IE's New Rendering EngineFriday September 10th, 1999IE will be utilizing a new rendering engine in v5 for Mac, according to this article at TechWeb. And here's a Flash demo to show you what it's all about. A bit weak on specifics, though. If their browser was Open Source, maybe they wouldn't have to resort to using a cartoon called ZipIE as their technical contact. Thanks to Adam Lock for the news. their example of Glassdog.com was pointless. geocities have been using content that scrolls with pages for ages. Not only does this not seem to do anything different, its also obviously jerky (not scrolling with the page, but jumping down sporadically with the page). Actually, they hosed the watermark in the switch to Yahoo!Geocities, but the point is still valid. :) who knows ? maybe Tasman (MS' new layout engine) is "inspired" by Gecko ? maybe MS engineers like Open Source ?! more seriously, Mac Users will almost certainly be happy beta-testers for this new product before it is ported to the PC... There is slightly more information in the ZDnet story <http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn…ws/0,4586,2330301,00.html> They promise "strict compliance" with W3C standards - in particular, full support for CSS1 and partial for CSS2 (same as promised for Mozilla, although "partial" obviously has a rather vague definition). Basically, it does indicate that (as I've said) MS are at least trying *not* to be left behind on standards compliance. (Although they don't give a timescale for any PC implementation of the same improvements...) In other words, there *is* going to be competition for the next-generation browser; Mozilla isn't necessarily going to be the clear winner, even on technical/standards grounds, although hopefully it will still be "first". I wonder how long it would've taken MS to implement full standards support [rather than "look, it fully supports ActiveX and all other MS extensions!"] if it *hadn't* been for the Mozilla project... --sam you say << Mozilla isn't necessarily going to be the clear winner, even on technical/standards grounds >> maybe, but that's where Open Source can make the difference. if there's a better feature in the new IE, we can bet someone will be able to take mozilla's sources and add or improve some code. mozilla can be the clear winner *in the long run*. I've always wanted to ask and your post finally reminded me: How much support for CSS2 is meant by Mozilla's "partial support"? A percentage would be nice, but if there's a list somewhere of which CSS2 properties are supported, that would be better. Whatever "partial" is, I want my positioning! (btw, first time I'm using a Mozilla build to check messages and reply here, hehe) ~80% . . . that was better than I was hoping. Thanx. #24 IE's New Rendering Engineby hodeleri <drbrain@segment7.net> Friday September 10th, 1999 5:20 PM What's wrong with <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/> ? Hey, Folks, take a look at the debug symbols in "tasman". The code was stolen from gecko !!! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! MS sucks code from our Gecko ! Really? You have proof of this? Or is this just a troll? I'm very sure... tasman and geckos layout engine share ~35% of symbol names (mac version)... interesting, isn't it ?? Could you provide a link to some comparisons? Please? If this is true, I'd be really shocked. #13 Re: Could you post examples?by bmetzler <bmetzler@pluto.twistedpair.net> Friday September 10th, 1999 8:58 AM I'd sure like to see examples too. On one hand I'd be completely surprised to find that MS stole code from mozilla. The developers would have likely been warned to not even visit a site related to Mozilla, lest they be contaminated. It would be ubsurd to think of MS actually stealing code. On the other hand, IE 5 for the Mac has been delayed. We first that it now has a similar release date as Mozilla and a rumor that they share debugging symbols. Also, they remarkably have almost the same features. Is it just a coincindence? It would be a desperate Microsoft to think that they could use Mozilla's code without being caught. -Brent This is friggin open source so if MS wants to take the code, they can take the code. Get over it people, it's a hypocritcal thing you are doing if you are going to whine about MS using Open Source code in their own browser. It would be a definite change of pace for MS, but they are perfectly within their rights to use any open source code in their applications. -Chris You are missing the point. The point isn't that MS is unlawfully "stealing" code from Mozilla, but that they may actually be using the code! Legal implications aside, I would find it very surprising and somewhat inflammatory if MS is actually using Mozilla source! Sure they /can/, but they have been traditionally a diamatrically opposed enemy to Netscape and Mozilla...that they would actually be using its own source to compete against it would be startling. However, what would they even attempt to gain from this? They'd have to open-source they're browser wouldn't they? -Aaron Yeah, but