Information for Developers about Changes to Internet Explorer

[enemem]

Morning all,

from my experience most people that have javascript turned off work in a corporate environment + a) don't have any control over their browser settings and b) don't have a clue what javascript is and what it does

anyway, there seems to be some confusion about what needs to be done to make pages work in the new IE - it really doesn't matter whether you are working with sprite overlays, dynamically generated pages or whatever, ALL you have to do is replace the Flash object/embed tag pairs with the script(s) posted before here or at MM, the rest of your document can stay exactly the same...

Toby Mack - sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick on this but if you didn't have the document.write statements for your layers etc. before, then you don't need them now, only the Flash tags need to be document.written...

and transparent Flash backgrounds only work in Win IE by the way...

- n.

[bmonick]

Originally posted by Toby Mack
I have tried just every method I could find to get Flash transparent overlays so you can see the background HTML to work on the other browsers with no success.

using the DOM would allow you to create the overlay in all modern (standards-compliant) web browsers, it won't make the browser support windowless mode. however, MSIE is not the only browser that supports windowless mode. according to macromedia's docs, windowless mode is supported in WinIE3+, MacIE5.1+, Netscape7+ Win and Mac, Mozilla1.0+ Win and Mac and of course, any browsers based off these (Firebird, AOL, Camino). all of these browsers (except MacIE5.1 which has limited DOM support) have excellent DOM support.

Originally posted by Toby Mack
I am not fimular with DOM. Can you point me in the right direction to read on this?

http://www.w3.org/DOM/
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/dom/
http://www.alistapart.com/topics/dom/

[PW.JaCkson]

heres a question...

if u display the swf directly, that is, not a html containing the flash movie but the direct link to the swf in the browser´s adress bar... will that make the "window of doom" show up too? i know its ugly but worth a shot?

[CNO]

Originally posted by PW.JaCkson
heres a question...

if u display the swf directly, that is, not a html containing the flash movie but the direct link to the swf in the browser´s adress bar... will that make the "window of doom" show up too? i know its ugly but worth a shot?

It shouldn't, since you are no longer using HTML, just calling up the player. The issue seems to be related to the object/embed tags encountered during runtime, indicating an embedded file.

[bmonick]

From the full release dated today. Lets hope James Rogan has a clue.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the global standard-setting body for the Web, has presented the United States Patent and Trademark Office with prior art establishing that US Patent No. 5,838,906 (the '906 patent) is invalid and should therefore be re-examined in order to eliminate this unjustified impediment to the operation of the Web. The W3C is urging US Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property James E. Rogan to initiate a re-examination of the patent because the critical prior art was neither considered at the time the patent was initially examined and granted, nor during recent patent infringement litigation.

In an unprecedented step, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, sent a letter today to Under Secretary Rogan requesting that his office reinvestigate the matter. "W3C urges the USPTO to initiate a reexamination of the '906 patent in order to prevent substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of World Wide Web," stated Berners-Lee. "The impact of this patent will be felt not only by those who are alleged to directly infringe, but all whose web pages and application rely on the stable, standards-based operation of browsers threatened by this patent. In many cases, those who will be forced to incur the cost of modifying Web pages or software applications do not even themselves infringe the patent - assuming it is even valid."

[phacker]

I only hope this makes a difference, but if MS chooses to change IE, then the point is moot. They hold gun that makes the difference, and if for some reason changing the way plugins are embedded makes some sort of sense for them financial or otherwise...they can make us all toe the line.

[Toby Mack]

Well it is about time. In one of my threads I called for this action several days ago. Why didn't they take action back when the patent was issued? But I guess you can't be everywhere all the time.

I hope the patent office reviews all of Eolas's patents for possible public domain content.

Here again I hope this is a lesson well learned and for the W3C to present all of the spec's as public domain content to the patent office for future reference to patent submittles. Or is this asking to much of the patent office to do their homework?


Toby Mack

[cancerinform]

Well,
I read a bit about this lawsuit and the background of it. It might even be that the University of California will get involved, since the patent is theres originally, since it was developed at UCSF. Apparently Microsoft implemented the ActiveX when already a patent was filed just to win over Netscape. It could be that this is not just such easy case.

[phacker]

Microsoft has something up their sleeve, and we are all going to have to modify past work to make it come into compliance. They could have won this suit if they had wished to.

[bmonick]

Originally posted by phacker
Microsoft has something up there sleeve, and we are all going to have to modify past work to make it come into compliance. They could have won this suit if they had wished to.

at first, that was my thought. how can a corp with the resources of ms not get this thrown out? then, after i read the ruling and found out the judge would not allow the jury to hear any evidence of prior art, it seemed a lot less likely. ms would've had to somehow (behind the scenes) convince the judge to not admit the evidence their lawyers brought to court (evidence which is also the basis of their appeal). if longhorn was due out this year then maybe i would find this a more realistic scenario but if this stands it won't destroy any of ms's real competitors (for example, apple). it would probably destroy the small guys (for example, opera) but they pose no real threat to ms's business so that doesn't seem likely. on top of that, it would cost ms a *****load of money (a lot more than just the 500+ mil awarded) if the ruling is upheld.

[phacker]

You have to remember MS has an interest in Apple, they aren't trying to topple Apple. If anything this is a ploy to strengthen their original case against the first anti-trust suit. I don't understand all the fine points, but I am sure it's a business maneuver. And if they change IE we all have to change. They could have had the prior art evidence entered, they really didn't fight it.

