bug 190 - fieldsets are broken in IE8

Issue: #190
Affects: IE8 Beta 1
MSIE Feedback ID: 336258
An anonymous poster has indicated that this is fixed in "Internal" builds shared with 3rd parties. Am I the only one that would love to be in on this "special list"? ;-) That said, glad to hear a fix is apparently on the way.

A Fieldset is really simple, you have a wrapper, and a legend which graphically wrap 1 or more form fields.

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As you can see, (if you use IE8) the legend does not render correctly at all. Hopefully this is just a bug in this first Beta. Stay tuned for updates as further beta releases become available.

Known Workarounds: None.

Related Issues: None.

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bug 230 - no Element.attributes array in IE8

Issue: #230
Affects: IE8 Beta 1

When inspecting an element (especially in IE) we often look to the attributes array to get information on what is set.

There are actually 4 ways to get access to an attribute using the attribute array.

1.) Iterate over each index in the array
2.) Iterate over each key in the array (associatively)
3.) Get by index
4.) Get by key

Unfortunately in IE8 Beta 1, all of the above are broken!

Example:

Test DIV
with id="testme"
with style="border:1px dashed red;padding:4px;"
with align="center"

Known Workarounds: None.

Related Issues: None.

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bug 163 - no valign in table cells in IE8

Issue: #163
Affects: IE8 Beta 1
MSIE Feedback ID: 333908


A regression bug has been found in IE8 (Beta 1) whereby it is impossible to set the valign attribute of a TD or TH cell.

No matter what you try to set this to: valign="top", valign="middle", valign="bottom" it will always set it to behave as "bottom".

Example:

top	middle	bottom
top	middle	bottom

Known Workarounds: None.

Related Issues: None.

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bug 371 - named anchor links are broken in IE8

Issue: #371
Affects: IE8 Beta 1

MSIE Feedback ID: 331609

A regression bug has been found in IE8 Beta 1 whereby an anchor link will not work if the anchor doesn't contain a text node.

Example:

<a name="broken"/>

<a name="works">This works</a>

Known Workarounds: None.

Related Issues: None.

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bug 333 - microsoft drops all support for opacity in IE8!

Issue: #333
Affects: IE8 Beta 1 - IE8 RTM?
Status To be Fixed in: IE8 RTM (not the CSS3 opacity... likely a return to filter:alpha())
MSIE Feedback ID: 331735

According to blogs around the 'Net and the IE Feedback site Microsoft has dropped all support for CSS opacity in IE8.

This includes the CSS3 property:

opacity: 0.25;
AND
filter:alpha(opacity=25);

Apparently this is "By Design". As a developer I seriously hope they reconsider this. The filter hack wasn't the best, but no method to set opacity is certainly not "innovation".


Example:

<style type="text/css">
.inDragMode {
  opacity: 0.25;
  filter: alpha(opacity=0.25);/* Hack for IE 6-7? */
}
</script>

Known Workarounds: None.

Related Issues: None.

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Will IE8 fix IE's DOM Support issues - Poll Results

Will IE8 fix their DOM Support:

In our last poll, we asked if you felt that IE8 would fix their DOM Support? The poll was live long before the IE8 Beta 1 came out and thus nothing was known about the new version since Microsoft isn't very forthcoming with sharing a road map with developers.

Regardless, the mood of the development community was reflected in the results that came in before the beta release, and was only slightly different after developers got some first hand experiences.



Results:
Yes Completely - 4%
Not A Thing - 16%
Minor Fixes Only - 15%
Mostly Fixed - 3%
Fix Some, Break Some - 30%
I Don't Care Anymore - 5%
Don't Make Me Laugh - 27%

To be honest, most were taken back by Microsoft's commitment towards standards, and actually taking the (correct) brave step to render in Standards Mode by default.

Many of the long standing bugs DOM Bugs were fixed, although there were many that didn't see any attention at all. New features were added, but the overall UI was hardly improved upon at all (from legacy chrome/usability bugs, to the un-movable toolbar issues).

If history of IE7 development is to repeat itself, expect a few more betas for IE8, then an RC (Release Candidate), and a final RTM (Release To Market) date sometime late in Q4, 2008 or Q1, 2009 if they continue to fix ignored issues.

As noted here day 1, we promised to link into the public bug tracking systems for each browser, when and where they became available (and we certainly have done so - if you find a bug listed here that doesn't reference the IE Feedback bug number, please let us know!). When IE8 Beta 1 was released, Microsoft re-opened their "IE Feedback" site at Microsoft Connect, so that developers could view and track bugs with input from Microsoft. It isn't a full public bug tracking site, but it has been dearly missed since it was dismantled after the IE7 release, in fact one of the reasons that this Blog started! ;-)

We hope that the IE Feedback site will stay open forever (or some similar site) so that developers can continue to benefit from its presence, however when directly questioned, the response was less than an absolute yes on the IE Blog.

We wish the IE Team the best of luck on shipping IE8 with great DOM Support to an eager developer base, lets just hope we can close a bunch more issues before it is shipped out the door!

