Preparations for IE 7

[xfile]

Hi,

With the final release of IE 7 is approaching, I am wondering if it has any
impacts to our current and future site design, with particular focus on: Tab
browsing.

Appreciate if you could help us on the following questions:

(1) Session: Do tabs within the same page are treated as the same session -
That means to carry session variables from one tab to another?

(2) Open a new link: Is there a way to modify "Target Frame" property for
opening a link with a new tab, instead of a new page?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Windsun]

I have no plans to do much with tab browsing, but one of the main reasons we
finally decided to do a total overhaul of our sites is that there is far too
much hacked (for IE6) CSS in them that will break IE7.

And I have not found a way to make IE7 open a new tab from the site.

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Thanks

So far, our sites do look and work well in IE 7 RC1 (knock 3 times).

It might be too early to think about it because it may take some time for
the majority users to use IE. I am just preparing it so we know how to
change it in case more and more users ask for it.

Also, we will promote IE 7 (if the final release is without major problems)
which is something we never done before. It is because IE 7 "finally" can
handle foreign domain names and redirect foreign domain names to our English
domain name (something Firefox and Opera have been doing for long time) and
this ability will increase our visitors/customers from other countries as
many of them prefer to use their own languages.

Thanks and I'll keep looking!

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hi,

Thanks

So far, our sites do look and work well in IE 7 RC1 (knock 3 times).

It might be too early to think about it because it may take some time
for the majority users to use IE. I am just preparing it so we know
how to change it in case more and more users ask for it.

<snipped>

As IE7 will be a high priority Automatic Update it may take over from IE6
very quickly.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/automaticupdates/default.mspx

 

[xfile]

Ok, in any case, still looking for the answers one way or the other.

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Whether you new page opens in a window or a tab depends on to users
settings, don 't try to charge it. As for sessions, I don't know the exact
answer but l have been using Firefox tabs or years and have no problems
opening more than one tab within sites that require login managed by
session's or adding items to shopping carts

BTW, target is deprecated.

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

For the last 3-4 months several of my sites have had more visitors using IE
7 than Firefox.

IE 7: 17.1%
Firefox: 16.8%

I consider 17% to be a significant number, Also Microsoft has announced that
IE 7 will be released as a high priority update on Windows Update so I
expert it to become the dominant browser quickly. IE6 will still have a
significant share since F will not run on any system older than XP with SP
2,

 

[xfile]

Hello,

Thanks for the info.

I guess target is deprecated and should be using CSS (??), if so I am far
behind the schedule for organizing a list of CSS books for recommendations.

For the session variables thing, just to share what I have learned together
from the test at another newsgroup, tabs within the same page will be
treated with the same session and with different pages will be a new
session. I don't know if there is any impacts to user, but I will think
hard.

Thanks for the kind advice!

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Javascript is the W3C recommendation for opening new windows. Make sure that
if javascript is turned off the link will still function for accessibility
reasons (and for those surfing in a corporate environment where javascript
has been blocked for security reasons.)

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Once again, thanks a lot for the info and yes, many tend to turn off
JavaScript and ActiveX for one reason or the other.

If JavaScript is recommended, I'd rather use depreciated method. After all,
W3C is not my visitor/customer

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

LOL, then make sure you use the transitional doctype because some browsers
will not render a page with a strict doctype and elements that are not in
the doctype.

 

[xfile]

Yes, always use "transitional" for some error rooms

Many thanks.

 

[Windsun]

I would not say "many" - Google Analytics says it is about 2/3 of 1% for our
sites on java.

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[xfile]

Well,

Sometime it's very interesting for discussing statistics and numbers, but
for most of time, I reserved my comments

In general, numbers are meaningful only if "sampling" is done in accordance
to the intended subject. If it's not, numbers have no meaning.

Different people with different characteristics will do or don't do certain
things and to visit or not to visit certain places (or sites). A common
fallacy is to use one sample results as the basis of others.

What matters (at least to me) is if we knew our intended visitors and if we
could do a good job for serving them.

