happen until it makes its way into the HTML spec. Historically MS hasn't been supportive of Khronos standards. And I don't really know of any customers important to MS that are demanding WebGL.
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yep the story about OpenGL and DirectX is well-known now.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  Mozilla is now going full-steam ahead with a plan to support Native HTML5 in Firefox. :) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=nativehtml5 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=nativehtml5 http://arewenativeyet.com/ http://arewenativeyet.com/
WiseWeasel 15y ago
FTA: "... CSS3 Multi-column Layout (link), CSS3 Grid Layout (link) and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout (link), CSS3 Gradients (link), and ES5 Strict Mode in action. We also demonstrated additional standards support (like CSS3 Transitions (link) and CSS3 3D Transforms (link)) that will be available in subsequent platform previews of IE10, which we will update every 8-12 weeks." Oh, hell yes! CSS gradients and animations/transforms? Christmas came early this year. This version can't come soon enough.
- asadotzler 15y ago
  Where in that list do you see CSS animations? I'm old and have difficulty with my eyes sometimes.
  - WiseWeasel 15y ago
    Transitions and 3D transforms are animations.
prashantv 15y ago
Going to http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ on Chrome (dev-channel) shows a little banner with the following message, "Cool, you're using a Chrome 12 nightly build! Don't forget to enable your partial hardware acceleration in the about:flags thingy..." Seems like they're actually worried about Chrome, since Firefox and Safari don't have any similar messages.
- sid0 15y ago
  Firefox already has what they call "full" hardware acceleration, and Safari has none I think, so there's nothing to show there.
  - fleitz 15y ago
    IMHO Safari actually has the best hardware acceleration. Chrome-dev channel is catching up quickly. By hardware acceleration I'm talking about things like -webkit-transform and the support for various 3D transforms. I'm unsure of how it's implemented under the hood but I know Safari kills on 3D transforms and the best part is it works on mobile.
    - sid0 15y ago
      Mere support for CSS transforms is actually really limited. What IE9 and Firefox 4 do on Windows 7 is accelerate all drawing and layer compositing. What it means is that as the browsers gain support for CSS animations and such, they get accelerated for free. Stuff like Canvas and SVG also get accelerated. See http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/.
- kogir 15y ago
  I think they also want any impromptu benchmarks people run to be as fair as possible. To the best of my knowledge, the latest FF and Safari both have all their supported hardware acceleration turned on by default. I've met some members of the IE tech team (who don't control the marketing). The people I know really want to win without cheating and support as much as possible, but are very wary of releasing anything too early. They're very careful to wait until the standards are pretty precise and stable before releasing an implementation, lest they be accused of trying to "sabotage" something with an unintentionally different (but still within the vague spec) implementation.
jarin 15y ago
I wish that Microsoft would just use WebKit in IE10. It's just the rendering engine, they can MSN and Bing up the chrome as much as they want.
kogir 15y ago
When will I be able to use the latest CSS and HTML features without vendor tags in any browser? I'm tired of -wekbit -moz -o and -ms. I won't count any of them as supporting stuff until it works without vendor extensions, and I can finally stop saying things in quadruplicate.
- bxr 15y ago
  Isn't the reason for the vendor tags that the features aren't part of the official spec? I'd guess the answer would be once they become official or you start generating your CSS. Doesn't even have to be that fancy, just something to run over a css file and duplicate a declaration a few times in all the different formats. Probably something you should look into, I don't expect there to come a point where vendors stop adding new proprietary properties, at least not this decade.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Those properties are not proprietary (the vast majority at least). There is a draft spec for most of them but agreement on the final implementation doesn't yet exist. Browser prefixes give vendors the ability to test said draft spec in the wild and correct course if necessary. They also make sure that differing implementations don't make the lives of web developers hard for decades. They are a great idea, actually.
    - bxr 15y ago
      I guess proprietary was the wrong word for what I was saying about the properties. It wasn't my aim to imply that they were proprietary features, just a lack of knowing a better term to refer to the property names.
- ugh 15y ago
