Browsersphere

After reading an article over at the SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog about different ways to alternate table row colors, it occurred to me that the nth-child approach was not mentioned.  Way back in 2004 I had implemented a ridiculous (hindsight is 20/20) proof-of-concept around implementing tables without using the <table> tag.  However ridiculous the prototype might have been, one touch I added was the use of the nth-child pseudo-class to display alternating table rows in a different color.  Here’s what I wrote about that at the time:

This rule is actually a part of the CSS3 selector set, and if your browser was capable of rendering it correctly (I’m willing to bet it isn’t, at least at the time of posting) you’d see alternate background colors on the table rows (alternating between white and light gray).

Remembering that old proof-of-concept today, I decided to have another look at it.  I was disappointed to find that even in the latest version of Firefox (version 3), over four years later, the alternating row colors were nowhere to be found.  I was happy to see, though, that the latest versions of Opera (9.51 at the time of writing) and Safari (3.1.2 at the time of writing) actually do display the alternating table row colors.  As one might guess, IE7 falls in the Firefox camp on this one.

It’s unfortunate that only half of the major players support this useful feature, but I’m guessing we’ll see support added in Firefox 3.1, of which there is a first alpha targeted for release at the end of this month, since that particular release is meant to include a slew of CSS support geared toward Acid3 compliance.  Furthermore, one can hope nth-child support will show up in IE8, but that may be the least likely scenario between the two.

Tags: CSS, CSS3, Firefox, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.1, IE7, IE8, nth-child, Opera, Safari, Selectors, Web Development, Web Standards

Anyone who has followed the support for web standards in today’s popular web browsers knows that the WebKit rendering engine has been at the forefront of that support.  Therefore, if you’re a browserphile like me, there’s a good chance you’re interested in testing out the latest and greatest WebKit build so you can see what all the fuss is about.  The following is a step-by-step list of things I had to do to get WebKit nightly builds working on my Windows computer.

1. Download and install the Safari web browser for Windows.
2. Download the latest WebKit nightly build for Windows.
3. Unzip the contents of the download to a location like C:\Program Files\WebKit Nightlies.
4. In the contents of the extracted folder, run (either from the command line or by double-clicking on the file) run-nightly-webkit.cmd.
5. Watch as several necessary files are copied over to your Safari installation directory.
6. If Safari launches and then crashes, fear not.  First try running the run-nightly-webkit.cmd file again.  If the crashing persists, work backward through the Windows Nightly Build Archive until you find a working build.  Remember, nightly builds are almost always considered dangerous (which is why the Firefox nightlies are called “Minefield“) so it may take some tinkering around before you find a good one.  The last good one I found at the time of writing was r34388.
7. If Safari launches and renders the default start page, you’re in business.

If you want to verify that you’re indeed using the WebKit nightly build you downloaded and not the default Safari rendering engine included with the latest version (3.1.2 at the time of writing), an easy way to check is to head on over to the Acid3 test.

This is what the test looks like in Safari 3.1.2:

And here is what it looks like in WebKit nightly build r34388:

Pretty cool!

I’d be remiss not to mention Swapnonil Mukherjee’s previous post on the subject, which proved to be a pretty good guide to getting a WebKit nightly build running on my computer.

Tags: Acid3, Development, Firefox, Minefield, Nightly Builds, Rendering Engines, Safari, Screenshots, Testing, Unreleased, Web Standards, WebKit, Windows

Nearly two months after the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, several people have had a chance to test the browser out and formulate their first, second and even third impressions.  I’ve listed some of those impressions below, in no particular order:

