Microsoft/W3C HTML 4 Test Suite

[Kevin C.]

Just found this little utility over at w3.org. It's interesting to see that
IE6 fails a number of the specification tests. Should this imply that
Microsoft will be putting forth a concerted effort to match the specs in
IE7?

Are there any pertinent articles w/ Microsoft people talking about IE7?

[Stan Brown]

In article <Cl*****************@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Kevin C. <no****@fake.com>
wrote:

Just found this little utility over at w3.org. It's interesting to see that
IE6 fails a number of the specification tests. Should this imply that
Microsoft will be putting forth a concerted effort to match the specs in
IE7?

There's not going to be an IE7, at least not as separate product.

And if Microsoft put forth any effort to match public open
standards, it would represent a very large (and welcome) change of
direction by corporate management.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[C A Upsdell]

"Kevin C." <no****@fake.com> wrote in message
news:Cl*****************@newssvr29.news.prodigy.co m...

Just found this little utility over at w3.org. It's interesting to see that IE6 fails a number of the specification tests. Should this imply that
Microsoft will be putting forth a concerted effort to match the specs in
IE7?

Are there any pertinent articles w/ Microsoft people talking about IE7?

There are two issues here:

1. Better IE support of standards: Microsoft's stated policy for years has
been that it is more interested in responding to customers' needs than with
complying with standards. So you'll only see better IE standards support
when customers demand it.

2. IE 7: the next browser will come with the next version of Windows -- in
2005 or 2006 -- and will not work with current versions of Windows. For
more on this, see http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/b....htm#microsoft

[Brian]

C A Upsdell wrote:

Better IE support of standards: Microsoft's stated policy for years has
been that it is more interested in responding to customers' needs than with
complying with standards. So you'll only see better IE standards support
when customers demand it.

I think the situation is a tad more complicated than MS would have us
believe, but there's little point in arguing with ciwah about the
*stated* policy of MS.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Bertilo Wennergren]

C A Upsdell:

1. Better IE support of standards: Microsoft's stated policy for years has
been that it is more interested in responding to customers' needs than with
complying with standards. So you'll only see better IE standards support
when customers demand it.

In MSIE 6 they corrected lots of things in the CSS support, e.g. the
boxmodel. Was all that because customers demanded it?

--
Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

[Wired Earp]

Kevin C. wrote:

Just found this little utility over at w3.org. It's interesting to see
that IE6 fails a number of the specification tests. Should this imply
that Microsoft will be putting forth a concerted effort to match the
specs in IE7?
No. Microsoft will do no such thing unless their dominance on the browser
market is threatened. Hopefully this *can* happen within a few years, see
below, but a safer bet is that the .NET framework will be strengthened on
the clientside, implying a further setback for standards compliance.
Are there any pertinent articles w/ Microsoft people talking about
IE7?

A number of articles targetting IE7 for 2005 is referenced at
<url:http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3244>. A forthcoming
update to IE6, focusing on lowered standard compliance, was announced this
week on <url:http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/>.

--
Wired Earp
Wunderbyte

[Jim Ley]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 17:08:34 +0000 (UTC), Wired Earp
<wi***************@wunderbyte.com> wrote:

A forthcoming
update to IE6, focusing on lowered standard compliance, was announced this
week on <url:http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/>.

Could you explain how it's lowered standard compliance?

Jim.
--
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Wired Earp]

I wrote:

A forthcoming update to IE6, focusing on lowered standard
compliance, was announced this week

Jim Ley wondered: Could you explain how it's lowered standard compliance?
That was mostly just a joke to put things into perspective, but a new non-
validating attribute does seem to be a central modification. Quoting from
<url:http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/activexchanges.asp#fix_data>
The OBJECT element for an ActiveX control has a new attribute:
NOEXTERNALDATA. Specify true for this attribute to indicate that the
control does not access remote data and that Internet Explorer should
not prompt the user

Referring to the soon to be commonplace prompt-boxes warning the user about
active content - be that Shockwave Flash, Internet Explorer XML extras or
plugin-enabled SVG content - following the Eola lawsuit. By some twist of
things I am actually rather enjoyed by this apparent regression in user
experience. I personally regard Macromedias ActionScript product as a
powerful, imaginative, consistant, fun and cost-effective development
platform, but all the more threatining it is to the advance of more
important technologies. Only browsers with a strong native support of
internet standards will remain unaffected by this commotion, underlining
their head-start on things. Perhaps a transitional period of prompt boxes
will focus developers attention away from non-standard frameworks; perhaps
something positive will emerge if and when Microsoft decides to un-corner
themselves from platform-specific Active-X technologies.
--
Wired Earp
Wunderbyte

[Jim Ley]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:01:40 +0000 (UTC), Wired Earp
<wi***************@wunderbyte.com> wrote:

That was mostly just a joke to put things into perspective, but a new non-
validating attribute does seem to be a central modification.

new attributes can be trivially made to validate in a HTML by using
the internal subset, or a different doctype. Such behaviour is not
invalid.

Jim.
--
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Keith Bowes]

Jim Ley wrote:

new attributes can be trivially made to validate in a HTML by using
the internal subset, or a different doctype. Such behaviour is not
invalid.

I'd think it would be more in the spirit of standards for it to be:
<param name="NOEXTERNALDATA" value="true">

or:
<param name="external_data" value="false">

[Jim Ley]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:43:48 -0400, Keith Bowes <do****@spam.me>
wrote:

Jim Ley wrote:
I'd think it would be more in the spirit of standards for it to be:
<param name="NOEXTERNALDATA" value="true">

I disagree, the parameters are data to be passed to the object,
they're not metadata about the object. (and it would limit objects
from recieving parameters called NOEXTERNALDATA.)