  You will be able to use them without those prefixes as soon as the W3C agrees on the final implementation of a standard and as soon as the respective browser implements said standard perfectly. Browser prefixes are actually a great idea that save us from the madness of the old days (like browser hacks) and there is nothing bad about them.
innes 15y ago
I am liking the pugnacious tone. I suspect that with IE9 shipped, they feel they've earned the right to make a forceful argument on how browser development should happen. "Hey kid. Releasing a new version every few weeks ain't professional."
- billybob 15y ago
  I thought that was called "Agile Development." What's unprofessional about it? I'd say it's a lot more professional than letting your browser stagnate for years, leaving security holes unpatched, etc. As for "how browser development should happen," I think the people who can make the argument on that are the ones who've been leading the pack for the last 5+ years, not the ones who are still trying to catch up despite starting out with a giant lead.
  - axefrog 15y ago
    I think your sarcasm filter might be malfunctioning. Everything you just said was already implied by what @innes wrote...
- pjscott 15y ago
  "Unprofessional" is not the same thing as bad, and I wish people would use more descriptive terms in its stead. What, exactly, is bad about having several release streams with varying degrees of speed and stability?
iramiller 15y ago
Native is to browsers as Open is to Mobile OS. That is a great catchy phrase that will get the tech blogs lots of page views while the fans argue about whose definition is more correct.
alexk7 15y ago
I posted this on their comments: "Please, Microsoft, don't try to confuse people by hijacking the word "native". An HTML 5 application does not run on a magical HTML 5 CPU, even in IE9 and IE10. Being single platform may allow you to develop IE faster but it is not an advantage for the user."
spoondan 15y ago
In discussing why IE9+ will not be available for XP, they write: Others have dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that we think is fundamental to performance. This is completely disingenuous. What they are actually referring to (and link to) is Google disabling GPU acceleration and WebGL on XP starting in Chrome 10.0.648.114 due to stability issues. Importantly, Google intends Chrome 11 to re-enable these features on XP for known-good drivers. Here is the relevant ticket: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 The thing is, I actually agree with Microsoft's decision to not support XP. XP, like IE6, is a fundamentally flawed platform and the sooner people move off of it, the better. I just wish they'd make the argument honestly.
- Lennie 15y ago
  I doubt I can ever agree with Microsoft. They have this nice campaign running about how people should upgrade from IE6 to the lastest version: http://ie6countdown.com/ http://ie6countdown.com/ What does this mean ? IE8, because there is no IE6 on Vista or 7, so they are talking about Windows XP. And their is no IE9 for Windows XP. Windows XP extended support is till 2014. Last year (2010) Windows XP was still being sold. The market share of Windows XP has over 50% worldwide, Microsoft should not ignore those users and just release a IE9 for Windows XP already. But who am I kidding, IE9 was a rush job, it doesn't even have a proper JIT javascript engine when you run IE9 64-bit. On Windows 2000 IE6 is actually the lastest version, but I won't comment on that further. ;-)
AndyKelley 15y ago
"Our legal terms have changed since your last visit. By agreeing to the legal terms and requirements, you can continue making contributions to MSDN. Your profile is linked to from all contributions that you make, so others can learn more about you. It also shows your recent social activity and your medals/points." I have to agree to this to read an article? No thanks.
rhygar 15y ago
IE in a nutshell: http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg The damage has been done. The legacy of IE won't be fixed with a new version number.
mwbiz 15y ago
Is that Rob Mauceri speaking in the Video? I saw him at a round table at the Web 2.0 Expo last month and Douglas Crockford and Alex Russell tore him a new ass about Ecma Script 5 strict mode. Looks like he got out of the building alive and actually listened. Cool
defroost 15y ago
I'm not a regular Windows user, but it seems like many even more tech savvy users continually fall for this same cycle of BS from MS. The users frustrated with IE 7 were excited about how much better IE 8 would be. It turned out, IE 8 had many of the same rendering weirdness that IE 7 had. Then came IE 9 to save the day. Only it doesn't do nearly as well supporting HTML 5 features as Chrome, Safari and Firefox. So now here comes IE 10, and what's the pitch? It's gonna be damn fast. Who gives shit? Chrome and Safari are blazing fast AND you don't have to through all kinds of hacks, and html5.js at them as they work perfectly as is, with nearly ALL of the HTML 5 specifications.
tnorthcutt 15y ago
IE10 Platform Preview 1, available for download today is the first step... The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.
tintin 15y ago
Comments on that page killed the browser-star. But I appreciate Microsoft for not removing them.

