Grant Archibald - browser http://www.garchibald.com/blog/ Continuous Improvement en-us Grant Archibald Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:17:44 GMT newtelligence dasBlog 2.1.8102.813 http://kontactr.com/user/garchibald http://kontactr.com/user/garchibald http://www.garchibald.com/blog/Trackback.aspx?guid=e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968 http://www.garchibald.com/blog/pingback.aspx http://www.garchibald.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968.aspx Grant Archibald http://www.garchibald.com/blog/CommentView,guid,e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968.aspx http://www.garchibald.com/blog/SyndicationService.asmx/GetEntryCommentsRss?guid=e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968

This months web meetup showcased the new features of IE 8 Beta 2 presented by Matt Heller from Microsoft and Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 by Robert O'Callahan and Chris Double from Mozilla.

IE 8 Beta 2

Matt was first up he covered the following:

For those wanting to take the new Beta or old versions of IE for a test drive Microsoft Virtual PC images are available for download.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 1

Next up to present were Robert and Chris. Robert has a great post on his blog about how he saw the meeting. He includes a copy of his slide deck and some demo pages that currently work with the daily build of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1.

The video and svg demonstration were of particular interest as it showed equivalent functionality to what Silverlight 1.0 offered, but without the need for a separate plug-in that needed to be installed. As Robert indicated in a recent post Mozilla has elected to use the Ogg Vorbis/Theora codecs for audio and video. With support for H.264 currently in Flash and announced that H.264 will be available in a future version  of Silverlight, it will be interesting to see how widespread the use of Ogg and Theora will become.

For those interested Chris has uploaded a couple videos to YouTube Firefox Video Element Bling and SVG Video Demo that demonstrate the new HTML 5 video and SVG features inside the current Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 available which is for download. As this a Beta release Mozilla suggest setting up a separate profile for testing side by side using the -ProfileManager command line switch.

Take away thoughts

  • Support for parts of HTML5 and CSS3 are being released from multiple vendors.
  • Hosting of media files for Ogg/Thora may pose issues for users without the equivalent YouTube/Silverlight Streaming services.
  • JIT compiled javascript code has the possibility to deliver much faster experience to the end user.
  • Much more competition between plug-in's (Flash, Silverlight) and embedded browser functionality coming up.
IE8 Beta 2 and Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 http://www.garchibald.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968.aspx http://www.garchibald.com/blog/2008/09/17/IE8Beta2AndFirefox31Beta1.aspx Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:17:44 GMT <p> This <a href="http://webdesign.meetup.com/108/calendar/8542022/">months web meetup</a> showcased the new features of IE 8 Beta 2 presented by Matt Heller from Microsoft and Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 by <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/">Robert O'Callahan</a> and <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/">Chris Double</a> from Mozilla.<br> </p> <p> </p> <h3>IE 8 Beta 2 </h3> <p> </p> <p> Matt was first up he covered the following: </p> <ul> <li> CSS 2.1 improvements. </li> <li> Accelerators formally Activities in Beta 1 (Examples <a title="http://www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators/" href="http://www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators/">http://www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators/</a>). </li> <li> Web Slices (Examples <a title="http://www.ieaddons.com/en/webslices/" href="http://www.ieaddons.com/en/webslices/">http://www.ieaddons.com/en/webslices/</a>). </li> <li> User interface improvements such as <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042941/internet-explorer-8-beta-2s-familiar-new-features">Smart Address Bar, Tab Grouping</a>. </li> <li> Compatibility view in toolbar - <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/27/introducing-compatibility-view.aspx">More information</a> available in the IE 8 team blog. </li> <li> Quick demo of the <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/09/03/developer-tools-in-internet-explorer-8-beta-2.aspx">developer tool bar</a>. </li> <li> Aspects of HTML 5 support e.g. history, DOM storage, network connectivity events. <br> </li> </ul> <p> For those wanting to take the new Beta or old versions of IE for a test drive Microsoft Virtual PC images are available for <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&amp;displaylang=en">download</a>. <br> </p> <p> </p> <h3>Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 <br> </h3> <p> Next up to present were Robert and Chris. Robert has a great <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/09/auckland_web_me_1.html">post on his blog</a> about how he saw the meeting. He includes a copy of his slide deck and some demo pages that currently work with the daily build of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1. <br> </p> <p> The video and svg demonstration were of particular interest as it showed equivalent functionality to what Silverlight 1.0 offered, but without the need for a separate plug-in that needed to be installed. As Robert indicated in a recent <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/08/why_ogg_matters.html">post</a> Mozilla has elected to use the Ogg Vorbis/Theora codecs for audio and video. With support for H.264 currently in Flash and announced that H.264 will be available in a future version&nbsp; of Silverlight, it will be interesting to see how widespread the use of Ogg and Theora will become. <br> </p> <p> For those interested Chris has uploaded a couple videos to YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvtdkxCIKC8">Firefox Video Element Bling</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Har-PRP4X9U&amp;feature=related">SVG Video Demo</a> that demonstrate the new HTML 5 video and SVG features inside the current Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 available which is for <a href="http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/">download</a>. As this a Beta release Mozilla suggest setting up a separate profile for testing side by side using the -ProfileManager command line switch. <br> </p> <p> </p> <h3>Take away thoughts <br> </h3> <ul> <li> Support for parts of HTML5 and CSS3 are being released from multiple vendors. </li> <li> Hosting of media files for Ogg/Thora may pose issues for users without the equivalent YouTube/Silverlight Streaming services. </li> <li> JIT compiled javascript code has the possibility to deliver much faster experience to the end user. </li> <li> Much more competition between plug-in's (Flash, Silverlight) and embedded browser functionality coming up.</li> </ul> <img width="0" height="0" src="http://www.garchibald.com/blog/aggbug.ashx?id=e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968" /> http://www.garchibald.com/blog/CommentView,guid,e8fadd67-072d-4c79-83ba-d1f85a4e7968.aspx browser