if MS uses the code internally without publishing, in source form, their mods, THAT's illegal. *if* someone were to take the code from mozilla.org and change it, and publish software based on it, there is no requirement that they publish the modifications. I'm not even sure any credit has to be given (since the MPL is not a BSD style license) Any changes to the Mozilla/Gecko source code must be published. But not their own code. Or have I completely misread the MPL? Good, this means that Microsoft will start sending patches to bugs in Gecko (not that there are any). ;) #56 IE's New Rendering Engineby mitchell <mitchell@mozilla.org> Monday September 13th, 1999 2:13 PM Yes, anyone using NPL/MPL governed code must publish any files they change or files they create which include any NPL/MPL governed code. Once that's done, those files can be included in proprietary products without the rest of the product being affected by the NPL/MPL. That's what we intended when we wrote the licenses. Yes, actually, the license does state they must publish modifications to the code. But they only have to publish files containing that code, not their own. In other words, it wouldn't open up all of IE, but they would have to show they were using the Source, and they would have to publish modifications. Go read the NPL yourself and see. This is friggin open source so if MS wants to take the code, they can take the code. Get over it people, it's a hypocritcal thing you are doing if you are going to whine about MS using Open Source code in their own browser. It would be a definite change of pace for MS, but they are perfectly within their rights to use any open source code in their applications. -Chris It wasn't funny by the first exclamation mark, and it wasn't funny after the ninth. By the way, assuming I didn't misunderstand the NPL, Microsoft could perfectly legally incorporate the Gecko layout engine into their own browser. I don't think they will, of course, but it would be cool if they did. :) --sam This is what GPL was made for, to assure us that code once free will remain always free. As Richard M Stallman pointed out, while MPL tries to be copyleft, it has many loopholes which would enable MS to benefit from Mozilla without ever contributing much back This is news dating back to when the iBook was announced. This was supposed to be out in Fall but was pushed back to Winter. IIRC, When IE4.5 was released in January they claimed IE5/Mac would be out in the Summer. Regardless, I'll believe it when I see it. In addition to W3 standards compliance they are supposed to be adding MS DOM so I can actually see Frontpage/MS authored pages correctly without having to wait for people to make W3 compliant pages. Now if they can only carry through with their promises.... They're probably having trouble removing all those Windows OS entanglements from their product! :) And crap like Auction manager is stuff I can do without. If you can't view a page correctly with a standards-compliant browser, there's only one right reaction: leave the site. That's exactly, what they what to achieve: Creating own "standards", bringing people (web developers in this case) to use them and this way force a lot of people to use their products. Did you ever think about, why they created sites like "Site Builder Network"? Don't get catched. Fight against them. You're not alone. Yes. I agree in principle. But in reality I could use some of that information, and now. Waiting for people to update their pages to be standards compliant is relying on something I cannot influence. You seem to forget that the announcement states the browser will be W3 standards and MS compliant. That is welcome to me. I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you, but why should I wait for others to make their information in a format I can read when IE5 will supposedly give me both? Remember, just because I want to (and will when possible) author in W3 compliant standards doesn't mean everybody else will or has. If you have used IE on the Mac you probably know just how much they've been left out of DHTML and similar sites. It's not just MS standards that fall short, but CSS as well. Not to mention that ActiveX nonsense (which I don't want) that pervades MS DHTML pages. One reason MS is good at getting them to use their standards is all th etols they provide. I hope the market offers tools that developers can use just as easily in the future. Respectfully, Luddite Don't just leave their site, complain to the webmaster. Leaving their site will reduce their traffic but will not tell people where they are going wrong. Lemming I've done this several times. When I get the answer it is always "I'm sorry I don't have time to code for multiple browsers and your browser just isn't up to snuff" (paraphrased). Frankly, most times, I don't blame them. Again, I'm not going to change how people make their sites, but I can certainly build *mine* to standards *when a browser that supports them* is available. Whether it is IE or Mozilla, iCab, or Opera, I couldn't care less. The more the