[bmonick]

Originally posted by phacker
If anything this is a ploy to strengthen their original case against the first anti-trust suit.

the first anti-trust suit is over. if anything, this would have to be really expensive, misdirected revenge.

Originally posted by phacker
I don't understand all the fine points, but I am sure it's a business maneuver.

of course there is a chance it could be but if it is, any real benefit to ms is still not known. discussions about this have been going on in newsgroups and forums for over a month and i have yet to see a realisitic or feasible theory.

Originally posted by phacker
They could have had the prior art evidence entered, they really didn't fight it.

i see what you mean by the "fine points" so fyi... they are still fighting it. that is what the appeal is about. they are fighting to have the jury hear the evidence they were not allowed to hear.

otherwise, if your implying that the judge didn't allow the evidence because ms didn't want the jury to hear it then we have problems much worse than changing web pages to worry about.

this is from an ms press release after the 8/11 verdict...

Although Microsoft asserted that the patent was invalid due to pre-existing inventions, the court refused to let the jury consider the prior art. The jury rendered its verdict on Aug. 11, 2003. The parties are still in the process of submitting their post-trial motions and briefs.

this is from an ms lawyer after the 8/11 verdict...

While today’s outcome is disappointing, we do plan to appeal this decision and we are confident the facts and the law will support our position. It’s important to note that the court has already rejected claims that there was any willful infringement. We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind, and that the accused feature in our browser technology was developed by our own engineers based on pre-existing Microsoft technology.

[TheEnigma]

Originally posted by gSOLO_01
Of course everyone's going to blame Microsoft...

But surely it is there fault?

If they (as someone has pointed out) asked, and didnt just rip proprietry technology then they/we wouldnt be in this mess

[98svt]

Now again, how is it MS's fault? Did they force Netscape or Opera to use it? No, the only difference is that Microsoft has more money and they got caught.
This topic is starting to get pretty stupid.

Mike

[bmonick]

Originally posted by TheEnigma
But surely it is there fault?

If they (as someone has pointed out) asked, and didnt just rip proprietry technology

first of all, an idea can't be proprietary technology and therefore can not even be patented (blame goes on the patent office for that one). yes, eolas patent also covers their implementation of said idea but eolas didn't go after sun or microsoft because they were using proprietary eolas code (unless you think java applets and activex use the same source -- in which case i shouldn't be wasting my time trying to educate you on this case). eolas went after these companies becuase the companies came up with their own proprietary technology that accomplished the same goal -- embedding executable content inside a hypertext page. do you think it's a coincidence that eolas wanted to block applets when netscape was the most used browser and now they want to block activex? or did you think that eolas owned patents on java applets and activex?

what makes it worse is that, even if patenting an idea was acceptable, eolas wasn't even the first (or second) to demonstrate this idea/concept functioning.

Originally posted by TheEnigma
then they/we wouldnt be in this mess

so what you're saying is that if ms had not invented activex and sun had not invented java applets because it was eolas idea first then things would be better off?!? you'd think things would be better if the only way to embed flash or quicktime in a web page would be to write your own browser, license the idea from eolas and then make all visitors to your website download and use your browser?!? or do you think we wouldnt be in this mess because no one would've ever embedded flash in web pages and therefore no one would know what they were missing? please explain to me how you think things would be better if msie, opera, mozilla, safari, etc. didn't have the ability to execute external content inside the browser. i really want to hear your reasoning.

i have to believe that you either know very little about what you comment on or you just hate microsoft. if the latter, you can rant all you want about the evil ms on other forums.

Originally posted by 98svt
Did they force Netscape or Opera to use it? No, the only difference is that Microsoft has more money...

exactly, as i mentioned before, eolas was going after applets when netscape was the prevelant browser. but this won't only effect ms, ms is the only browser that has been taken to court. if eolas wins, they've already stated other browser makers will have to pay license fees as well.

[1beb]

http://www.mozilla.org - So much more useful than M$ in so many more ways...

Might I suggest the Firebird browser, with the editCSS, and webdeveloper extensions...

yeah it kicks ass a couple of display issues... but much more potential than M$

[gSOLO_01]

Ah, so as a solution I should abandon 95% of the market / audience.

[bmonick]

Originally posted by 1beb
http://www.mozilla.org - So much more useful than M$ in so many more ways...

yeah it kicks ass a couple of display issues... but much more potential than M$

mozilla is definitely a more standards compliant browser than MSIE... but then again so are a lot of browsers. but the topic being discussed is the effect of the eolas patent, not which browser is better. and since mozilla infringes on this invalid patent as well, all you'll be able to do is hope that since mozilla is non-profit, eolas won't go after them anytime soon. either way it's moot anyway. because if ms loses, the impact will be big enough that some sort of standard will be developed and all the other browsers will have to follow. so, by using a different browser you may be using a better browser but that has nothing to do with whether or not this patent will effect you and your websites.

also, i'm not aware of any display issues with mozilla. are you using 1.5?

[Ask The Geezer]

There has been so much thread drift here, I guess it wouldn't be too bad if I say that all you people knocking Bill Gates and Microsoft are either stupid, jealous, or just troublemakers. You obviously can't see that if it weren't for Gates and MS we'd all be polishing our apples, assuming we ever got into computers at all. Unless you can look in a mirror and honestly say to yourself that 95% of the world computer community is wrong, you ought to shut up. Or go get some professional help. Better yet, do both.

[phacker]

This might account for why Microsoft isn't really fighting this case that hard.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/artic...1374453,00.asp

http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/525