1 Posted by Christophe Denuziere on 27 August 2008 | Permalink

Better compatibility than FF3 on some CSS !

Good job from microsoft.
It's better and better.
Good for webmasters !

2 Posted by Nater Kane on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

Here's a link to the actual release notes. ;-)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949787

3 Posted by Princess on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

position:absolute (as you have observed) is causing real problems, esp. when combined with position:fixed. Seems to be affecting other elements on the page.

STILL no support for opacity, either MS style or standards - surely it's not that hard, it worked fine in IE7 with the alpha(opacity=50) style, but now not even that works. I'm really surprised by that.

4 Posted by Princess on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

... oh and inserting html with the innerHTML method, with space around the leading and ending tags eg. "   <div>hello</div>   " causes the whole page to disappear.

I'll put up a couple of test pages.

5 Posted by Pete B on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

I don't see how IE will ever catch up with other browsers -- IE8 looks to be about as advanced as Firefox 1.

I think Microsofts long period of inactivity has cost them dear on this one.

6 Posted by Thomas on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

I have a very hard time installing IE8b2 because IE8b1 disappeared from my installed programs list, and removing the folder triggers every single alarm on Vista.
I'll wait until they publish a proper installer that deletes the previous version.

7 Posted by Princess on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

Here are the links to the demos of the bugs in IE8b2:

http://www.partyark.co.uk/html/ie8floattest.html

http://www.partyark.co.uk/html/ie8positiontest.html

Thomas - to uninstall IE8b1 you need to go 'Programs and Features' and then top-left you'll see 'View installed updates'. It takes a few seconds to find everything, but if you 'View by Detail' once it's all done you'll find 'Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1' eventually :)

8 Posted by Will Peavy on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

In a default installation of IE8b2 - if you click a hyperlink located in a frame it will open the link both in the current tab, and in a new tab (even when no target attribute, or .js is associated with the link).

For example, click the 'Valencia' logo/link in the upper left at: http://atlas-pprd.valenciacc.edu/

Now, bypass the frame and click the same 'Valencia' logo/link: http://atlas-pprd.valenciacc.edu/default.cfm

9 Posted by Doekman on 28 August 2008 | Permalink

First I thought. WTF? Dean Edward's blog did update, or did it?

But it's the one from Microsoft ;-)

10 Posted by Chris Hester on 29 August 2008 | Permalink

Princess, I'm not seeing any bugs with your demos. Demo 1 doesn't crash IE8 Beta 2 for me, but does lead to a blank tab. Demo 2, I cannot get the child box to move at all, it remains fixed.

11 Posted by Princess on 30 August 2008 | Permalink

-- Chris - oh, wow, that's a bit weird. I'm pretty sure they're correct - the 'fixed' bug has been reported elswhere too. Can you double check through developer tools that your in full IE8 mode? I suppose it's just possible it's something to do with the OS rendering: I'm on Vista.

The crash bug doesn't really crash completely. Just renders a completely unresponsive white screen. Sorry. I was overcome with hyperbole.

12 Posted by Chris Hester on 10 September 2008 | Permalink

Still get the effect in both IE8 modes. Must be a Vista effect!