better. But none of them is 100% and available yet. In any event, I will be glad IE5 supports W3 standards. But as I said, making the Mac version compatible with the Windows version is a big bonus to me as a developer and viewer. Microsoft's new technology group is really impressive. Look at this "groundbreaking" stuff: 'Outlook Express 5.0 ... has a new feature called "one-key-read," which lets users move from one e-mail message to the next with a single click.' I know *I'm* going to switch over as soon as this comes out. I need to press 25-30 keys to read each new mail message with mozilla. #30 IE's New Rendering Engineby stoecker <stoecker@mindrevolution.de> Friday September 10th, 1999 10:02 PM aehm... well... it's one key with netscape messenger 4.x ... hummm... and the super function "auto completion" für email-adresses is also in messenger since 4.x I did a time-consuming search a while back. One of the search engines actuallay hit the mozilla.whishlist on a microsoft domain. Conclusion, with Mozilla newsgroups archived on a microsoft domain, it is not absolutely certain that microsoft developpers have been warned to stay away from mozilla. They may have or may not have been inspired by Mozilla. Either way is not wrong anyway. Regardless of its implications for standards progress, this may be good news for Web developers. The rendering and scripting engines on Mac IE4.x are a nightmare, incomplete and incompatible even with other versions of IE. But thousands of iMac owners are using it thanks to Apple's quid pro quo with Microsoft. If they at least bother to do a little QA or actual porting this time around, it could mean less confusion for users and fewer headaches for us. #28 This can only be GOODby danielhill <danielhill@hotmail.com> Friday September 10th, 1999 8:06 PM This is good news for the Internet community. I use Windows not the Mac, but it means that Microsoft are at least partially committed to standards. This means that finally, this stupid browser standards war can be OVER!!! Everyone has the freedom of choice, and can be assured pages will render correctly in both. Hopefully Mozilla developers will take up the challenge to better Microsoft :) Competition leads to better products. In most cases. did anyone else get the joke in the codename "Tasman"? maybe I'm reading a bit too deeply between the lines, but Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand, so you might call him a ... navigator *cough* You could also call him an explorer... hadnt thought of that ^_^ People, please read the license or shut up. IANAL (I am not a lawyer), and the following is just an partial summary of the whole license. Thus said: The license explictly requires that any executable you distribute must have a notice that it is was created using code covered by the NPL. Any source code where you use or modify code which is under NPL, has to be under NPL, too. In explanation: Microsoft is free to use any source code from Mozilla. However, they would *have* to announce that fact in their executable in a prominent place. If they modified any code under NPL, they would *have* to publish it and tell in a prominent place with the executable where you can get it. So *if* they used code from Mozilla and *if* they did not state so, they have made unlicensed (=illegal) use of that code. PS: I don't mind Microsoft using Mozilla's code as long as they don't change it or contribute their changes. This would give us two standard conformant browsers. One of the good things about Netscape and even more so about Mozilla is that most of their rendering code is cross platform so you can be fairly sure that if it works in Netscape 4.x for Linux it'll display the same in Windows. Now Microsoft are going to have two versions of IE5.0 one for Windows and one for the Mac (what rendering engine does the solaris version use?), so pages will display differently depending on what platform you use. They should keep their browser versions inline. Or do Microsoft not know how to write cross platform code. Even the menu layout between platforms is totally different. ...and this auction manager they're planning is one of their ideas to promote ebay and damage the popularity of other auction sites. Having incompatible versions of IE across platforms is nothing new. Every release of Mac IE since 3.0 has been mostly unrelated, codewise, to the Windows version. Even the win16 versions have little in common with their win32 counterparts. I don't actually know why, but it's a fair guess that Microsoft's win32 programmers don't write portable code. They have access to the complete win32 API, after all, and coded toward OS integration. But frankly the differences between platforms are still so great as to suggest the products were developed in isolation. Someone should help the person/people to get the Mozilla browser detection working on glassdog.com. I went using Mozilla and it keeps looking for document.layers[] but Glassdog.com works on netvigator 4.61 Microsoft has contiuoisly failed to produce a browser for the Mac OS. The current verions of Navigator, aside