115 points by intranation 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

FlexBox, transitions, gradients, and 3D transforms... glad to see progress continuing to be made -- and they were demoing it on an ARM processor. Cool.

Lennie 15y ago
I've seen people mention that the demo runs on ARM, but I can't see how that works. As there is no build of Chrome for Windows ARM as far as I know. And the things isn't available from Mozilla either, which I assume would be the Firefox-button in the tray at the bottom.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  It's at about 2:03:48 in the Mix stream. There is no Chrome or FF logo in the taskbar. Its the machine they use to do the last demo. It's not the machine used in the picture on the website linked to from this story.
  - Lennie 15y ago
    I've seen the video on the blogpost, I didn't see it there. I'll take a look.

pohl 15y ago

The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9. I'm leery of the word "native" in this context. It strikes me as a marketing phrase with little or no actual meaning. They're trying to sell me on the idea that my HTML5 experience will somehow be better because it uses code provided by Windows itself rather than by some intermediary library. But what is that windows code, if not a library of code?

Kudos 15y ago
Yeah, it sounds like they're trying to hijack the term to give the impression that other browsers are somehow not "native." Did IE9 not have "native" HTML5, or is it just that marketing only came up with the idea now?
- devtesla 15y ago
  Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
- contextfree 15y ago
  They used the same messaging with IE9.
- ryannielsen 15y ago
  Please read the post. Direct quote: > IE9 delivers native support for HTML5 on Windows. Another direct quote: > Native HTML5 support in Windows with IE9 makes a huge difference in what sites can do. And another: > The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.
  - derefr 15y ago
    The first two quotes give me more of a sense of "IE9 brings HTML5 support to your native apps, by installing a new version of the MSHTML web control."
- experimental 15y ago
  In the sense of using the platforms' libraries and APIs, then Chrome is not native (especially some of the UI as Javascript is not native in any sense) because it comes bundled with its own runtime as well as the WebKit runtime. But in terms of systems languages they are using yes that is native.
natesm 15y ago
And, if that's their criteria for a web browser being "good", how would Safari on Mac OS X also not qualify?

rhygar 15y ago

Unfortunately, IE 10 is at least a year to two years away from any significant marketshare.

melling 15y ago
It still creates buzz. The biggest problem is getting people to upgrade. IE6/IE7 can't die soon enough. People on XP who are stuck on IE8 might start feeling abandoned and switch to Chrome or Firefox.
cdr 15y ago
It's a year to two years away from release, much less marketshare.

devtesla 15y ago

Glad to see that Microsoft isn't going to release IE9 and just sit on it. That is good for Windows users and good for the web.

arnorhs 15y ago

Criticizing Firefox for not rendering something correctly seems like throwing bricks in a glass house. Also, I didn't see a Javascript benchmark in there.

melling 15y ago
Mozilla should just thank Microsoft for finding the issue then fix it. We want one standard. Not a big deal. It'll be fixed before IE10 ships.
arnorhs 15y ago
Warning - Shameless plug - I elaborated on the issue here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437945 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437945

nextparadigms 15y ago

It's good that they will keep working on IE, but since they will only release these "previews" for a year, that means new features will always be way earlier in Chrome and Firefox (soon) with their fast release cycles. IE10 will launch with features that Chrome and Firefox will have 10 months before.

