14 DAY TRIAL // With the advent of the next generation of Internet Explorer, Microsoft is introducing a change designed to give websites a tad more space on the screen, as well as make it easier for web developers to calculate distances from the top left hand side of the page. Internet Explorer 9 Beta, which is now just three weeks away, will no longer inherit a 2-pixel wide border from its predecessors.
In fact, as early as Platform Preview 4, the last developer preview of IE9, Microsoft has scrapped the detail altogether.
“IE has traditionally drawn a 2-pixel border around the content area of a site,” John Hrvatin, Program Manager.
“This border, drawn as part of the page rather than IE’s frame, affects calculations of distance from the top and left of the page. It also creates a not-so-modern beveled look."
“In the fourth Platform Preview, you’ll notice pages running in IE9’s Standards Mode no longer have the border.”
But this is not really about 2 pixels worth of extra screen real-estate space in the end. It is about the major evolutionary step that Internet Explorer has taken toward IE9.
The move is illustrative of modern web standards support in IE9, as well as of the Redmond company’s efforts to deliver on the promise of same markup.
Developers that will build websites for IE9 will also be able to have their content work seamlessly across rival browsers, such as Chrome, and Firefox, even if they will use standards such as CSS3 and HTML5.
However, this will only happen if they will leverage the Standards Mode, the standards-compliant default mode in Internet Explorer 9.
Pages that run in legacy document modes will still have a 2-pixel border so that any site calculations dependent on the 2 pixels remain the same as in IE8,” Hrvatin added.
“To make sure your site runs in IE9 Standards Mode and gets this and all the other latest features in IE9, use a strict doctype. We recommend the HTML5 doctype (<!DOCTYPE html>) since it’s simple and will put your site in Standards Mode in all current browsers.”
In the past, web developers needed to differentiate their websites, building content differently for Internet Explorer compared to rival browsers.
With IE9 this is no longer necessary. Microsoft has worked so that devs will be able to write code once and have it run the same in IE9, Chrome, Firefox, etc.
Of course, there is still much to be done, as same markup across all browsers needs additional perfecting, but with IE9, Microsoft has certainly taken a step in the right direction.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 4 is available for download here.
