Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 will be the most standards-based browser the company has launched to date. Ironically that could prove to be a headache for many web designers. <\/p>\n
Unlike previous browser versions from Microsoft, IE8’s more strict adoption of web standards means that IE8 is likely display Internet pages more like the opposition Firefox and Opera browsers than its own previous versions. <\/p>\n
Which is good news for Internet standards, but not for developers that built their sites to cater for IE’s rendering of HTML standards. They may now have to overhaul their code to ensure their sites will work in IE8. <\/p>\n
Microsoft South Africa’s business group executive for Windows Client, Colin Erasmus, says that IE8 has been developed to improve compatibility across browsers, interoperability and with a strong focus on W3C standards.<\/p>\n
Erasmus says that by default IE will render web pages in the stricter IE8 mode. "But we do expect that some sites will not render correctly," he says. <\/p>\n
Erasmus says that while IE8 will render pages in the stricter IE8 style by default there will be "methods to render pages in IE7 … effectively emulating IE7". Doing this will either require users to switch on the IE7 emulation mode, or web developers will have to use a meta tag to force the browser to render the page in IE7 mode. <\/p>\n
Erasmus says that Microsoft is aware that there are likely to be some initial problems with the new stricter standards. "A developer beta is already out so that developers can prepare their sites for the changeover," says Erasmus.<\/p>\n
Although the transition to IE8 promises to have its bumps, the direction adopted by Microsoft with this release – a direction started with IE7 – towards interoperability and greater standards compliance is a welcome one for the Internet community. <\/p>\n
A consumer beta of IE8 is expected around August this year. A final release date has not yet been set, says Erasmus. <\/p>\n