MartinCron 15y ago
I really hope that Microsoft starts to shorten their release cycles. Releasing once every few years made sense in the 1980s and 1990s. Not so much today.
- geuis 15y ago
  They wont. It looks like IE10 is being bundled with the release of Windows 8. In late 2012. Merde.
  - city41 15y ago
    That is a fast release cycle for Microsoft! It's a step in the right direction. Microsoft is a giant cruise ship trying to compete with speed boats. It won't happen over night, but hopefully it either does happen or they give up. I still feel this is great news overall, it shows Microsoft is aware of the situation. If they ever do truly remedy this (and by remedy I mean a very fast IE release cycle, ideally with automatic updates like Chrome does) it will take them a while to get there. I'm just glad they appear to be slowly turning this cruise ship around.

blocke 15y ago

It's good that Microsoft is viewing integration into it's OS stack as a way to squeeze out performance but if that also doesn't translate into an accelerated ship schedule then who cares. One year is an eternity.

emehrkay 15y ago

Maybe we'll get text-shadow with IE10

paulirish 15y ago
It's not in the platform preview 1. Neither are css transitions or 3d transforms, but their messaging indicates they are coming in a subsequent PP release.

mcastner 15y ago

This reads like a political attack ad. So many half-truths in here. Just an example: they claim that Chrome "dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that [IE Team] think is fundamental to performance." Linking to this blog post: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel-update_28.html http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel... The reality is that Chrome disabled it temporarily on the dev channel due to crashing, and in fact brought it back for v11: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the fact that they don't even have a version of IE10, or even 9, for Windows XP! Is this really what the browser wars are going to come to? Lies and marketing? I thought we were over that.

nightshowerer 15y ago
>Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the fact that they don't even have a version of IE10, or even 9, for Windows XP! Whaa?? I'd cut them slack on not supporting XP.
- Groxx 15y ago
  Why? Everyone else is supporting XP with no major problems. Meanwhile, MS has the source code for XP, and for some reason can't replicate that success?
  - barista 15y ago
    It's over 10 year old operating system already. Software has its shelf life. I can't blame them for wanting to not spread their support matrix too wide.
    - purephase 15y ago
      I don't think you understand. MS is criticizing Chrome for temporarily dropping support for XP (re-introduced in v11). IE9+ doesn't support XP at all. That's what you call doublespeak.

simonw 15y ago

Does it support the History API?

kenjackson 15y ago
No mention of this nor text shadow.

woogley 15y ago

You'd think the 'best native support' would have WebGL. Oh well, I just hope the History API makes it soon so we can stop abusing #anchors in a few years ..

iwjames 15y ago

Going by the rest of the article, I'm assuming by native HTML5 they mean hardware accelerated compositing? Good for them if so, but 'native' is definitely the wrong word to use, and the development channel of Chrome has supported hardware accelerated compositing for quite some time. https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig... Can even try it out in the current stable channel if you enable it: about:flags IE10 and WebGL is the big question for me, which will be interesting to see pan out given their obviously conflicting position with OpenGL.

doublec 15y ago
By 'native' they mean built for Windows without any cross-platform framework getting in the way.

axefrog 15y ago

IE9 renders nice and quickly but in contrast to their claims of speed, I've found their DOM manipulation to significantly underperform in contrast to the other browsers. Firefox 4 and Chrome 10+ are able to create and insert large numbers of new elements at the same time significantly faster than IE9, while IE9 stutters and lags under the same conditions.

azakai 15y ago

1. All this talk about 'Native' is basically propaganda. There is no such thing. All modern browsers generate native code when running JavaScript, and most use GPU acceleration to render content (for example, Firefox uses Direct2D, exactly the same as IE9). IE9 and 10 are not more 'native' than other browsers. 2. I am impressed by the work on implementing new standards - kudos to Microsoft. But I did not see anything about WebGL, which is a very important standard that is already implemented in Firefox, Chrome, Safari and (soon, or already) Opera.

kenjackson 15y ago
WebGL won't happen until it makes its way into the HTML spec. Historically MS hasn't been supportive of Khronos standards. And I don't really know of any customers important to MS that are demanding WebGL.
- yuhong 15y ago
  Yep the story about OpenGL and DirectX is well-known now.
mbrubeck 15y ago
Mozilla is now going full-steam ahead with a plan to support Native HTML5 in Firefox. :) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=nativehtml5 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=nativehtml5 http://arewenativeyet.com/ http://arewenativeyet.com/

