Darryl Lyons’ Blog

AJAX, ColdFusion and Web technology…

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Category: Browsers


Your company not moving to IE7 in a hurry?

13 January, 2007 (10:10) | Browsers, Web, Work | By: Darryl Lyons

The sysadmin type people at my work don’t want to move to IE7 probably until there is an SP1 release. While I understand their reluctance, it is frustrating developing for IE6 knowing that a better corporate SOE alternative exists! A lot of the leak issues we experience now will be minimised, and the speed improvements alone are a compelling reason to upgrade.

I hope Microsoft release a SP1 release soon.. What if they never do, and we have to wait until IE8!?

However, there are other issues.. Other internal/external web applications, that the organisation relies upon, will need to work with the new version, and I don’t think we will upgrade until that can be guaranteed.

Comments: 4

Opera 9 released

20 June, 2006 (20:17) | Browsers | By: Darryl Lyons

Opera 9Opera have released version 9.0 of their browser.

The new version has features such as:

  • Integrated BitTorrent
  • Add your favorite search engines
  • Site preferences
  • Improved rich text editing
  • Content blocker
  • Thumbnail (tab) preview
  • Widgets

The widgets feature has me interested.

Opera Widgets are small web applications run directly on a user’s desktop. With Opera Widgets you can quickly write small, focused applications that perform useful tasks. They can interact with online services such as news feeds, dictionaries or search engines.

Widgets look like a pretty cool idea to me. Haven’t looked to much into their desktop integration, but it does appear as though you can use permanent storage other than cookies. Interesting all the same.

Comments: 4

Native XMLHTTPRequest support in IE7

11 June, 2006 (20:32) | AJAX, Browsers, JavaScript | By: Darryl Lyons

I had almost forgotten about XMLHTTPRequest being native in Internet Explorer 7. Has anyone done any benchmarks between native support and the ActiveX? I'd be interested in seeing if their is any difference, because I imagine they would just be piggy-backing the same technology.

Essentially IE7 will now allow you to do this (which is consistent with Mozilla/Firefox and Safari):

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. var o = new XMLHttpRequest();
  2. o.open(method, url, async);
  3. o.onreadystatechange = function_pointer;
  4. o.send();

Instead of this:

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. var o = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  2. o.open(method, url, async);
  3. o.onreadystatechange = function_pointer;
  4. o.send();

Comments: 1

IE7 fixes SELECT element

31 May, 2006 (21:00) | Browsers, HTML | By: Darryl Lyons

This is BIG news. I found out today that IE7 has finally fixed the age old problem with the SELECT element. Imagine my joy when I read at IEBlog that they have fixed it, and it is now being rendered by MSHTML.

The SELECT element is a windows control, and does not have a z-index. This usually presents itself as a problem when you try to place a DIV over a SELECT. There are various ways that people have been getting around this annoyance, including hiding the SELECT or using an IFRAME behind the DIV.

The new SELECT element in IE7 will still support Windows themes, so you don't have to worry about that changing.

There are no plans to implement the DISABLED attribute on the OPTION element however (at least not in this version).

Comments: 5

Sticky note Firefox Plugin

19 March, 2006 (20:40) | Firefox | By: Darryl Lyons

Just came across this plugin for Firefox that allows you to add sticky notes to Web sites that you visit. What's more, they are persistent. How cool would this be for prototyping of applications and Web sites?!

Comments: 1