I recently installed Internet Explorer 7 beta (IE7) to test how it rendered DesignLegion's css and to great relief all is well. Even better, some of the 'eye candy' that rendered properly in FireFox now worked in IE7, for example, hover classes on non link tags (tr:hover, h1:hover, p:hover, etc) and dotted borders that don't appear dashed. Sadly it's not all good news...

Problem Summary

• CSS drops
• window blinds skins show black boxes
• unlocking toolbars doesn't unlock them much
• the above causes less room for tabs
• odd positioning for the classic toolbar
• MSN search is the only engine initially installed
• Installing Internet Exloer 6 (IE6) and IE7 together?

CSS Problems

There still is positioning problems within certain sites. One of the most notable I've come across is in the wordpress admin panel. The following image shows the 'Write Post' page rendering:

Buggy rendering within wordpress

As you can, there is an overlapping div problem. Further investigation revealed that this also happened in FireFox but was less noticeable.

Window Blinds skins?

Skinning IE7 with window blinds leaves annoying black boxes behind the tab and button areas. I know that IE7 supports transparent png files or alpha blending within a webpage and it should for the default skin. There seems to be a battle between window blinds and IE7 for skinning rights:

Black boxes with window blinds

Excluding 'iexplore.exe' from skinning solves the problem but the GUI becomes ugly to look at. None of the window blinds options in the "Per Application" section fixes the issue. Nor does re-applying a skin. Personally, I get annoyed using IE like this and would rather use a browser that added to my web experience.

The IE7 UI layout and usability

Usability seems to be taken steps backwards and forwards in some areas. I really like the position of the new tab button right beside the last tab. It enables the user to open tabs quickly while still keeping the mouse near the tab bar. I also think the quick tab function is ingenious as it helps find your tab with out looking through all of them one by one. Sadly, not all was heading forward...

Classic Toolbar and Icon toolbar

A few problems here that I've found to be annoying. The major being that the classic toolbar is not displayed by default. Many of the options are now under the 'Tools' button.

Showing the classic toolbar: click on 'Tools' > 'Menu bar'
Want to know how to MOVE the classic toolbar? Follow these instructions.

The icon toolbar can't be 'moved.' Unlocking the toolbar only enables resizing horizontally. You can no longer drag and position the toolbar where you would like. This toolbar is also in line with the tabs leaving less room for open tabs to be displayed, about 40% less width than FireFox. You can make the width of the toolbar smaller but you lose view of the buttons.

Main button locations

Another annoyance is that the refresh and stop buttons are on the right side of the URL bar while the back and forward buttons are on the left. For example if you want to stop a page from loading, go back and then refresh the previous page, you have to make two trips each the width of the screen to accomplish this. Annoying and not time friendly.

MSN search is lonely

The MSN search engine is the only one available in the search bar! Why didn't they include the others such as Google and Yahoo? It would be convenient for the user but not for Microsoft who are busy promoting their own engine.

MSN Search all alone

Instead of making IE more efficient and customizable (with out having to collect all the pieces yourself), it seems they want to control what you're using. At least they included the option to download and add the other search engines

Running IE6 and IE7 together to test websites?

A major problem with installing Internet Explorer 7 is that it replaces version 6! Common sense, as it would phase out the old version but this creates a problem for web developers who still need to test site compatibility with other browsers. There are a few steps to answer this problem:

Have two dedicated machines, one for IE6 and one for IE7.

• The above solution would probably be the easiest if two machines are available but would be a hassle going back and forth between two machines to check each update.

Use a virtual machine for the installation of IE7.

• With this method, both browsers would be on the same machine with one version on a virtual machine. This eliminates going back and forth between two computers but is a huge hassle to set everything up as needed. That and software to to this would need to be purchased such as vmware. Is it worth all that?

Installing IE6 and IE7 on the same machine and OS.

• It can be done but there have been some conflicting issues which would probably not be safe for a work machine or a machine with valued content. In fact it's possible to install IE5, IE5.5, IE6 and IE7 along side each other. Read how to do it here and here.

Conclusion

I'd have to say I'm not very impressed with the Internet Explorer 7 tests so far. Hopefully more of the bugs are remedied in the full release later this year. I don't predict Internet Explorer gaining much, (if any) browser share initially simply because it will replace Internet Explorer 6. However, with the next release of the Windows Operation system "Vista," just how people will be satisfied with the added tabbed browsing and search bar, etc, not to look elsewhere for a browser? As for now, not only don't I want to use IE7, I'd rather keep IE6 installed. It doesn't appear beneficial enough to install it once it's released as FireFox already has all the features I need.