ricfink - 4:01 am on Jun 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

This is one of those threads that leaves me feeling like the character played by Charlton Heston in the beginning of the original "Planet Of The Apes" movie: dazed, mute, and wondering just what world it is I've landed on.
Get your nerdy hands off me, you...you...webmonkeys!

Let's untangle a few things:

Hester says:
"The problems with IE include the layout bugs, lack of complete PNG image support, lack of features found in Opera and Mozilla such as tabbed windows and pop-up blockers, no simple way to resize pixel-based fonts for disabled users, never-ending security holes, lack of full CSS2 and even HTML 4 compliance... the list goes on."

First of all, you're wrong about resizing pixel-based fonts. IE has a CSS property named zoom. Works nice, check it out. And unlike Opera's zoom feature which causes a horizontal scrollbar - trading the benefit of larger text for a considerable UI inconvenience and accessibility barrier - IE's zoom FLOWS the enlarged text AND since it's a CSS property, you can pick and choose which elements the user can apply it to. (Does the copyright notice really need to be bigger along with the article on cancer prevention?)
Plus, why is it necessarily the browser's busines to handle the resizing of text at a global level? Why shouldn't it be handled at the page level by the author. More freedom that way, not less, wouldn't you say? (And don't get me started on "alternate" style sheets as defined in the W3C HTML recommendation. Good motives, bad recommendation.)
Tabbed windows? The vast majority of users wouldn't know what to do with tabbed windows if they even knew they had them available. One of the things about the web that greatly helped it grab hold was it's simplicity. Click a link. Go back. Go forward. Simple. Don't assume that new features are necessarily improvements. They aren't.
You won't see even a blip of productivity increase from tabbed windows. You can only read one page at a time, can't you?
Pop-up blockers? I thought the web was about the freedom to be a nuisance? I just stay away from sites that unnecessarily oppress me with popups. They deserve it.
FYI: it hasn't been publicized, but the latest IE updates have done away with some of the popup crowd's crueler tools like no title bar and keeping the window on top with an onblur javascript statement.
But, anyway, how about MY popups. My popups are legit and filled with useful information. (Aren't yours?) I don't want them getting blocked, surely. And that's why IE has the createPopup method in addition to the other more common techniques for creating new windows. Polite and Unobtrusive.
The way it oughta be.
As far as the other minutia you mention - c'mon... is this stuff really that crucial?
What browser is perfect?

Graham says:
"The article is talking about IE as a browser though and in this regard IE really doesn't make the grade."

I don't know... Every time I use IE it browses. And then I use it to browse some more and it still keeps on browsing. Can't remember the last time a page didn't render nicely. What's your criteria for "making the grade"?
Is this the feature=improvement thing again?

(UI guru Donald Norman (MIT, Apple Computer) has done a lot of work on the pitfalls of featuritis and the unwanted loss of usability it causes. You might want to check out his work on the subject.)

Dingman says:
"As for developing internal apps for IE - can you say "proprietary lock-in"? I can, and it's a reason why I'll never be able to reccomend in good conscience that my employer develop for IE. (Or any other closed, single-vendor technology.) If you have to re-write all your essential internally developed tools just to switch to another vendor, then your current vendor owns you. Unless you're such a huge customer that you own the vendor, too, that's not a good position to be in. There are just too many open, cross-platform tools available for that to make any sense."

Ding, this sounds like really well-thought out advice. The voice of experience talking.
My only question is: what on earth are you talking about? Where and for what don't you have to decide on a platform? How do you get by, either in the business world or in life, for that matter, without putting your trust in a vendor somewhere along the line?
I currently have a three year lease on a Lexus automobile - does Toyota "own me" for three years? Or what?
Really, please elaborate. I just can't figure out what you're saying.

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My apologies for going ape!