• Ian Tearle was frustrated by a seemingly unremovable home page.
• Gary James decided after three minutes that IE8 doesn’t suck any less than IE7.
• Rob Hensing reveals that IE8 will likely opt-in to DEP in Vista thanks to Vista SP1 (more on that here as well).
• Matt Hester has put up two screencasts, one of which touches on CSS development and HTML 5 features, and the other of which takes a look at Activities and Webslices.
• IETester is “a free WebBrowser [sic] that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7, IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process” (via milosradovic).
• Here’s an IE8 review from Redmond magazine (consider the source) that says IE8 “shows promise.”
• Edward Mendelson gives a look at “the next browser war,” including an overview of some of the features unique to IE8.
• PctipsBox explains how to speed up Internet Explorer 8 by increasing the connections limit.
• Check out a presentation on some of the garbage collection improvements made in IE8’s handling of JScript (via dzone).
• Tim Kadlec comments on the availability of the W3C Selectors API in IE8.
• A Web User Interface Designer and Architect on LinkedIn asked how important supporting IE6 is in a world in which IE7 and IE8 also exist (and received some pretty good answers).
• Here’s a look at The Future AJAX Wrapper, given IE8’s non-standard XDomainRequest feature.
• Apparently ordered lists aren’t quite ordered in IE8 (via Digg).
• The slightest hint of some sort of Facebook integration in IE8 sent one user running for the hills.
• Marlon Ribunal gives a decent overview of his impressions of IE8, including some screenshots of its developer tools in action.
• IE8 Beta 1 doesn’t quite seem to stack up against Firefox 3 Beta 5 in terms of JavaScript performance (at least according to one particular speed test).
• A post at Softpedia explains why some JavaScript issues in IE8 Beta1 have caused certain fixes to look as if they’ve failed, and also mentions that IE8 Beta 2 is scheduled to drop this summer.

If you’ve had a chance to play around with IE8 Beta 1, what are your impressions?

Tags: Beta, Internet Explorer, Opinion, Reviews, Web Standards

This comes verbatim from Anne van Kesteren, a web standards guru who is currently employed by Opera:

Is your (mobile) browser ready for the Web? The W3C “Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group” has been working on a Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers that tests technologies they expect to be relevant in the next two years or so. The test is in spirit similar to the Acid tests, though it contains tests for features that are already widely supported, but are still in draft status from a specification perspective. Think of XMLHttpRequest, the HTML canvas element, Media Queries, Selectors, contenteditable, et cetera.

As mentioned in their blog post, they are also still accepting test input from everyone who’d like to write a test. So if you didn’t get your pet bug/feature in Acid3, now might be the time.

For more information, head on over to the W3C Questions and Answers Blog, or take a look at the actual Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers.

Tags: Mobile, Opera, Web Standards

Last time around, I didn’t get any feedback on the format of these “Around the Browsersphere” posts, so I’ll give a slightly more organized approach a try and we’ll see how it goes.

Camino

• Camino 1.6, which features a customizable toolbar search field, software update capabilities, a scrolling tab bar, etc., was released on the 17th.

Firefox

• Fuzzbot is a Firefox extention that is “useful for detecting embedded semantic information in web pages and performing actions on that semantic data” (via Microformats).
• Firefox Mastery discusses changing the fonts in Firefox.
• Asa Dotzler attempts to clear up some confusion around add-on installations and required logins.
• Chris Beard gives an update on what’s going on at Mozilla Labs.
• Popular extension Adblock Plus is now compatible with the Firefox 3 betas.
• Deb Richardson gave an excellent overview of bookmarks in Firefox 3 (and did a little damage once her post showed up on Digg).
• Find out how you can help beta test the new Mozilla.com redesign.
• Daniel Glazman figured out how to avoid extension version compatability in Firefox.
• Take a look at the Firefox 3 t-shirt design contest winner.
• Firefox’s market share continues to rise in Europe.
• Paul Kim discusses marketing plans as the release of Firefox 3 nears.
• Robert O’Callahan on the turned-off-by-default ActiveX hosting support in Firefox.
• Firefox was apparently spotted in outer space.

Flock

• Flock is apparently delivering on promises.

