Some interesting developments at Microsoft: in announcing IE7, not only has the company previewed its first browser development in nearly five years, but it seems also to have developed a greater willingness to communicate with the web design community.

Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2, compatible with Windows XP Service Pack 2, was introduced to the public in February. A publicly-available Beta version from Microsoft seems a first in itself. But there's more. For the first time Microsoft is building a public database for web developers to track progress and to offer feedback. Already a number of bug fixes have been submitted and implemented.

IE7 includes a more streamlined interface, designed to maximise the amount of the website visible in the browser window. There are also a number of advanced security features such as an anti-phishing facility and a way to remove user identity data from the browser history.

However, in some respects, IE7 is only playing catch-up. Many features such as tabbed browsing, improved standards compliance, advanced security, RSS support and a toolbar search box are already taken for granted by users of other web browsers. Moreover, the need to have some compatibility with IE6 could hold back some of the finer CSS features now possible.

For the Web Developer

CSS support is much better than with IE6. CSS additions allow designers to enable hover on all elements, not just on the tag. As a result the rendering of an element can now be changed in response to the user hovering over the element. Previously this could only be done for links. Support for fixed/absolute positioning has also been introduced, making it possible to fix elements to an exact position in the browser window - useful for fixed sidebars and menus.

Updates in March support CSS properties for minimum and sizes: max-height, minute-height, max-width and minute-width. These are very useful when designing layouts that combine fixed size and window relative size because they enable designers to stretch pages to fit large or small screen resolutions whilst keeping content readable.

Web developers can now begin to design sites for IE7. Microsoft assures us that the rendering engine and CSS support in the preview versions are exactly as they will be in the final release, expected at the end of the year. There will be no additional new features added and any changes should not affect page layout.

For the User

Perhaps the greatest benefits will be those seen by users.

A new interface maximises the amount of a webpage which is visible including a 'streamlined' toolbar - reduced in height. Tabbed browsing will let users open multiple web pages in a single browser window. A 'Quick Tabs' feature will provide a thumbnail view of all open tabs in one window, to make navigation and closing tabs more easy. The toolbar has a built in search box. Search results can be displayed in a separate tab, and results opened into new tabs for site comparison.

Other useful features include:

• An RSS feature to let users subscribe to syndicated feeds from news sites and blogs. The browser detects feeds enabled by Real Simple Syndication technology, with icons on the toolbar for users to select their favourites.
• Printing - shrink to fit, adjust margins, remove headers or footers.
• Spyware protection - automatic monitoring as standard.
• Phishing protection: alerting users to potential phishing sites plus security badges to indicate suspicious sites or those known for phishing.
• Ability to clear personal data from the browser history more easily such as cookies, form data and passwords.

Microsoft plans to release IE7 later this year alongside the new version of its operating system, Windows Vista. Microsoft’s IE7 has made great efforts to strike up a relationship with the web development community. But a degree of backward compatibility with IE6, and the exclusion of Windows 2000 and Mac users make it a less appealing option. Web developers should be reluctant to rush into making websites wholly IE7 compatible but should instead select those changes to IE which are most closely aligned to web standards.

As the range of browsers in use increases, make sure you have a web browser based web monitoring supplier in place, with the ability to make a comparsion across the dynamic User Journeys on your site, confidence is vital in maximising your users' experience online.

Further: IE9 Web Performance issues

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