With IE10, only supported on Windows 8, WinRT and Windows 7, Microsoft intends to abandon the path of proprietary extensions and loose interpretations of W3C standards to offer full support for HTML5, CSS3, and the latest Web standards.
In addition, the browser has been internally optimized for faster page rendering and a reduced demand for system resources, giving the user navigation experience more fluid and greatly simplifying the life of the developer, you will not have to worry about the specific version of the browser but only for compliance with the standards.
Precisely the point of view of the Web developer will be the theme of this guide, during which we will analyze the main innovations of Internet Explorer 10. We will analyze how this browser version differs from the previous ones, we will explore the support of HTML5, CSS3 and advanced features of JavaScript, we will use the tools to support the development and debugging, we will test its performance with some of the most well-known benchmark, we will evaluate support to privacy and security, we will appreciate the integration with Windows 8 and the movable support.
In a nutshell, we will learn to know Internet Explorer 10 with a practical approach and rich examples and appreciate the efforts of Microsoft to achieve full compliance with modern web standards
The present and the past
Internet Explorer 10 today embraces fully W3C standards. The past, however, can not be erased out of the blue and, as we shall see in this first part of the guide, the browser provides a few options to handle rendering of pages developed for earlier versions of the browser.
Removed Features
One of the main problems of previous versions of Internet Explorer was the lack of interoperability with other browsers and support for proprietary extensions in the HTML.
The availability of conditional comments is a clear example of the propensity of earlier versions of IE to support proprietary features than full adherence to standards.
Unlike its predecessors IE10 no longer supports conditional comments, making fully rely on web standards.
With them disappear from this version of the browser Element Behaviors , the XML Data Island and filters DX . IE10 also removes support for VML ( Vector Markup Language ) because obsolete.
With the removal of these features, some of which are heavily used by Web developers, such as the aforementioned conditional comments, what will happen to the sites that used it? What will be their rendition of IE10?
It is natural that the ideal solution would be in ' adapt the pages to the latest Web standards, unfortunately not this is not always feasible in concrete terms, at least immediately.
Compatibility mode
To ensure compatibility with the features that are not supported anymore we can make use ofcompatibility mode , ie the rendering mode of the pages from the browser automatically set according to the type of document or forced by the developer.
Standards mode
This is the default mode in IE Standards mode in the presence of a document declaring hisdoctype . For example, in the presence of a document that starts with the following directive:
<! DOCTYPE html>
IE10 will apply the latest standards for HTML5. If there is no directive, Internet Explorer will use the Quirks mode , ie the compatibility mode with the past.
Quirks mode
But unlike previous versions where this mode indicated a rendering compatible with IE5 ( IE5 Quirks mode ), the IE10 supports the ' HTML5-based quirks mode , as required by the standard, which presents some exceptions with respect to the Standards mode and provides a limited compatibility with the past.
This therefore involves problems viewing pages that adopted functionality no longer supported by your browser. If a site does not display correctly with IE10 because it uses the old functionality or modified standards you have two options: adapt the site to the new standards or force rendering of a page according to an earlier version of IE.
Force rendering according to a previous version
The latter solution can be implemented in two alternative ways:
- use the meta tag X-UA-Compatible
This approach involves inserting a meta tag in the HTML document similar to this:<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="EmulateIE=8">, which indicates the browser to render the page as if it was IE8; - through an HTTP header
with the request to emulate this approach an older version of IE is communicated from the Web server using the custom HTTP header X-UA-Compatible , in the same way as with the eponymous meta tags.
It should be borne in mind, however, that compatibility issues set forth herein shall not apply to Windows Store apps, which only support rendering in Standards mode .
Determine the current compatibility mode
To determine the compatibility mode currently adopted by IE10, useful for example to include any display problems, we can use the tools F12 activated with the power switch. Through specific menu items we can detect the current emulation mode of the browser
and the compatibility mode applied
Selecting and combining the various menu items we can realize how the same page can be viewed by precedendi versions of IE.
Check the compatibility with modern.IE
To analyze the compatibility level of a Web page with IE10 and with Web standards, Microsoft has released a set of tools that simplify the work to those who do not have available the latest version of your browser.
The tools, collected under the name of modern.IE , to analyze a page looking for any compatibility issues with the standards supported by IE10. They are very useful to identify the problems to be corrected to ensure proper use of navigation with IE.
It should be noted that these tools are indispensable to those who did not make the latest version of Microsoft's browser because it develops their own pages on platforms other than those supported by IE10.
The analysis of a page, which was launched online by specifying its URL, it returns a result set grouped into three categories, as illustrated by the following example:
The first category of results on the recognition of problems related to the support of the previous versions of IE, such as the degree of compatibility of the standard and the presence of obsolete libraries. The second category provides guidance on compatibility with other browsers and on different devices, highlighting the support of a responsive design or the use of third-party plugins. The third category is related to the optimal support for apps to Windows 8, for example, highlighting the lack of support at the touch technology.
The tools modern.IE are not limited, however, to identify compatibility issues. For each problem identified are provided practical suggestions on how to solve it. The following figure shows an example of the suggestion provided at the lack of a responsive design:
In conclusion of this first installment of the guide we can say that with IE10 Microsoft aligns with Web standards that revolve around HTML5 definitely abandoning the path of proprietary extensions. However, it is always maintained a certain compatibility with previous versions of the browser to ensure the accessibility of old web pages pending their transition to modern standards, transition facilitated by the availability of tools for the compatibility analysis.
Conclusions
In conclusion, IE10 is aligned with Web standards that revolve around HTML5 definitely abandoning the path of proprietary extensions. However, it is always maintained a certain compatibility with previous versions of the browser to ensure the accessibility of old web pages pending their transition to modern standards.
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