WiseWeasel 15y ago

FTA: "... CSS3 Multi-column Layout (link), CSS3 Grid Layout (link) and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout (link), CSS3 Gradients (link), and ES5 Strict Mode in action. We also demonstrated additional standards support (like CSS3 Transitions (link) and CSS3 3D Transforms (link)) that will be available in subsequent platform previews of IE10, which we will update every 8-12 weeks." Oh, hell yes! CSS gradients and animations/transforms? Christmas came early this year. This version can't come soon enough.

asadotzler 15y ago
Where in that list do you see CSS animations? I'm old and have difficulty with my eyes sometimes.
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  Transitions and 3D transforms are animations.

prashantv 15y ago

Going to http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ on Chrome (dev-channel) shows a little banner with the following message, "Cool, you're using a Chrome 12 nightly build! Don't forget to enable your partial hardware acceleration in the about:flags thingy..." Seems like they're actually worried about Chrome, since Firefox and Safari don't have any similar messages.

sid0 15y ago
Firefox already has what they call "full" hardware acceleration, and Safari has none I think, so there's nothing to show there.
- fleitz 15y ago
  IMHO Safari actually has the best hardware acceleration. Chrome-dev channel is catching up quickly. By hardware acceleration I'm talking about things like -webkit-transform and the support for various 3D transforms. I'm unsure of how it's implemented under the hood but I know Safari kills on 3D transforms and the best part is it works on mobile.
  - sid0 15y ago
    Mere support for CSS transforms is actually really limited. What IE9 and Firefox 4 do on Windows 7 is accelerate all drawing and layer compositing. What it means is that as the browsers gain support for CSS animations and such, they get accelerated for free. Stuff like Canvas and SVG also get accelerated. See http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration/.
kogir 15y ago
I think they also want any impromptu benchmarks people run to be as fair as possible. To the best of my knowledge, the latest FF and Safari both have all their supported hardware acceleration turned on by default. I've met some members of the IE tech team (who don't control the marketing). The people I know really want to win without cheating and support as much as possible, but are very wary of releasing anything too early. They're very careful to wait until the standards are pretty precise and stable before releasing an implementation, lest they be accused of trying to "sabotage" something with an unintentionally different (but still within the vague spec) implementation.

jarin 15y ago

I wish that Microsoft would just use WebKit in IE10. It's just the rendering engine, they can MSN and Bing up the chrome as much as they want.

kogir 15y ago

When will I be able to use the latest CSS and HTML features without vendor tags in any browser? I'm tired of -wekbit -moz -o and -ms. I won't count any of them as supporting stuff until it works without vendor extensions, and I can finally stop saying things in quadruplicate.

bxr 15y ago
Isn't the reason for the vendor tags that the features aren't part of the official spec? I'd guess the answer would be once they become official or you start generating your CSS. Doesn't even have to be that fancy, just something to run over a css file and duplicate a declaration a few times in all the different formats. Probably something you should look into, I don't expect there to come a point where vendors stop adding new proprietary properties, at least not this decade.
- ugh 15y ago
  Those properties are not proprietary (the vast majority at least). There is a draft spec for most of them but agreement on the final implementation doesn't yet exist. Browser prefixes give vendors the ability to test said draft spec in the wild and correct course if necessary. They also make sure that differing implementations don't make the lives of web developers hard for decades. They are a great idea, actually.
  - bxr 15y ago
    I guess proprietary was the wrong word for what I was saying about the properties. It wasn't my aim to imply that they were proprietary features, just a lack of knowing a better term to refer to the property names.
ugh 15y ago
You will be able to use them without those prefixes as soon as the W3C agrees on the final implementation of a standard and as soon as the respective browser implements said standard perfectly. Browser prefixes are actually a great idea that save us from the madness of the old days (like browser hacks) and there is nothing bad about them.

innes 15y ago

I am liking the pugnacious tone. I suspect that with IE9 shipped, they feel they've earned the right to make a forceful argument on how browser development should happen. "Hey kid. Releasing a new version every few weeks ain't professional."