from it's stability issues, works and displays content pretty close to exactly the same on all platforms. I written JavaScripts that would perform exactly the same on all platforms. IE on the other hand, is a whole ne story. You cannot script Plugins on the Mac or Java Applets. There is no ActiveX support on the Mac and if there was, you couldn't script the controls either. And lastly, a good third of all of teh DHTML features on Windows are not present on the Mac. For fucks sake man, Mac IE cannot do Clipping or FullScreen! I'd be willing to be that XML support will be there but there won't be XSL support. That way, MS can say that you need to upgrade (downgrade) your OS too. So, who wants to be that MS will short change Mac Users a second time? I'm holding out for Mozilla. #39 I'll Believe it when I see it!by gerbilpower <gerbil@ucdavis.edu> Saturday September 11th, 1999 8:49 PM Short change is right. I did a freelance gig for a web-multimedia company and damn I was almost pulling my hairs out over the incredible inconsistency of IE between Macs and PCs. The only thing consistent with it was that it kept crashing over the course of the day. Microsoft was painfully inconsistent with IE 4.x, and looks like they are doing the same with IE 5. The standards compliance of Tasman is good news for web developers but why can't MS make two versions of the same product perform exactly the same? With everything aside, the consistency and wide array of platforms Mozilla supports will keep it superior product over IE. Go Mozilla! I am in agreement with your position on the IE versions displaying quite differently across platforms. However I don't agree that IE 4.5 is completely a miserable product. It is a plus that things display in a very similar way on Netscape, PC/Mac. But Netscape 4.x for Mac is certainly nothing to brag about. In fact it has every appearance of simply being a crappy PC port. IMHO. I am looking toward Mozilla for all my machines (PC at home, Mac and Linux at work), but I can't say as I cry at night that I don't have ActiveX or other obnoxious stuff on my Mac IE. Netscape Nav/Comm (4.x) for Mac is not any kind of improvement. It is junk even if it does render similarly to the PC version. When they say its more stable does that mean stable like WIN 98...If so....no thanks Actually, the only thing that got me was the Palm Pilot integration for OE. I've heard "standards compliance" claims for quite a while now, and I'll believe it when I see the finished product. (And yes, that goes for Netscape\AOL as well as Microsoft.) Ya know, this means MSIE Mac users won't be seeing PNG graphics, since MSIE 4.5 doesn't support PNG. That really sucks. Of course, Netscape does support PNG. Yeah, I think if the Mail/News people haven't thought about Palm Pilot integration, they should. It may be late in the game to add features, but this is one that really should be in the final package. -Chris See title. Mozilla is still horizonware, and I still have yet to see a useful release. Maybe if they had done things more correctly they would have focused on the rendering engine first and worried about all the extras like XUL and XCOM later. Because at least if the rendering engine was put out in a usable way, other browsers for alternate platforms could use it with their own interface. I have yet to see this. So, at least IE for the Mac shows promise. And it feels like a Mac app too. are you kidding when you write "extras like XUL and XPCOM" ? I don't see those as being "extras". They look rather like building blocks for the future. and be patient ! don't you prefer to wait a few months to have an innovative software than have another classical one right now ? regards. Yeah, XPCOM and XUL are core components to the rendering engine. It's not like they could hold off on those. And if they did, they would have had to rewrite the entire engine to make it XPCOMified thus making the project cycle even longer. Look, the work's been done, they've made their bed, and they will sleep in it, yadda yadda yadda. -Chris Do you pay attention? The rendering engine for Mozilla IS out and available. That's why it IS in other browsers and HTML authoring tools. If you go to the main mozilla.org page, you can see links to other products (like NeoPlanet) which use Mozilla's rendering engine. #66 At least they have a release dateby basic <_basic@yahoo.com> Thursday September 16th, 1999 11:46 AM You are refering to NS Communicator right? Moz plans to be release by Dec,99. Right now mostly is bug-fixing. Most of the "new features" you see being announced will not be in this first release. NS (or AOL?) Communicator on the other hand... Try visiting <http://www.glassdog.com>, it already performs the demonstrated feature. Or can the current IE for the Mac not do that? Well IE5 for Windows doesn't support w3c standards and that's what counts for me. It would be interesting to see sites that say "best viewed under Mozilla for windows or mac and IE5 for mac but go away if you have IE5 for windows" |
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