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Microsoft Businesses Apple

Apple Details CSS Bugs in Internet Explorer for Mac 73

Posted by pudge from the we-prefer-to-call-them-misfeatures-thank-you-very-much dept.
Isbiten writes "An article at Apple Developer Connection discusses all the CSS bugs in Microsoft Internet Explorer, and compares IE to other browsers, including Mozilla." Wow, they sure do.
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Apple Details CSS Bugs in Internet Explorer for Mac More

Apple Details CSS Bugs in Internet Explorer for Mac

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  • yay codebitch... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by netsrek ( 76063 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @04:24PM (#4568129) Homepage
    Glad to see they got some of their data from CodeBitch's Mac Bug List [macedition.com].

    Her column [macedition.com] is bloody excellent for browser discussion. Always informative and well researched.

    I could be wrong, but none of those bugs seemed to address the major problem I have with IE on Mac (apart from it being dog slow...), that weird bug where it doesn't render large slabs of a page at all unless you click on it or resize the window...
    unless that's a result of the overflowing/clipping [apple.com] bug...

    • Re:yay codebitch... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by whee ( 36911 )
      I wouldn't be surprised if it were written by the same person. Apple tends to listen to developers and will post technical documentation that users provide.

      • Re:yay codebitch... (Score:5, Informative)

        by CodeBitch ( 622041 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:29AM (#4571174) Homepage
        You're all very kind, but I can confirm that I (CodeBitch) didn't write the article at Apple's site; Peter-Paul Koch did. I did compile the Bug Guide he refers to, and update it whenever a new CSS bug comes to light that can be narrowed down enough to diagnose. All contributions to these resources, suggestions and so forth are always gratefully received.

    • Re:yay codebitch... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by captn ecks ( 525113 )
      I have the same problem with IE on OSX. Very annoying, having to keep clicking around text on a page to try and make it visible and have other parts of the text blink out of existence. I haven't seen this addressed anywhere, either. Anyone have any info on this?

    • Re:yay codebitch... (Score:3, Informative)

      by hondo77 ( 324058 )
      I click twice on that white button in the top right of the window (whatever it is). This is in Aqua, BTW.

  • Hmmm..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JohnKFisher ( 518955 ) <johnkfisher&mac,com> on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @04:40PM (#4568296) Homepage Journal

    Now, correct me if I am wrong, cause, hey, I probably am, but does this not seem like just one more subtle insult from Apple to Microsoft? Well-deserved, I might add, but why all these recent jabs?

    The switch ads are the obvious, but I find this, and the fact that MS's recent fake switch ad made it to Apple's Hot News page [apple.com] quite interesting from a company that publically expressed all is well between them and MS.

    Besides, When you're trying to convince MS users that they can use Mac versions of programs they are used to [apple.com], why point out serious flaws in one of the biggies??

    Unless, of course... you have something better you're planning to push.... (Which I'm not saying must be the oft-rumored iBrowse. Could just be Mozilla)

    • Re:Hmmm..... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by netsrek ( 76063 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @04:45PM (#4568341) Homepage
      Now, correct me if I am wrong, cause, hey, I probably am, but does this not seem like just one more subtle insult from Apple to Microsoft? Well-deserved, I might add, but why all these recent jabs?


      I don't think so. There are some subtle digs, but generally it's a very honest article, it praises the good things and discusses the bad things.

      Stuff like this:
      "In general, the Mac version of Explorer is more strict in its standards compliance and supports more of the standards, while the Windows version supports more Microsoft proprietary styles and JScript methods"

    • Re:Hmmm..... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Unless, of course... you have something better you're planning to push.... (Which I'm not saying must be the oft-rumored iBrowse. Could just be Mozilla)"

      Five bucks sez Uncle Steve announces the Apple Browser between 55 and 45 minutes from the end of the MWSF keynote.

    • Re:Hmmm..... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hexgrid ( 595569 )

      Now, correct me if I am wrong, cause, hey, I probably am, but does this not seem like just one more subtle insult from Apple to Microsoft? Well-deserved, I might add, but why all these recent jabs?

      I don't think the point of this article is to be critical of Microsoft or of IE5.