Internet Explorer

• IEBlog gives some tips on improving performance in Internet Explorer add-ons.
• Read up on HTML and DOM standards compliance in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1.

Konqueror

• Some improvements are being made to the error pages in Konqueror.

Maxthon

• Read up on the Maxthon Downloader.
• There’s a new IRC channel for Maxthon enthusiasts.
• Some felt there was perhaps some foul play involved when Maxthon won a Webware 100 award, but the Maxthon Blog certainly didn’t think so.
• One user’s in-depth tale of a switch from Maxthon to Firefox.

Mozilla

• You can download some really old Mozilla versions from the Mozilla Archive.
• Mozilla celebrated its 10th birthday last month (more here and here).

Opera and Opera Mini

• Opera was the first to 106 in the Acid3 test
• A version of Opera Mini has been created to work on Google’s Android platform.
• Indexing and searching in Opera 9.5 explained.
• With Daniel Goldman moving on to bigger and better things, the Opera Watch team is changing.
• David Storey has shed a little more light on Opera Dragonfly.

Safari

• Non-Safari users were none too pleased about some of Apple’s recent software update techniques (more links to evidence at Asa Dotzler’s blog).
• It looks like HTML5’s client-side database storage may be coming to Safari and the iPhone.
• Safari 3 was compared to Firefox 3 (from a Mac user’s perspective) over at Daring Fireball.
• WebKit hackers will be busy in this year’s Summer of Code.
• PayPal says they won’t be blocking Safari users from accessing their site.
• Some Safari-related stats would be better served more carefully worded

SeaMonkey

• Some SeaMonkey contributors recently got together for a Hack’n'Cook.

Minor Players

• There is a whole bunch of minor players (and the major ones, too) listed in “A wealth of browsers.”
• GreenBrowser is “lightest on resources” of the IE clones, according to one forum post.
• Interesting abstract about a tactile web browser for the visually disabled.
• Interested in a little web browser history trivia?

Tags: Add-ons, Beta, Camino, Digg, Extensions, Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, iPhone, Konqueror, Mac, Market Share, Maxthon, Microformats, Minor Players, Mozilla, Opera, Opera Mini, Releases, Safari, SeaMonkey, Stats, Web Standards, WebKit

It’s been a few months since we caught up with the popular web browser-related submissions on Digg, so let’s do something about that:

• John’s Blog: Apple Software Update and Safari - People didn’t take too kindly to Apple’s decision to bundle Safari with a recent iTunes update.
• Mozilla CEO says Apple’s Safari auto-update ‘wrong’ - Mozilla’s CEO was among them.
• Three Powerful Safari Features That Few People Use - The features include browsing and search snapback, URL path navigation and Web Inspector.
• Safari 3.1 on Windows: a true competitor arrives (seriously) - The post claims that Safari 3.1 on Windows has improved greatly over the Safari 3 beta that came out last summer.
• Apple Forbids Windows Users from Installing Safari - Some interesting licensing terms were found in the Safari license.
• Mozilla: Final Version of Firefox 3 Will Ship in June - This one speaks for itself.
• WebKit achieves Acid3 100/100 in public build - Announcement regarding WebKit’s race toward Acid3 compliance.
• 100% Organic Software -Your New “Green” Firefox Browser - Worth the read, even if only for the image of the Firefox chomping on the IE logo.
• Opera releases experimental public build that passes Acid3 - Yet more evidence of the race toward Acid3 compliance.
• When in Rome: engineering the Firefox 3 user experience - ars technica discusses some of the usability/visual identity-related changes in Firefox 3 with Alex Faaborg.
• Internet Explorer: A Browser Breaks - Some market share statistics regarding IE and Enterprise.
• Firefox Gains On Internet Explorer In Businesses - Along the same lines as the previous, only with a Firefox slant.
• Firefox 3 Beta 5 (Final beta) released! - News of the release of the latest Firefox 3 beta.
• Samsung Instinct: Browse Web Pages with Tilt Navigation - A look (in video form) at a web browser that lets you navigate using tilt movements.
• Opera Mini 4.1 beta is out - News of the release of the Opera Mini 4.1 beta.
• Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 faster on Mac OS X than Safari 3.1 - When it comes to JavaScript, at least.
• Incredible Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts You May Not Know About
• Latest iPhone Firmware Saves Pictures from Safari - Apparently you can save pictures directly from the iPhone browser as of the 1.2.0 beta firmware.
• Updated Web Browsers: Which One Works Best? - A review from PC World.