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bug 181 - can't subclass an Array in IE

Issue: #181
Affects: IE6, IE7, IE8 Beta 1

MSIE Feedback ID: 334333 (related to the attributes Array)

The #1 rule in OOP (Object Oriented Programing) is that you don't prototype on native objects. This is why many developers do not like the Prototype.js and similar JS Libraries, and where designing for expected behavior of objects is key.

Lets say you want to subclass the Array object, so that you can enjoy using an .each() method on an Array, in browsers before Firefox 3 etc.

No problem, just add this:

Example:

<script type="text/javascript">
  XArray = function(){
    //define your "class"
  };
  MyArray.prototype = new Array;
  //now add your method...
  MyArray.prototype.each = function(ref){
    //do your magic...
  }
</script>

This will work perfectly fine in all browsers, except IE. IE will not update the MyArray instances properly to return the correct length when requested. This of course is rather catastrophic, as it is the only way to know how "big" the array is when iterating over it!

Curious as to why it doesn't work? Well the folks at Microsoft's JScript team let the cat out of the bag and it turns out, that internally it isn't an Array, but rather a HashTable, thus explaining why the performance (pre IE8) was horribly slow, and sub classing just wasn't an option.

Known Workarounds: None. Well, this isn't entirely true. If you "steal" an array from another frame, you can cater it to your needs, but it gets quite involved and it still isn't a true sublass (e.g. you can't re-subclass it) See Dean Edwards Blog post here for more info.

Related Issues: None.

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bug 329 - Element.setAttribute('style', '...') fails in IE8 Beta 1

Issue: #329
Affects: IE8 Beta 1
Also Affects: IE6, IE7

The setAttribute() method was reported fixed in IE8 (whitepaper Pg.5), however some tests have indicated otherwise.

In particular, attempting to set the 'style' attribute on an element in IE8 Beta 1 still fails as it did in IE6, & IE7.

Please note that for any IE8 related bugs, all tests are done in "IE8 Standards Mode".

Example:

<script type="text/javascript">
  var obj = document.getElementById('myObj');
  //the following call will fail in IE8 Beta 1
  obj.setAttribute('style','border:2px solid #ff0000;color:#00ff00;');
</script>

Known Workarounds: One. Although you can set: obj.style.setAttribute('cssText','...'); as outlined in (bug 245) IE8 was supposed to fix this, thus this is not an ideal workaround.

Related Issues: (bug 245), (bug 242).

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Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) - Facts and Fiction

Microsoft is well underway with development of their new Web Browser Internet Explorer 8. As development moves ahead into the Alpha/Beta testing stages this post will attempt to condense the knowns and the unknowns to give you a better idea of what to expect in IE8.

Release Schedule:

• Beta 1: Released March 5th, 2008 (IE Blog post, Download Link, IE8 Feedback (Bug Tracker for IE8 (invite only))
  


• Beta 2: "Later this year" - Chris Wilson [MSFT], Helen [MSFT]

Operating System Support:

• Microsoft Windows
  
  
  
  • Windows XP
  
  
  • Windows Vista
    The User Agent string was confirmed, it will be:
    
    
    
    • Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Fixed / Implemented:

• Passes ACID2 CSS Stress Test ⁽¹⁾


• CSS display: table implemented ⁽¹⁾


• HTML <abbr/> implemented ^(?)


• Object Fallback ^(?)


• Data URIs ^(?)


• CSS position: fixed ⁽¹⁾


• CSS generated content ^(?)


• WBT (bug 101) - Fixed in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 152) - Fixed in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 229) - Fixed in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 341) - Fixed in IE8 Beta 1


• The following are untested, but according to IE8 DOM whitepapers (here) are apparently fixed! ;-)
  
  
  
  • getAttribute()!, setAttribute()!, getElementById()!, <button> element submits the correct value attribute!,
  
  
  
  

Remains Unfixed (e.g Intentionally not fixed):

• {nothing confirmed}


• WBT (bug 193) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 256) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 263) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 280) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 291) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1


• WBT (bug 293) - Tested, Still Broken in IE8 Beta 1

Possibly Fixed?:

• JavaScript and DOM Fixes? Feb 4th post by Web Standards group indicates Microsoft may address many open issues.

Caveats:
?.) Unknown
1.) In "IE8 Standards Mode"

IE8 Standards Mode:
The current trigger for IE8 Standards Mode is under heavy debate over on the IE Blog, A List Apart, WaSP, John Resig (jQuery), Dean Edwards, Robert O'Callahan (Mozilla), and Maciej Stachowiak (Safari). The proposal below *may* be revoked in favor of a more clever approach.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8"/>

or it can be sent as an HTTP header:

X-UA-Compatible: IE=8

or if you want to live on the bleeding edge, and always render in the strictest mode possible, use this meta tag:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"/>

Information Sources:
MSDN: Channel 9 Video with IE Team on ACID2 Test Milestone
A List Apart: Beyond Doctype
IE Blog: ACID2 | IE8 Standards Mode | User Agent String

WinVistaClub: IE8 Beta release date

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