billybob 15y ago
I thought that was called "Agile Development." What's unprofessional about it? I'd say it's a lot more professional than letting your browser stagnate for years, leaving security holes unpatched, etc. As for "how browser development should happen," I think the people who can make the argument on that are the ones who've been leading the pack for the last 5+ years, not the ones who are still trying to catch up despite starting out with a giant lead.
- axefrog 15y ago
  I think your sarcasm filter might be malfunctioning. Everything you just said was already implied by what @innes wrote...
pjscott 15y ago
"Unprofessional" is not the same thing as bad, and I wish people would use more descriptive terms in its stead. What, exactly, is bad about having several release streams with varying degrees of speed and stability?

iramiller 15y ago

Native is to browsers as Open is to Mobile OS. That is a great catchy phrase that will get the tech blogs lots of page views while the fans argue about whose definition is more correct.

alexk7 15y ago

I posted this on their comments: "Please, Microsoft, don't try to confuse people by hijacking the word "native". An HTML 5 application does not run on a magical HTML 5 CPU, even in IE9 and IE10. Being single platform may allow you to develop IE faster but it is not an advantage for the user."

spoondan 15y ago

In discussing why IE9+ will not be available for XP, they write: Others have dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that we think is fundamental to performance. This is completely disingenuous. What they are actually referring to (and link to) is Google disabling GPU acceleration and WebGL on XP starting in Chrome 10.0.648.114 due to stability issues. Importantly, Google intends Chrome 11 to re-enable these features on XP for known-good drivers. Here is the relevant ticket: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975 The thing is, I actually agree with Microsoft's decision to not support XP. XP, like IE6, is a fundamentally flawed platform and the sooner people move off of it, the better. I just wish they'd make the argument honestly.

Lennie 15y ago
I doubt I can ever agree with Microsoft. They have this nice campaign running about how people should upgrade from IE6 to the lastest version: http://ie6countdown.com/ http://ie6countdown.com/ What does this mean ? IE8, because there is no IE6 on Vista or 7, so they are talking about Windows XP. And their is no IE9 for Windows XP. Windows XP extended support is till 2014. Last year (2010) Windows XP was still being sold. The market share of Windows XP has over 50% worldwide, Microsoft should not ignore those users and just release a IE9 for Windows XP already. But who am I kidding, IE9 was a rush job, it doesn't even have a proper JIT javascript engine when you run IE9 64-bit. On Windows 2000 IE6 is actually the lastest version, but I won't comment on that further. ;-)

AndyKelley 15y ago

"Our legal terms have changed since your last visit. By agreeing to the legal terms and requirements, you can continue making contributions to MSDN. Your profile is linked to from all contributions that you make, so others can learn more about you. It also shows your recent social activity and your medals/points." I have to agree to this to read an article? No thanks.

rhygar 15y ago

IE in a nutshell: http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg The damage has been done. The legacy of IE won't be fixed with a new version number.

mwbiz 15y ago

Is that Rob Mauceri speaking in the Video? I saw him at a round table at the Web 2.0 Expo last month and Douglas Crockford and Alex Russell tore him a new ass about Ecma Script 5 strict mode. Looks like he got out of the building alive and actually listened. Cool

defroost 15y ago

I'm not a regular Windows user, but it seems like many even more tech savvy users continually fall for this same cycle of BS from MS. The users frustrated with IE 7 were excited about how much better IE 8 would be. It turned out, IE 8 had many of the same rendering weirdness that IE 7 had. Then came IE 9 to save the day. Only it doesn't do nearly as well supporting HTML 5 features as Chrome, Safari and Firefox. So now here comes IE 10, and what's the pitch? It's gonna be damn fast. Who gives shit? Chrome and Safari are blazing fast AND you don't have to through all kinds of hacks, and html5.js at them as they work perfectly as is, with nearly ALL of the HTML 5 specifications.

tnorthcutt 15y ago

IE10 Platform Preview 1, available for download today is the first step... The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.

tintin 15y ago

Comments on that page killed the browser-star. But I appreciate Microsoft for not removing them.