IE7 is here

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Our friends from the Internet Explorer team are celebrating a major milestone - the release of Internet Explorer 7. You all know about the great features it brings to browser users (security, performance, ease of use); you may have seen them first-hand by trying out their Release Candidates.

You may be wondering - how does this affect InfoPath? From the first look, there shouldn't be much connection, but there is.

InfoPath‘s editing surface is built on top of Internet Explorer. This means that most things that you see when you fill out an InfoPath form are, really, just clever HTML elements. Internet Explorer 7 brings improved implementations - thus, InfoPath users will benefit from the IE7 install, too.

Some specifics:

  • IE7 provides a windowless SELECT control, which brings better performance for InfoPath forms that use the Drop Down List Box, List Box, or Combo Box controls .
  • IE7 offers full type-ahead support for dropdowns: for example, if a dropdown contains {"apple", "banana", "orange"}, then typing "ba" with the focus on the control will take you to "banana". InfoPath inherits this perk.
  • Overall rendering performance is improved
  • Many InfoPath crashes are fixed

This list is relevant for InfoPath 2007. InfoPath Forms Services will benefit just like any other web app.

Bottom line: if your organization uses InfoPath, the returns on deployment of Internet Explorer 7 will be even greater! IE7 will be distributed as a public update; if you can't wait (and I personally couldn't - I downloaded the final release of IE7 the minute I found out itwas available), get it here.

Alex Weinstein
Program Manager