Revamp your sites now for IE 8! Options

[Frederiek]

Microsoft Pushes Devs With Wider IE8 Beta

The company plans to let end users kick the tires on IE's next release, prompting Web developers to get busy revamping their sites.

In a strange bit of irony, though, making IE8 comply with the latest Web standards will require changes to thousands -- perhaps millions -- of Web sites.

Sic!!

"We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers," MacKechnie's blog post said.

These quotes come from an amazing artcle at internetnews.com (March 29), which puts quite a dumper on how we, web designers, who are already having trouble coding for IE7, will now have to cope with the "super-standard" IE8.

Start rolling up your sleeves!

[pandy]

I... can't... take... any... more...

[Darin McGrew]

So, does that mean that MSIE 8 will catch up with the other browsers to the point that we don't need to hunt down an MS Windows box so we can test with MSIE 8?

[Frederiek]

Pandy:
Get a Mac
See David Alison' site. He turned to Mac after 17 years on PC and reports practically daily about his findings. Even for Mac users interesting to read.

Darin:
"there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers"

I think that means that, as usual, IE 8 will get installed without asking if you really want to install it.

Over the years of IE's dominance as the leading browser, designers regularly tweaked their sites to get the best possible accuracy in rendering pages in IE -– most recently, the current commercial release, IE7.

Now those pages will need to be changed.

It's been said somewhere on internetnews.com, that in IE8 sites made for IE7 won't even display!! One of the reasons to revamp all sites for IE8.

Anyway, that's how I understood this.

[Brian Chandler]

It's been said somewhere on internetnews.com, that in IE8 sites made for IE7 won't even display!! One of the reasons to revamp all sites for IE8.

Isn't that a reason simply to put one of those sticker thingies saying "Best viewed in a standards-compliant browser - anything except Mircosfot's effort, basically"... ?

[Dr Z]

It's been said somewhere on internetnews.com, that in IE8 sites made for IE7 won't even display!! One of the reasons to revamp all sites for IE8.

Anyway, that's how I understood this.

Am I understanding that IE8 will not be CSS complaint?

[pandy]

Pandy:
Get a Mac

How will that help me test pages in this armada if IE Win browsers though?

[Frederiek]

Dr Z:
No, I don't think so. That would be really weird. But apparently, what works in IE7 won't work in IE8 anymore. Go figure!

Pandy:
Maybe follow Brian's advice then

I don't know what MS is up to, but I get the impression they are desperate. I'd like to see the day that in the stats IE is at, say, 10% (or less) of the browser uses. Already, many PC users use FF, or even switch OS.

The lastest news is a security flaw in Safari on PC, which actually rather seems a flaw in Windows itself, see Safari ‘carpet bomb’ attack code released.

[pandy]

I wouldn't dream of it.