Tags: Acid3, Digg, Features, Firefox, Mac, Market Share, Minor Players, Mobile, Opera, Opera Mini, Releases, Reviews, Safari, Web Standards, WebKit

Being interested in web browsers without having any interest in web development or web standards is probably a bit like being interested in telescopes but not having any interest in outer space (or spying on your neighbors).  Therefore, occasionally you’ll see some content here that has less to do with web browsers and more to do with the evolution of web standards, web development, CSS, markup, microformats, etc.  This post is an example.

Peter Gasston posted at CSS3 . Info this week reminding visitors to that site that the closing date for letting the W3C know what your priorities are for CSS3 is Monday, March 10th (in other words, get busy).  You’re encouraged to leave your feedback as a comment over at webstandards.org, where there are already a whole bunch of suggestions.  Some of those suggestions range from requests for the support of constants (though there’s some history on that one) to better form element styling options and control over the color of underlines and strikethroughs to basic animation.  If you look hard enough, you might even find a submission from me that goes way back to 2004.

Anyhow, if you’re one of those people spying on your neighbors…I mean that’s interested in web standards and the evolution of CSS, I’d recommend heading over to webstandards.org and letting them know your thoughts before the end of tomorrow (Monday).

Tags: CSS, Web Standards

With at least a couple more Firefox 3 betas on the way, the release of IE8 Beta 1 and the official release of the Acid3 test, there’s a lot going on in the browsersphere these days.  Let’s jump right into it…

• First off, it’s now March, so Netscape Navigator is officially dead (but do you really believe that?).
• The Opera Desktop Team has released what they are calling a Plugin Milestone Build.
• I think this guy may be more into web browsers than I am.
• Mozilla’s been getting some fan mail.
• Opera has made the switch back to Google for search in Opera Mini and Opera Mobile (see a screenshot of the new Opera Mini start page).  There’s more on this over at TechCrunch as well.
• Sebastiaan de With (remember him?) thinks that the Firefox 3 interface is going nowhere.
• A forum post pointed me toward another minor player called Acoo Browser, which is another browser built on Trident.
• CyberNet claims that Avant Browser 11 will be the best version of the browser yet.
• Ben Moore seems to have mixed feelings about some of the changes made between Maxthon v1 and v2.
• sKatterBrainZ claims that “there’s nothing in Safari that is truly innovative or unique to the world of web browsing.”
• Somewhat contradictory to that, Ian Hixie, the author of the Acid3 test, seems pretty impressed with how quickly the Safari/WebKit team has responded to the issues uncovered by Acid3 (I’ve covered this here as well).
• Ian Clifton had some interesting points to make about the Internet Explorer team’s original stance on standards support in the forthcoming IE8.
• microformatique points out that the IE team has used the hAtom microformat to implement their WebSlices feature.
• CyberNet says the SpaceTime 3D Browser is “mostly for fun” and shows off a video demo of the interesting browser.
• Firefox 3 Beta 3 has replaced Firefox 2 as the default browser in Alpha 6 of Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
• Opera Mini users browsed over 1.8 million web pages back in January.
• Kevin Yank says that table-based layouts will be “the next big thing” (via Simon Willison).
• Daniel Glazman wrote a CSS3 Selector test suite and posted the results for Firefox 3.0b4pre (Minefield), Safari 3.0.4 for Windows, Opera 9.23 and Internet Explorer 7.  He was impressed to see that the latest builds of Opera pass all of his tests.
• Opera Twitters (via Opera Watch).
• Myk Melez talks about what it’s like to sheriff for Mozilla.
• Opera Mini users can now zoom images.
• Mitchell Baker has posted about the Mozilla Steering Committee.
• Jesse Ruderman created a Greasemonkey script for those who spend a lot of time looking at the Firefox tinderbox.
• Opera’s Charles McCathieNevile, Mozilla’s Brendan Eich and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson will square off at SXSW tomorrow in a panel called “Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?”
• It doesn’t look like many CSS3 features have made their way into IE8 yet.
• Konqueror 4 for Windows has been reviewed.
• Someone decided to show off how they made a web browser with Visual Basic 2008 in under three minutes on YouTube.
• Okiwi is a free web browser for the Nintendo DS.
• An online poll asking what the greatest web browser ever is has some interesting options from which to choose.
• A C|Net podcast covers, among other things, BMWs that feature full-blown in-dash web browsers.
• Dan Gayle digs Lynx.
• Auto Web Browser “will consult the search engines from a user defined list, download the pages to your computer, filter and analyze them and then it will automatically surf further, downloading other potentially interesting pages using the links from the meaningful part of the relevant documents.”
• The Off By One Web Browser “may be the world’s smallest and fastest web browser with full HTML 3.2 support.”
• The WorldWideWeb browser (which was later renamed Nexus) turned 17 years old last month.
• You can view your Firefox web browser history visually with ThumbStrip.
• Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Maxthon, Opera and Safari are nominated in the Browsing category of the Webware 100.
• Anne van Kesteren covers some of the “evil” things about IE8.

