IE8 Beta 1: Early report

[Dean Arnold]

I just gave it a whirl with something I've been working on
(www.presicient.com/shodo/tryshodo.html). Note that the
page only embeds images via drawImage() (except for a
progress bar that worked on "real" IE7, but appears broken
in both modes in IE8). In IE8 mode,
it doesn't work; in IE7 emulation mode, it works OK.

I haven't had a chance to try other drawing primitives,
or debug what might be wrong. I have checked the developer
forum and newsgroup, but nothing about VML in IE8 pops
up. And I can't find anything in the other docs.

I've posted a query about VML/canvas/SVG support to their newsgroup;
I guess we'll see what their story is...

PS. Has anyone else tried IE8 yet ?

Regards,
Dean Arnold
Presicient Corp.

[Dean Arnold]

Dean Arnold wrote:
> I just gave it a whirl with something I've been working on
> (www.presicient.com/shodo/tryshodo.html). Note that the
> page only embeds images via drawImage() (except for a
> progress bar that worked on "real" IE7, but appears broken
> in both modes in IE8). In IE8 mode,
> it doesn't work; in IE7 emulation mode, it works OK.
>
> I haven't had a chance to try other drawing primitives,
> or debug what might be wrong. I have checked the developer
> forum and newsgroup, but nothing about VML in IE8 pops
> up. And I can't find anything in the other docs.
>

DOH! I just remembered another site I have that uses
canvas to render popups (www.presicient.com/langjobs/usajobs.html).
And it actually works in both IE7 and IE8 mode.

So it may just be an issue with drawImage, or maybe w/ the
tryshodo.html layouts. (usajobs.html doesn't drawImage,
it just overlays IFRAMEs in the popups).

Sorry for the interruption,
Dean Arnold
Presicient Corp.

[timothytoe]

My canvases are working in IE8. I'm using Transitional HTML. What is
your DOCTYPE?

[timothytoe]

My current problem is that I don't see any evidence of increased
standards in IE8. I'm wondering if I need a strict DOCTYPE to see it.
But in strict, IE8 chokes on the CANVAS.

As a result, I don't see any opportunity to remove my IE hacks for
IE8.

I'll probably wait for the hubbub to die down and see what people are
saying about IE8 standards compliance. Seems no better than IE7 to me
now, which can't be right, because I know those guys have been working
on it.

[Dean Arnold]

For completeness sake I should add
that, after disabling excanvas in some pages,
I can confirm that IE8 does not have native canvas support.

<sigh/>

Dean Arnold

[Dean Arnold]

Here's the MSFT response to my query in microsoft.public.internetexplorer.beta:

>
> Layout and rendering behaviors, proprietary features upon which VML is
> built, are not yet implemented in IE8 standards mode. Look for this feature
> in a future beta release. In the meantime, using the Emulate IE7 button or
> using an IE7 meta tag should enable VML to work as before.
>

[Klaus Reimer]

Dean Arnold wrote:
> For completeness sake I should add
> that, after disabling excanvas in some pages,
> I can confirm that IE8 does not have native canvas support.

I'm really disappointed. Looks like excanvas will be around for some
more years... It doesn't have Canvas, it doesn't have SVG, I have lots
of JavaScript-problems with it (I hope it resolves down to one little
quirk which is only present in the beta or is simply a IE6/7 hack which
is no longer needed) and the DirectX-CSS-Filters (at least the
AlphaImageLoader) seems to be broken. Ok, maybe it's really no longer
needed, havn't tried yet. Even in IE7 I needed this filter because
native alphatransparency support doesn't work correctly when combined
with other DirectX-filters (Like the matrix filter).

So my patched drawImage() method of excanvas (Which relies on the
ImageAlphaLoader instead of VML) doesn't work at all in IE8...

Fine, it's just a beta and they now pass the Acid2 test so hopefully
they did at least something good to CSS support (Or maybe they just
display a static image when the browser detects the Acid2 test ;-).

Oh, the greatest improvement I found yet is that the menu bar is now per
default and without any registry hacks ABOVE the address bar where it
belongs to. Nice work, Microsoft.

--
Bye, K <http://www.ailis.de/~k/>
[A735 47EC D87B 1F15 C1E9 53D3 AA03 6173 A723 E391]
(Finger k...@ailis.de to get public key)

[timothytoe]

SO far I haven't been able to remove a single IE hack in IE8, but I'm
still confused as to whether I should be in a strict DOCTYPE in order
to see fixes. Strict, of course, hates my <canvas> tags.

> signature.asc
> 1KDownload

[Erik Arvidsson]

Thanks for keeping us informed. I really appreciate it.

--
erik

[timothytoe]

My experience so far is this: No luck in IE8 (even in IE7 mode) when a
valid DOCTYPE is included (even HTML Transitional Loose). But works
just fine in quirks mode. Can someone check that hypothesis to see if
I've got it right?

Seems like unless IE8 changes, excanvas is going to have to change. I
can't see being stuck in quirks mode every time we want to use
excanvas.

On Mar 6, 8:53 am, "Erik Arvidsson" <erik.arvids...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for keeping us informed. I really appreciate it.
>