      Web developers need to know the limitations of browsers they're coding for, that's all.

    • Chimera [mozilla.org]
    • Sorry. This is trolling or flaming. The guy was trying to help webmasters with a few tricks for staying compatible.

    • No (Score:3, Insightful)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 )
      I don't think so. As you point out, Apple has no incentive to dis IE, which Jaguar installs as the default browser. Not only that, it is very difficult to use another browser as the default without completely erasing IE from your disk. For some reason, if IE is present at all, Jaguar wants to keep it as the default, even if you have explicitly chosen another browser as the default in the System preferences. I have been having a hell of a difficult time to get Jaguar to recognize Mozilla as my default browser, even when it's the only browser on the system. Am I the only one with this problem, or should we (ahem) actually consider IE part of the OS? (yikes!) Anyway I don't think Apple wants to put down IE just to compete with MS.

      • Re:No (Score:3, Informative)

        by TotallyUseless ( 157895 )
        I think the problem is that when you update the non-ie browser, the system loses track of it, and resets the default to ie. This happens to me everytime i update omniweb, and yes it is very annoying

  • Interface differences more important (Score:3, Insightful)

    by anarkhos ( 209172 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @04:47PM (#4568374)
    I wish Apple would concentrate on critizing the browsers for having horrible interfaces. I can only tolerate Explorer, mainly due to it being the ONLY Mac OS X browser to properly support drag+drop. Amazing given it hasn't been updated since version 5 was first released YONKS ago.
    • Out of curiosity, what exactly do you class as properly supporting drag and drop? I've just played around with it in Chimera, and it seems to work as I would expect. Only noticeable difference between it and Internet Explorer is that Chimera displays a grey rectangle representing the dragged text where Internet Explorer displays a grey border around highly transparent text. Neither of these behaviours is consistent with drag and drop from other Mac OS X applications, but I fail to see how Internet Explorers is more correct.
      • Explorer supports all the correct metadata when dragging, for example an image link with an alt= will have the three appropriate data elements: a url clipping, a plaintext clipping, and a picture clipping.

        Also dragging lins or text to the address bar will replace the current address.

        Chimera/Mozilla also embeds weird data which isn't standard, like moz-something (mozu mozl? I can't recall). I have no idea what's up with that.

        Anyway I can't even get rid of the toolbar in Chimera and keep the address bar. It has the same lame Mozilla interface. What's up with that?
        • Okay, your first two points are good, and I agree that something should be done to address these. However, I have not yet seen any wierd data embedded by Chimera. I may have just missed it so I'm not too sure.

          The last point is completely untrue. Right clicking on the toolbar and choosing 'Customize Toolbar...' allows you to remove all the buttons. Setting the icon size to small will remove much of the vertical white space around the address bar. If this isnt what you mean, I apologize :)
          • You can see the other data two ways. You can drag the item (url, text, picture, whatever) into an app like Drop Drawers which allows you to view the drag contents, or drag it to the Finder and open the file with a resource editor.

            As for the address bar I just want a really slim address bar at the top like I can with either Explorer or OmniWeb. I also want the address bar to be more drag+drop aware.

            I guess we'll see how Chimera evolves.
    • OmniWeb properly supports drag and drop. I look forward to OmniWeb 5.
    • sorry, what parts of drag and drop does iCab not support which Explorer do?
      • I haven't explored iCab as much simply due to the inability to switch the drag-url and drag-option-url gestures. I mean how retarded is that, I need the keyboard to drag? What's the point of drag+drop if it isn't quick+easy?

        iCab's url completion is also retarded. It ought to be a substring search like OmniWen or Explorer.

  • if apple feels so strongly about it... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eht ( 8912 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @04:55PM (#4568471)
    if apple feels so strongly about it they should stop installing it by deault in osx
    • They _have_ to. It was part of the deal Jobs and Gates cut way back when Jobs took over. It went something like this...Microsoft buys $500 mill (or thereabouts) in non-voting APPL (or AAPL? i don't remember) stock, apple drops the lawsuit still pending over the whole stolen code debacle, and IE becomes the default browser. This was the final nail in the coffin that was holding netscape...