Jim.
--
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Stan Brown]

In article <Xn**********************@212.242.40.196> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Wired Earp
<wi***************@wunderbyte.com> wrote:

A forthcoming
update to IE6, focusing on lowered standard compliance, was announced this
week on <url:http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/>.

It's not there now, only some blather about ActiveX and Java.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Nick Kew]

In article <3f****************@news.cis.dfn.de>, one of infinite monkeys
at the keyboard of ji*@jibbering.com (Jim Ley) wrote:

new attributes can be

There's a huge gulf between "can be" and "will be" - and that's setting aside
possible browser issues with the techniques you suggest.

/me suspects wiredearp's point was rather well-made:-)

--
Nick Kew

In urgent need of paying work - see http://www.webthing.com/~nick/cv.html

[Tim]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:09:41 -0400,
Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

And if Microsoft put forth any effort to match public open
standards, it would represent a very large (and welcome) change of
direction by corporate management.

And half the world would die of shock and surprise...

--
My "from" address is totally fake. (Hint: If I wanted e-mails from
complete strangers, I'd have put a real one, there.) Reply to usenet
postings in the same place as you read the message you're replying to.

[C A Upsdell]

"Bertilo Wennergren" <be******@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:bm*************@news.t-online.com...

C A Upsdell:

1. Better IE support of standards: Microsoft's stated policy for years has been that it is more interested in responding to customers' needs than with complying with standards. So you'll only see better IE standards support when customers demand it.

In MSIE 6 they corrected lots of things in the CSS support, e.g. the
boxmodel. Was all that because customers demanded it?

Certainly that is what Microsoft's stated policy would indicate. But you
will note that IE6 uses the DOCTYPE to decide how strictly to support the
standards, allowing the many customers with legacy sites to choose to
support IE6 without bringing their sites up to standards.

[C A Upsdell]

"Wired Earp" <wi***************@wunderbyte.com> wrote in message
news:Xn***********************@212.242.40.196...

I wrote:

A forthcoming update to IE6, focusing on lowered standard
compliance, was announced this week

Jim Ley wondered:

Could you explain how it's lowered standard compliance?

That was mostly just a joke to put things into perspective, but a new non-
validating attribute does seem to be a central modification. Quoting from
<url:http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/activexchanges.asp#fix_data>

The W3C is very concerned about the implications of the Eolas patent. I am
sure that, if the ruling in the recent Eolas court case is not reversed,
such a new attribute will be added to the standards.

[Bertilo Wennergren]

C A Upsdell:

"Bertilo Wennergren" <be******@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:bm*************@news.t-online.com...

C A Upsdell:

1. Better IE support of standards: Microsoft's stated policy for years
has been that it is more interested in responding to customers' needs than
with complying with standards. So you'll only see better IE standards
support when customers demand it.

In MSIE 6 they corrected lots of things in the CSS support, e.g. the
boxmodel. Was all that because customers demanded it?

Certainly that is what Microsoft's stated policy would indicate.
But it doesn't seem very likely, unless you count the "c.i.w.a.h"
gang (that includes me) as a significant portion of the MS customers.
But you
will note that IE6 uses the DOCTYPE to decide how strictly to support the
standards, allowing the many customers with legacy sites to choose to
support IE6 without bringing their sites up to standards.

As do Mozilla and Opera.

--
Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

[C A Upsdell]

"Bertilo Wennergren" <be******@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:bm*************@news.t-online.com...

C A Upsdell:

In MSIE 6 they corrected lots of things in the CSS support, e.g. the
boxmodel. Was all that because customers demanded it?

Certainly that is what Microsoft's stated policy would indicate.

But it doesn't seem very likely, unless you count the "c.i.w.a.h"
gang (that includes me) as a significant portion of the MS customers.

Seems likely to me. MS pays a lot of attention to corporate customers, and
I am sure that many such customers are interested in improved CSS support
and greater compliance with standards because this helps them enhance their
sites, make more use of CSS to more easily restyle sites, etc., etc., etc.
But you
will note that IE6 uses the DOCTYPE to decide how strictly to support the standards, allowing the many customers with legacy sites to choose to
support IE6 without bringing their sites up to standards.

As do Mozilla and Opera.

And Safari. But for different reasons. The other browser makers embrace
standards enthusiastically and support quirks-like modes only because their
market-share would otherwise collapse. Whereas Microsoft must have
standards thrust upon them, and supports standards-like modes only because
important customers (not us) demand this.

[Stan Brown]

In article
<vO**********************@news01.bloor.is.net.cabl e.rogers.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, C A Upsdell <cupsdell0311XXX@->
wrote:

Seems likely to me. MS pays a lot of attention to corporate customers, and
I am sure that many such customers are interested in improved CSS support
and greater compliance with standards because this helps them enhance their
sites, make more use of CSS to more easily restyle sites, etc., etc., etc.

In a logical world, that would be true.

But in fact a great majority of corporate IT departments have bought
"Microsoft = Internet" hook line and sinker. I guess it's easier
than doing research and thinking. So they don't care about standards
compliance, they care about having things pretty on MSIE because
"only a few cranks use other browsers".

One IT guy at my college uninstalls Mozilla from every computer
where I install it, because he's convinced it is a security risk --
unlike MSIE. One guess where he got that idea.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/