So many or less, fast or slow, and so on and so on, are all based on the
sampling, right? It is the numbers/speed... within one or a few
particular sample groups and do not necessary reflect the truth of others.

It's just a general comment not particularly as the reply to your post

 

[Windsun]

Well, I fudged on that a bit. Our site shows less than 1% have javascript
turned off from Google Analytics, but I think the general overall web stats
are more like 7%

From what I have seen, about 3/4 of the people that I have asked that do
have it turned off, don't know why Usually it is because "someone" told
them that java was not safe. And of course there is the never ending
confusion over Java vs Javascript, two very much different things which
unfortunately share the same name. And, as you noted, different sites
attract widely varying types of users.

Active-X is a different story, I would never use it on a site. I almost
never allow it to run except on totally trusted sites such as MS, Adobe, and
a few others. I always block it on any unknown or even not well known site.

What is kind of surprising is how many have flash installed - over 95%.

But since 99% of our traffic that we care about is on 2 or 3 sites, I give
those stats more weight for our purposes. I try to keep things like JS down
to a minimum, but I will not avoid it altogether if the alternatived suck

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[xfile]

Agree. Taking Dell and Amazon for examples, two are using very different
approach for designing their sites and even for Dell, it has gradually
evolved to its current state (as I have been monitoring it for as long as I
can remember).

For backend operations, we are very aggressive on using as many technologies
for automation as possible, but for front-end user interface, we are
extremely cautious especially when "computers" have already established a
"bad" reputations among regular folks.

 

[Tom Willett]

Java or Javascript?

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Here's my two cents, take it for what it is worth.

General statistics may or may not be accurate for any individual site and at
best reflect trends but what your site statistics say is what is important.
If you go to the W3C Schools stat site
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp you will see one set of
browser statistics that shows

IE 7 2.3%,
IE 6 55.5%
IE 5 4%
FF 27.3%

Safari isn't on their list despite saying 3.8% of their visitors use Macs

my by-expression site I have

IE 7 17.1%
IE 6 43.7%
IE 5 1%
FF 16.8%

Safari is 2.3% All earlier versions of IE don't add up to 1%

OS use
XP 69%
Mac 3.2%
Vista 2.6%
W2K 2.3% (all versions of Windows prior to XP total less than 3.5%)

Interestingly enough my blog on the same site has a higher percentage of
Windows users with wildly different OS statistics

XP 42%
W2K 43%
Vista 3.7%
Mac 1%

There is a much higher incidence of IE 5 use there as well increasing to
3.8% while IE 7 use is down to 12% though IE 6 is the dominant browser with
63% of all visitors using it.

On one of my client sites the stats are totally different

IE 7 less than 1%
IE 6 81%
FF 9%
Safari 4.5%

Other than the 6% of this client's visitors using Macs and a fraction of a
percent using Vista or some version of Linux every other visitor has been
using XP - not a single other version of Windows. I find that curious.

Another client has 7% Safari and 6% FF -Mac users.

As you can see statistics vary greatly and the only ones that really matter
are the ones on your site.

--
Cheryl D Wise
FrontPage MVP
http://by-expression.com
Online Instructor led training at http://starttoweb.com

 

[LKHefferman]

Question regarding using JavaScript for opening new windows instead of target.

In EW Help, the instructions still say to use Target Frame/New Window,
though Cheryl said target is deprecated.

There's the Behavior, Open Browser Window, but this requires modifying the
code for the hyperlink to make it work correctly and puts in this code:
FP_openNewWindow (FP for FrontPage?)

How do you suggest I instruct beginners to create a link that opens a new
browser window? I'm assuming that most beginners/Dummies book readers will
not have the savvy to write a JavaScript code into their pages nor will they
change the DocType from the default. Should I use the behavior option and
have them monkey with the link in code view? Just use the Target Frame
option? Refer them to a JavaScript book?

I guess my question is how deprecated?

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

For beginners in reality if they want to open a new window without sizing as
long as they stick with the transitional doctype using target it fine.

--
Cheryl D Wise
FrontPage MVP
http://by-expression.com
Online Instructor led training at http://starttoweb.com