Alasdair Mackenzie

Microsoft, Internet Explorer 8 and Super Standards

February 20th, 2008 Posted in Internet Explorer

It’s about time Microsoft started letting some hints drop about the next version of the worlds most popular browser.  Recently (19 December 2007), Microsoft has started to reveal the features…

• Passes Acid 2 test - YES
• Backwards Compatibility - YES
• Contains “Super Standards” support - Hmmmm YES

I’m not too sure how I feel about this. I’ve read a lot of articles that praise the team’s efforts and think that it’s a good idea, but I’m not too sure about specifying a browser for the simple reason that it closes the market for other browsers (more on that point once I’ve explained the new mode).

In this post I’m going to tell you what it is, how it’s been done and what I think.

So, what’s it like then?

• “Quirks mode” remains the same, and compatible with current content.
• “Standards mode” remains the same as IE7, and compatible with current content.
• If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple <meta> element.

And how is it done?

Via a meta tag:

meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=8;FF=3;OtherUA=4″

If I’m being honest then I wouldn’t have done it that way.

…back to my point about closing the market for other browsers. Okay, I know what you’re thinking now, “OtherUA=4” means that no one browser will be left out, right? Wrong. Why bother with the IE=8, FF=3 then?

• Read more about previous attempts to save the world (quirks mode).
• This is a great article on super standards mode.
• And an article about the specifications from Aaron Gustafson, who was a member of the WaSP-Microsoft task force (who devised the scheme).

One quick note on Aaron Gustafson’s article, he says,

“Having the ability to lock your site to a particular browser version is fantastic for ensuring that your site will be usable well into the future”

What about how far back browsers will have to support?  In 10 years time there might be documents floating about with “otherUA=4″.  What if it’s on version 999,999 and it hits this page?

And if I’m being entirely honesty I’m a bit confused about how this is all going to work in the real world. Please comment if you think I’m wrong :-p