      • Re:if apple feels so strongly about it... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @06:05PM (#4569116)
        They don't have to bundle Explorer anymore, the five-year agreement with MS is over. But Chimera is still in beta, OmniWeb is not finished, Mozilla is a bloated suite, Opera is not ready for prime time...
      • then they shouldn't have taken the money in the first place, pretty much apples fault no matter how you look at it

        • Re:if apple feels so strongly about it... (Score:4, Informative)

          by billDCat ( 448249 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @09:53PM (#4576010) Homepage
          Taken from the DOJ 's conclusions of law [usdoj.gov] of the Microsoft anti-trust case:

          "Apple increased its distribution and promotion of Internet Explorer not because of a conviction that the quality of Microsoft's product was superior to Navigator's, or that consumer demand for it was greater, but rather because of the in terrorem effect of the prospect of the loss of Mac Office. To be blunt, Microsoft threatened to refuse to sell a profitable product to Apple, a product in whose development Microsoft had invested substantial resources, and which was virtually ready for shipment. Not only would this ploy have wasted sunk costs and sacrificed substantial profit, it also would have damaged Microsoft's goodwill among Apple's customers, whom Microsoft had led to expect a new version of Mac Office. The predominant reason Microsoft was prepared to make this sacrifice, and the sole reason that it required Apple to make Internet Explorer its default browser and restricted Apple's freedom to feature and promote non-Microsoft browsing software, was to protect the applications barrier to entry. More specifically, the requirements and restrictions relating to browsing software were intended to raise Internet Explorer's usage share, to lower Navigator's share, and more broadly to demonstrate to important observers (including consumer, developers, industry participants, and investors) that Navigator's success had crested. Had Microsoft's only interest in developing the Mac OS version of Internet Explorer been to enable organizational customers using multiple PC operating-system products to standardize on one user interface for Web browsing, Microsoft would not have extracted from Apple the commitment to make Internet Explorer the default browser or imposed restrictions on its use and promotion of Navigator."

          Microsoft threatened to hold back development of software for the Mac platform. Apple wasn't in a position to refuse the money.

    • Re:if apple feels so strongly about it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hondo77 ( 324058 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @07:22PM (#4569675) Homepage
      It's called "constructive criticism". No need to take such a "love it or leave it" attitude. You can like something and still find fault with it.

    • Re:if apple feels so strongly about it... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "They" (meaning many of those responsible for the OS X experience) feel very strongly about it and are doing something about it. One day Software Update will do something about it for you.

      The last five years have restored Apple to relevance. They stand poised at the greatest crossroads in their long, storied history.

      They face difficult, but familiar challenges: are they sufficiently WinTel compatible? Can they remain competitive on the performance front? Will developers support their software initiatives? Can they match WinTel development tools for productivity and power? Must they continue to rely on Microsoft Office to validate their platform? How can they meet all these challenges and remain innovative?

      Say goodbye to Office and Internet Explorer. Soon they'll be as supported as the Visual Studio 4.1 Macintosh compiler.
    • Whare are people going to realize that companies aren't always one homogenus entity. Because a couple of Apple's developers posted a comprehensive breakdown of different browsers, doesn't mean Apple is going to ditch IE.

  • Are these the worst CSS bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yeti (dn) ( 618882 ) <yeti@physics.muni.cz> on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @06:00PM (#4569081) Homepage Journal

    If so, then the Mac version of MSIE must have much better CSS support than MSIE on Windows.

    On Windows MSIE nothing works. Want to use visibillity: collapse? You get crap. Want to collapse borders? No way. Want to use someelement > * all-childs-of-someelement selection? MSIE doesn't bother to understand. Want to use [attiribue=...]? Oh Lord! What's this? And on top of that specifying font-family: sans-serif makes the silly thing to render empty squares in place of Unicode characters (though Unicode Arial is installed)

    My pages look exactly as specified in Gecko, fine in Konqueror, acceptably in Opera, ... but MSIE (on Win) renders only crap.

