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The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

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121–130 of 247 posts

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#121
post #76

But it will still be non-free, and probably won't sync history/bookmarks/open tabs with mobile, except perhaps windows phone. And it only works on windows. I don't see what would entice users to switch from Firefox or chromium or opera (or midori, konqueror, etc) to a new Microsoft browser. Its probably still worth telling users not to use internet explorer, just in case they ever end up buying a Mac or Linux PC, and…

It sounds like your primary concern is that it might be good...

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#122
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be pedantic: even if there is code from MSHTML.dll in Spartan, there's no code from NCSA Mosaic in MSHTML.dll. Internet Explorer originally licensed Spyglass Mosaic , which licensed the name (and the code) from NCSA, but did not actually use any of the code. Though I suspect that there's not actually any Spyglass Mosaic code left in IE these days. (Edited, I said that there's no MSHTML.dll code in Spartan. That I…

Internet Explorer 1.0's "About" box claims it is "Based on NCSA Mosaic": http://utilu.com/IECollection/img/iecollection_ie100_win40nt... (Curiously, Internet Explorer 1.0 showed a version number of "4.40" in the about box.)

IE is (originally) based on NCSA Mosaic code, by way of Spyglass. Spyglass had nearly 70 or so vendors using the same code if I'm not mistaken.

The original source code of IE 1 can be seen (an Easter egg) in the video on our blog post (at about 40 seconds): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/02/26/a-break-from-t....

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#123
post #14

It doesn't matter unless they make it open-source or at the very least cross-platform. I'm not downloading a 4GB VM from http://modern.ie to try it.

We created http://remote.modern.ie so you can stream Internet Explorer to your Mac. Even to your iOS device :)

Please, let's not pretend remote.modern.ie OR the VM's are ANYTHING close to running the browser locally. They are, at best, a band-aid. Yes, pjmlp, safari is OS X-only now but just because I'm a Mac user does not mean I support that decision, I don't. Also you know how many times in the past 10 years I've heard someone say "Well it works in Chrome/FF/IE but not in Safari?" Never. That's not to say it never happens but I've spent many agonising hours trying to make IE behave when it works PERFECTLY in Chrome/FF/Safari. I've had a handful of "It works in FF but not Chrome" and "It works in Chrome but not FF" but I've got a landfill full of "It doesn't work in IE".

Things I need before I'm going to pretend IE isn't a steaming pile of shit, hell I'd settle for just 1-2:

* Evergreen browser (I'm sick of dealing with 7/8/9, I don't look forward to playing the same song and dance with 10/11/12/etc)

* Cross-platform (Testing on Linux or a Mac is painful)

* Open source (IE is the ONLY major browser that is not OS, and yes I know Chromium != Chrome but I'd be fine with IE doing the same sort of thing)

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#124

YES! 1-2-3-4, I declare a browser war! Finally. This is the Microsoft I've been waiting for! No more rolling over and no defeatist talk of adopting WebKit or whatever. Microsoft is going to use its muscle and position to make a truly competitive browser. We need more competition, and we need the default browser in Windows to be just as good as Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft, I hope you pull every -ms- vendor flaggin',…

Microsoft is going to use its muscle and position to make a truly competitive browser. Isn't this the line with each and every release of IE? Why is this different? Each prior version of IE was proclaimed some revolution of some sort. EDIT: Downvotes? Really? I see the front page is starting to get curiously Microsoft heavy again. We've heard the "this time it's different " argument with IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10, and now…

Being a meaniehead to Microsoft is something grandpas do. It's just not hip. Look, Microsoft is all about standards (really, not embrace/extend/extinguish!), interoperability, openness, and hugs now, okay grandpa?

Yeah, yeah, this comment contributes nothing, blah blah blah.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#125
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spartan isn't IE.

I know this is this is the narrative they are trying to promote but I remove code from my projects all the time but don't feel it makes it a different project.

Spartan isn't a subset of IE either. We've added support for nearly 50 standards, and more. The delta between IE and Spartan is massive, and growing quickly.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see some competition as well, but in my perspective, they're taking the wrong approach. This entire project seems to be about improving compatibility with older websites, by adding more algorithms and layers to the rendering process. I don't believe everyone is using Firefox and Chrome because they have better compatibility than IE. I think they should focus on cutting the fat, and making the lightest wei…

"If people start to switch over, then more sites will be developed to work in IE Lightning." Based on this sentence, I get the feeling you don't appreciate the value of web standards? If Microsoft wants to be taken seriously ever again (they had 10+ years to make that effort with IE before they lost the browser war) all they need to do is render pages correctly, not in their own special way. That also means not inven…

Your last sentence describes Google.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#127

Browser war? Sure. But regardless of the improvements MS makes, they still have years worth of a bad reputation they have built up to get over. It will take leaps and bounds for them to ever build up the respect that Mozilla and Google have for building web technology.

This. Disbanding the IE team after "winning" the first browser war was a terrible mistake. IE fell behind technically, but they caught up again in recent years. However their reputation among web developers and even end users hasn't really recovered.

As an aside, a great way to anger an IE engineer is to remind them that the entire reason their team exists is because of Mozilla and Firefox. I truly believe that had Firefox not come out, the web browser winter would have continued until the rise of smart phones.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#128

YES! 1-2-3-4, I declare a browser war! Finally. This is the Microsoft I've been waiting for! No more rolling over and no defeatist talk of adopting WebKit or whatever. Microsoft is going to use its muscle and position to make a truly competitive browser. We need more competition, and we need the default browser in Windows to be just as good as Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft, I hope you pull every -ms- vendor flaggin',…

Microsoft is going to use its muscle and position to make a truly competitive browser. Isn't this the line with each and every release of IE? Why is this different? Each prior version of IE was proclaimed some revolution of some sort. EDIT: Downvotes? Really? I see the front page is starting to get curiously Microsoft heavy again. We've heard the "this time it's different " argument with IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10, and now…

Do you or I really care abouts boasts from the marketdroids? Cut The Rope doth not a great browser make!

You and I know the truth. There are seminal, world-beating versions of software that Microsoft has released in the past.

And then, after dominance is attained, they touch up the pig's hair and makeup a bit in the subsequent releases. IE7-11 has been hair and makeup and some botox.

I don't know how Microsoft works internally, I only know history. And, reading their statements, Spartan might be a world-beater at least in quality, features, or developer interest. When Microsoft feels threatened, that's when the sparks fly.

I do not EVER underestimate Microsoft. How quickly did they turn that billion dollar Mojang acquisition around, 2 days?

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the fuck did anyone ever think vendor prefixes are a good idea? If you want to prefix, prefix with versions. I should be able to type `-beta-mask-image: url()` and any browser that implements that version of the spec can pick it up. There's no good reason to have to type the same exact thing 3 times to target each browser engine.

Because the vendors sometimes proposed incompatible variants of the same feature before it was standardized. And they would implement it behind their individual prefixes so that you could experiment with both the IE and FF variants, for example.

If you don't implement the same spec, bump the version. This is not a complicated idea.

Instead of -webkit-mask-image and -moz-mask-image, have -beta-mask-image and -gamma-mask-image. When IE comes along and wants to play with WebKit's implementation, they implement -beta-mask-image and all the sites that use it get IE support for free.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#130
post #77
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To try WebKit you don't need to. It builds a very basic browser, either GTK+ or Qt based.

Webkit != Safari, specially when tracking down rendering issues.

They also use different JavaScript engines and that can bite you hard.
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