IE7 Beta2 Preview Available

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Anyone who wants to have a look at IE7, for dev or just to see whats its like, you can download it here.

Its only for XP SP2 and some features have been disabled, but it should be an interesting first look for the public.
 
Soldato
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Nice, thanks for the heads up.

I don't particularly like the interface at first glance. The unexpected removal of the standard File menu bar in particular confused me - or is that due to the beta status?

I do like that 'Quick Tabs (CTRL+Q)' option to preview all open tabs - that's very cool.

Haven't had the chance to look into the CSS bugfixes yet, but the PNG alpha-opacity fix pleases me a great deal - thumbs up for that. Looks promising, but highly unlikely to make me even consider ever using it again :).
 
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Augmented said:
I don't particularly like the interface at first glance. The unexpected removal of the standard File menu bar in particular confused me - or is that due to the beta status?

Nope. Thats how its going to look in the final version.

Like you I don't think the interface is all that, but I'm gonna carry on using it for a while.
 
Soldato
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BaJ said:
Handy link that.
I think there's still quite a bit of CSS renderer features to implement in release versions; looking at what's not working (pseudo-classes etc.) in this beta. They've stated that they've implemented full support for all of CSS 2.1 in previous posts on the IE blog. It seems this beta only features the parser fixes, and a few of the renderer fixes.

I guess the interface just needs some getting used to - like with any new application. They haven't significantly moved away from traditional browser concepts, which helps. I guess it's down to the major leap from previous version interfaces that causes the greatest surprise. I actually have my menu hidden in Fx (Compact Menu extension), so appreciate the ability to hide it in IE7 - but I feel it's a bad move to enable it by default. But then, "You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs"...
 
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Well, the final version is (according to M$) set to come out at the end of this year, so there will be plenty of time for them to release more betas with more features.

I think for beta 2, it isn't all that bad. It could do with some improving, but if M$ keep on this track, they might end up with a pretty decent browser.
 

BaJ

BaJ

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Augmented said:
They've stated that they've implemented full support for all of CSS 2.1 in previous posts on the IE blog. It seems this beta only features the parser fixes, and a few of the renderer fixes.

Indeed, i'm going to hold out for the full release before worrying too much about whether my sites will start falling apart at the seems.

http://www.ie7.com/

:D
 
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