Internet Explorer 8 Moves Into Enterprise

Your customers will be getting Internet Explorer 8 through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) this week. IE8 upgrades Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

The update is available in the “Update rollup” category, and will appear in your WSUS administration console of Windows Servers for your customer ITPros according to a post on the IEBlog, Internet Explorer 8 is now available via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Features For Developers

Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new web browser from Microsoft, was built with developers in mind.

Developer Tools on IE 8

Developers have all of the tools that they need, right out of the box without the need to download or install anything. By simply hitting the F12 key to bring them up, developers have access to:

• DOM manipulation & HTML tree view

• CSS tracing

• JavaScript debugging

• JavaScript profiling

Compatible

Internet Explorer is one of the most standards compliant browsers available, and offers developers the features they want and need. Developers will find Internet Explorer 8 has:

• Full CSS 2.1 compliance

• Support for HTML5 features like AJAX navigation, DOM store, and more

• Support for CSS3 features like vertical text

• Enhancements to the DOM

Features Developers Can Exploit

Visit the Internet Explorer Developer Center on MSDN for application development resources.

Find compatibility guidance and best practices at the Internet Explorer Compatibility Center.

Accelerators

You can create your own Accelerators to help users access get to your Web Site.

Users quickly perform your everyday browsing tasks without navigating to other websites to get things done. Simply highlight text from any webpage, and then click on the blue Accelerator icon that appears above your selection to obtain driving directions, translate and define words, email content to others, search with ease, and more.

For more information about how to build Accelerators,see OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide on MSDN.

Web Slices

Just as many Web sites provide content updates through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news feeds, a Web Slice enables users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page but without a separate feed file.

The Web Slice format consists of the minimum HTML annotations necessary to enable the publication and consumption of a mutable item on a Web page. And you add a way for the user to add that content to IE 8. That’s it. And the content is updated each time the user wants. It’s great for reporting or key performance indicators that you want the user to find easily. For more information about how to build Web Slices, see Subscribing to Content with Web Slices .

You can build authenticated Web Slices so users get only the information intended for them. For more information,  see Authenticated Web Slices.

Visual Search

Your users can add ways to search for their data by you construction a Search Provider. You provide the results of the search through a standard format. And IE 8 displays the results.

You need three parts to add your search provider to IE search:

• An XML file that IE-8 uses to know how to retrieve search results from your provider, see XML Search Suggestions Format Specification. The XML file points IE 8 to your provider.
• A Web Service that responds to search queries using JSON. For more information, see Offering Search Suggestions.
• An installer for your users. See AddSearchProvider Method.

For more information, see Search Provider Extensibility in Internet Explorer.

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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