IE 7 DOM and JS Changelog 25

26 Apr 2006   | DHTML · Internet Explorer · JavaScript · Microsoft · Rant · Web

Here are the DOM and JavaScript changes in the latest version of Internet Explorer 7, as well as the planned ones for the final release, since Internet Explorer 6.0 which was released in 2001:

Begin Changelist
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End of Changes
  • http://journal.webmagics.net Sebastian Werner

    Great list. Really. Wow. :)

  • http://www.chaosware.net Jose

    Sorry, I think you copied by mistake the “IE7 Innovations” list, also known as the “Stuff we didn’t (poorly) copied from Safari/Firefox” list. Another example of hypeware for me.

  • http://dean.edwards.name/ Dean Edwards

    Bah! You had me going there.

    Now that IE7 supports CSS min/max-width/height I assume it will support those DOM style properties too. So the list is not completely empty.

    What would you like them to add in the next version?

  • http://blogger.xs4all.nl/peterned/ Peter Nederlof

    And don’t forget the xmlhttprequest thingy, which is now natively supported ;) But nope, it’s not a huge leap forward, sadly.

  • http://kenkolano.com Kolano

    My prime requests would be…

    -W3C DOM Events support
    -W3C DOM Style support

    …so I could stop having to write code related to those twice.

  • http://erik.eae.net Erik Arvidsson

    Basically I would just say implement what Firefox has but that would be a bit lazy. I think DOM level 2 is crucial. Me and other people have our own lists from earlier rants:

    http://erik.eae.net/archives/2006/02/01/12.10.34/

    http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=536

  • http://www.quirksmode.org ppk

    They solved the memory leaks bug when two objects (one of which must be a DOM node) refer to each other. Since IE has been much maligned for this bug, I consider its removal a step forward.

    They solved the crash on the normalize() method.

    Other than that I’m not aware of any change, but the hue and cry against IE always was about CSS, and not about JavaScript.

  • http://encytemedia.com Justin Palmer

    This is a sobering list. Javascript developers don’t seem to be united in their efforts to pressure the IE team to do something about the problems IE has with Javascript and the DOM. I’m a guilty party and haven’t done much testing in IE 7 and have yet to submit any reports to the IE team.

    I think we need a united voice and I think WaSP needs to take a greater initiative in this effort. There has been little talk at WaSP about IE’s shortcoming with Javascript in IE 7. WaSP has analyzed all types of CSS and rendering issues, for which I am grateful, but they have all but dismissed any concerns with IE 7 and Javascript.

  • http://erik.eae.net Erik Arvidsson

    “…but the hue and cry against IE always was about CSS, and not about JavaScript.”

    That is because designers are a bigger and louder crowd than developers.
    Developers are usually too busy creating applications and I feel that a lot of developer rather work around the bug than spend the time trying to get the bugs fixed. Developers (especially in the web app sphere) need to get things working yesterday and are swamped with work. Designers on the other hand seems to be more talented when it comes to communication and maybe they are not so swamped with work as the developers?

  • http://www.quirksmode.org ppk

    “…but the hue and cry against IE always was about CSS, and not about JavaScript.”

    “That is because designers are a bigger and louder crowd than developers.”

    True, to some extent, but on the whole simple and intermediate JavaScript functions better in IE than simple and intermediate CSS, and therefore I agree with MS that the CSS fixes have a higher priority.

    That said, I must admit I was the tiniest bit disappointed when there was so little JavaScript progress. MS never promised it, though, and they did promise and deliver CSS fixes.

    “I think we need a united voice and I think WaSP needs to take a greater initiative in this effort.”

    When in doubt, make a list. What, specifically, needs to be fixed? If we can present MS a list we have something to talk about.

  • http://www.hesido.com Emrah Baskaya

    I am glad they didn’t try a half-hearted attempt on the javascript front. Their half-hearted attempt of trying to fix CSS issues only made matters worse (no ::before, ::after, bottom: broken etc, and several other bugs now being displayed at quirksmode.org), now we have to have work out our css for IE7, IE6, and of course the standards abiding rest. That said, one or two of my no-browser detect scripts are now broken because probably because of their ‘style’ fixes (guessing it is because of wrong element size reporting, which I haven’t yet reduced), which means things are coming for the worse.