    • Re:Are these the worst CSS bugs? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tim1724 ( 28482 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @06:53PM (#4569466) Homepage Journal
      MSIE 5.x for Mac OS (classic and OS X) is well known for being the first browser with good CSS support. Mozilla is quite good now too (better in some ways) but has its own set of CSS bugs. I expect that Mozilla will have its CSS bugs fied before IE's CSS bugs are fixed...

      one of the most annoying things about IE5.x on Mac OS is that it doesn't provide any method of choosing a stylesheet. (Mozilla has a very handy View->Use Style menu for choosing which stylesheet to use when a page has multiple stylesheets.) There's a useful little javascript which you can put in your bookmarks toolbar to get around this, but it's annoying that there's no built-in GUI for it. (When testing changes to my CSS style sheets, I like to have the page link to both the old and new versions so I can swap back and forth.)

      • one of the most annoying things about IE5.x on Mac OS is that it doesn't provide any method of choosing a stylesheet.


        Umm, Preferences=>Web Content It's right there in the page content section


        Microsoft normally sucks donkey balls through a straw, but I like their mice, and IE for the Mac....

        • Re:Are these the worst CSS bugs? (Score:5, Informative)

          by tim1724 ( 28482 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2002 @09:39PM (#4570447) Homepage Journal

          no, that doesn't allow you to do what I want. That allows you to turn stylesheets on and off, and it allows you to set the user stylesheet.

          If a page provides multiple stylesheets (for example, wired.com's [wired.com] new design has different stylesheets which specify different font sizes) IE will use the default stylesheet and not give you any method of choosing another one.

          Mozilla, on the other hand, will list each of the stylesheets in the View->Use Style menu. (try it right now.. go to Wired.com [wired.com] in Mozilla and look at the View->Use Style menu. You can choose between four different stylesheets for that page.)

          To do the same thing in IE, you need to go to favelets.com [favelets.com] and grab the "choose stylesheet" javascript.

          Another cool site which shows off the ability to have multiple stylesheets on the page is this page [meyerweb.com] .. it's much more interesting than Wired's font size changes. :)

          • --hey thanks for that last link, that's some clean and real nice and pretty work. I bookmaked that page for future reference.
    • Although IE for win still doesn't support a lot of CSS2. I find it generally less buggy than IE 5 for Mac.

      IE for Mac has some major problems in terms of positioning. In one example I had, what was supposed to be a footer at the bottom of each page, was now somewhere above the top of the page, completely invisible.
      I can live without support for targeting child elements, but I can't live with bugs that will render pages useless to users.

  • The Backslash Hack is horrible advice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Slur ( 61510 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @01:41PM (#4572657) Homepage Journal
    Apple's article demonstrates a "hack" that allows you to target Mac versus Explorer browsers by escaping the asterisk in a closing comment tag. On Windows this causes the browser to "miss" the closing tag and process the css that follows. Needless to say this is a very bad piece of advice on every level. Do not use the so-called "backslash hack." Either Microsoft will fix this Explorer bug and break your code, or they'll *never* fix it because it's too widely depended-upon (like the Windows Registry, for example). Either way this article's author should know better.

  • Others missed main point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31, 2002 @09:49PM (#4575991)
    I think the main point of the article has more to do with Apple trying to convince MS to update the Explorer browser than anything else. As noted at the end of the article:

    "The best way to avoid [the CSS bugs] is to test all sites in Explorer 5. Even then, though, strange and inexplicable things will happen. Let's hope for the speedy release of Explorer 6."

    Translation:
    Jab for bugs. Please fix by updating your software.

    Too bad for Apple that MS has won the browser war--MS no longer needs Apple--not even an itsy bitsy bit.
  • One thing no browser seems to do well - and MSIE on the Mac is abysmal at this - is ignoring threads which have no purpose anymore, as the user has chosen to hook up with a new link.

    Scenario: You start to load apple.slashdot, and there are a lot of embedded URLs. About 10% through the load you see a link you want to jump to immediately. So you click it. If you do this on IE for the Mac, you can wait a long time, because the brainiacs who write IE for the Mac let this poor thread compete with all the others already in Q. When it finally gets its chance to run, you can see some progress, but until then you will load GIF after GIF etc on a page you no longer want to see.

    It is painfully obvious that all these GETs should be ignored, the threads they run in should be orphaned, but it is as per usual obvious the Microsofties just don't get it.

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