Amazingly enough, there’s a lot more to post about, but that should hold you over for a little bit.  I’m interested in hearing if Browsersphere visitors are more interested in somewhat random links like this or if it would be preferable to have the links broken down by the web browser to which they correspond.  If you have any thoughts on that, please leave a comment.

Tags: Acid3, Add-ons, Avant, Beta, CSS, Extensions, Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Linux, Lynx, Maxthon, Microformats, Minor Players, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, Opera Mini, Safari, Trident, Ubuntu, Video, Web Standards, YouTube

According to Dave Hyatt, the Safari team has made significant gains of late in achieving compliance with the new Acid3 test.  Apparently they’ve made the leap from scoring 39/100 on the test to 90/100 after addressing issues with CSS3 Selectors, general parsing bugs, SVG and DOM Level 2 features.  According to Hyatt, the remainder of the issues tend to fall into the SVG category, and since they are getting so close to Acid3 compliance, they will be updating Surfin’ Safari regularly with updates on their progress.

Tags: CSS, Development, Safari, Web Standards, WebKit

This just in from the IEBlog:

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

If you’ll recall, there was a bit of an uproar about a month ago when it was announced that web developers would need to opt-in in order to take advantage of IE8’s improved web standards support (I got to the news late and a combination of that and pure laziness kept me from posting anything specific here, especially since you literally had to be living under a rock to have missed the debate as it burned across the web).  As a result of the uproar, the IE team seems to have changed its stance on the matter.

Here are some more details from today’s IEBlog post:

Our initial thinking for IE8 involved showing pages requesting “Standards” mode in an IE7’s “Standards” mode, and requiring developers to ask for IE8’s actual “Standards” mode separately. We made this decision, informed by discussions with some leading web experts, with compatibility at the top of mind.

In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting “Standards” mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach described here).

In the end, I think the IE team has made the right decision.  As a web developer myself, I really feel that it is in the best interests of the web to encourage the migration to the latest and greatest web standards, and hey, if a bunch of legacy code suddenly needs a retooling to catch up with the times, that can only mean more work for web developers, right?

What do you think of the decision?

Tags: Internet Explorer, Opinion, Web Standards