  • http://erik.eae.net Erik Arvidsson

    Emrah: What are you talking about? I’d take IE7 over IE6 any day. IE7 is still a piece of crap compared to Firefox and Opera but it is slightly better than IE6.

  • http://www.hesido.com Emrah Baskaya

    My point is, we were pretty much used to the old IE6 with all its quirks and work-arounds, sure developers hated it but we knew its inside out. There already was this ‘I don’t care about IE5.x’ attitude that I also embraced, so development had become a little easier. Now that we have a new kid in the block that acts differently than IE6, but doesn’t act as well as the law-abiding browser, development times will rise again, until IE6 becomes obsolete. But then they’d probably strike with IE8. Here is a bug test-case page that should interest anybody working with dynamic content. (I just came up with it but haven’t got a confirmation from any other yet, tho)
    http://www.hesido.com/test/webdesign/ie7beta2dynamicupdatebug.htm

  • http://erik.eae.net Erik Arvidsson

    IE6 will become obsolete as well. I’m sorry to say this but we all need to get used to this platform being a moving target. As long as it moves in the right direction it is good. However, IE is holding this platform back and that is why I keep complaining.

  • Orestes Leal

    Hi:

    I think that is very interesting about the standars, (I am Cuban student, so i not speak english) IE 6 i very, very, very bad but it has some good things, i am happy with the renders engines of Gecko because y an assurance foir quality and speed standart compliant,IE i think thah is almost the same.

    Thanks

  • http://kcsoftwares1.com Jay Kappel

    Well, this list has dashed my hope of seeing a DOM issue addressed that has been a major pain in my side for 2 years now :(

    In trying to create a “map” to an element in a page (parsing all the parent nodes and their position in their childnodes collections intil I reach the body tag), then being able to return to that element by starting at the body and navigating down the tree to the element I want.

    Should be very scientific and consistant, but no. When traversing up from the element, depending on how the html was formed sometimes the elements report the wrong parent element :O

    Isn”t that a wonderful thing :S

  • BatMan

    Could some one help me find the list of changes in IE6 and IE7. In the original post, the list is empty, I assume this has been removed or truncated. Greatly appreciate if some one send the link to me again.
    -BatMan

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  • http://leron.t35.com Nik

    Erik Arvidsson zveřejnil novou verzi svého nástroje ExCanvas , který umožňuje používat metody objektu CANVAS i v Internet Exploreru.

  • http://www.webrawl.com mel

    Is this a joke?

  • Jason

    @BatMan: No, there was no list, hence the purpose of the post. It was merely to indicate that NO FEATURES or BUGS were added or fixed in IE7 in terms of JavaScript.

    Sad, but very true.

    (note some performance changes were made (e.g. mem leak fixes))

  • Praveen

    Hi ,
    In IE 6 and IE 7, I am facing one problem.
    One example i will explain.
    I created one text through
    textbox = document.createElement(“input”);
    textbox.setAttribute(“name”,”name”);
    textbox.setAttribute(“id”,”name”);

    It will work fine.
    But if added the following attribute it will affect.
    textbox.setAttribute(“onclick”,”somefun()”);

    But in Firefox it will work fine.

    Is there any solution? I don’t want to go for innerHTML.
    Please let me know if anybody is having ideas about this.
    Please let me know if innerHTML is the only solution to this.
    It will save my time.
    Thanks in advance.

    Any help will be greatly appreciated.

  • http://erik.eae.net Erik Arvidsson

    Praveen: Instead of using setAttribute you can use the relevant DOM properties.

    textbox = document.createElement(‘input’);
    textbox.name = ‘name’;
    textbox.id = ‘name’;
    textbox.onclick = somefun;

    This is also a lot more readable.

  • http://http//www.sohbetim.gen.tr sohbet

    Erik Arvidsson zveřejnil novou verzi svého nástroje ExCanvas , který umožňuje používat metody objektu CANVAS i v Internet Exploreru

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