IE7 Public Beta 2

Alex_L · 1 Feb 2006 at 23:50

only had a five minute play, will try it more at the weekend. I like the more firefox-esque arrangement of menus and search bars. Seems quite fast at loading pages, and tab-browsing seems well integrated.

Downsides:

Ctrl+f is still useless, firefox is the best for searching within a webpage for me.

scrolling with trackpoint on my thinkpad was very slow and juddery compared with firefox, but that may just be a setting i need to change

DVD Cinema · 2 Feb 2006 at 01:29

I've yet to find a Browser like IE6 that auto hides the top menu bar, favourites and the taskbar, when in F11 fullscreen view. By moving the mouse pointer over them areas, the said options are then in view. This includes IE7, that I've just tried.

Has anyone else?

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 08:19

Well I uninstalled it, good riddance

When is IE7 due for release by the way? March?

Otacon · 2 Feb 2006 at 09:40

Na, much later than that. We'll have another offical beta 'release' (this is a preview, after all) next, followed quite possibly by release candidates. I imagine it will be out around the same time as Vista.

ben_j_davis · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:28

Is it just me or does IE7 look exactly like Opera?

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:50

Otacon said:
Na, much later than that. We'll have another offical beta 'release' (this is a preview, after all) next, followed quite possibly by release candidates. I imagine it will be out around the same time as Vista.

I was just going by the date on www.winsupersite.com although his dates aren't always accurate I know

I concur that March does seem unlikely.

firstborn · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:52

dirtydog said:
Which sadly doesn't affect the back, forward, stop or refresh buttons.

But then the icons are all the same size though.

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:52

ben_j_davis said:
Is it just me or does IE7 look exactly like Opera?

Yes I think it does too, which is a shame as I hate Opera

Opera's cluttered messy interface and un-intuitive configuration options is why I dislike it.

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:52

firstborn said:
But then the icons are all the same size though.

Pardon?

firstborn · 2 Feb 2006 at 10:56

lowrider007 said:
Only just got round to trying this, seems to update webpages a lot faster the ie6, one thing tho, is it just me or does the new fonts look slightly fuzzy

It does because cleartype is on by default. You can turn it off via Tools->Internet Options->Advanced. Turn off use clear type in the multimedia options.

firstborn · 2 Feb 2006 at 11:01

dirtydog said:
Pardon?

Meaning untick small icons makes all icons - back/forward/refresh/home etc all the same size. Perfectly viewable at 1920x1200.

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 11:05

firstborn said:
Meaning untick small icons makes all icons - back/forward/refresh/home etc all the same size. Perfectly viewable at 1920x1200.

In your opinion they are big enough, in mine they aren't. MS for reasons best known to themselves have taken away the option which has existed since Windows 95 to have text underneath toolbar buttons and to have large or small toolbar icons - all of them I mean, not just some. If they are big enough for you then good luck to you but why are they doing an Apple on me and saying it's their way or nothing.

NathanE · 2 Feb 2006 at 13:10

The IE7 team commented on the apparent security vulnerability:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/01/522682.aspx

and they've made a post about the new UI:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/01/522737.aspx

dirtydog · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:42

NathanE said:
and they've made a post about the new UI:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/01/522737.aspx

I'm pleased to see that plenty of people there share my views on IE7's interface

Syph · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:47

I think it would look nicer if it were a little more 'slick'. The colours look... wrong. If anyone used Beta 1 and changed the ieframe.dll to LH style as opposed to XP style they'll know what I mean. It was better than the current bright buttons (which the IE team have blogged as being nice and high contrast). Other than that, there's not a lot I've got to say about the UI, and the only bug I have is the RSS feed button. If I move from a tab that has an RSS feed to one that doesn't, it's still highlighted. If you click the button it locks the browser temporarily.

NathanE · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:46

dirtydog said:
I'm pleased to see that plenty of people there share my views on IE7's interface

I share your view too. The UI is badly lacking in customisability. But still, they've said the user experience "is not done" so we just have to play the waiting game!

Otacon · 2 Feb 2006 at 18:11

Well, after playing with it myself for a while now, I would say that from a functionality point of view, the CTRL+F search is a big let down (still). I can live with the rest tbh, actually quite like the light approach.

Emailed my thoughts (like I did with the first beta) about the lack of improved search to MS.

csmager · 2 Feb 2006 at 18:18

Otacon said:
Well, after playing with it myself for a while now, I would say that from a functionality point of view, the CTRL+F search is a big let down (still). I can live with the rest tbh, actually quite like the light approach.

Emailed my thoughts (like I did with the first beta) about the lack of improved search to MS.

Even Paul Thurrott said this was a major sticking point for him not going back to IE. I'd agree too - just being able to press / on firefox and start typing really is effortless. I don't think I could live without it.

Mouse Gestures, Adblock and other plugins are other things I'd find hard to leave behind. Although there is a sort of plugin for IE that does Mouse Gestures... it doesn't work too well. Occasionally it just shows a right-click menu after you've drawn the gesture! Apparently AdMuncher's quite good for Ads.

This is just the tip of the iceberg - there's a real lack of ability to customize. I can't tell it to clone the current tab when i open a new one (which I'd like).

On the plus side, it's a vast improvement over IE6. I really like the RSS rendering. For the average user, IE7 will be brilliant.

ajgoodfellow · 2 Feb 2006 at 21:18

Just tried it and guess what - it doesn't work under XP x64! :mad:

Haven't found a way to trick it either. Just typical - why on earth have they stopped it working?

It's got such a long way to come since IE6 I remain skeptical. Haven't used IE for over three years now

:mad:

NathanE · 2 Feb 2006 at 21:27

This is a Beta 2 _Preview_ release. The proper Beta 2 should work on OSes other than just XP SP2. The reason they released it is to get feedback from web developers.