IE8 New Features Shown At MIX08

I'm sure there are more features to be discovered, but the ones that were highlighted just now in the demo at MIX08 included the following:

Standards Compliance: There were hints that IE8 would be a remarkable offering on the IE Blog as they released tidbits about the browser's capabilities. For example, the announcement of IE8's passing of the Acid2 test (a test for standards compliance) marked a milestone in IE8's development. The standards mode was originally going to be turned off by default letting web developers code for it by including a "meta" tag to make use of IE8's new standards compliant mode. Later, Microsoft came to their senses and made the default the standards-compliant mode. Meanwhile, Firefox also claims to have passed the Acid 2 test, but an open bug on bugzilla.mozilla.org seems to say otherwise. (our coverage). One commenter on the thread notes, "So, we essentially do pass the test. However, in some situations, it might still fail, that's why this bug is open."

Facebook Integration: Yes, seriously! With a Flock-like feature as an unexpected surprise, Microsoft capitalized on their partnership with the popular social networking site, Facebook, to allow IE8 users the ability to get status updates from Facebook right from their browser toolbar.

eBay Integration: Like Facebook, this feature also uses IE8's new technology, called "WebSlices", which introduces a new way to get updates from other sites via the browser itself, without having to visit the web site. With WebSlices, IE8 beta users can subscribe to portions of a page that
update dynamically, in order to receive updates from that page as content
changes. EBay will offer webslices, too, letting you track your auctions from the browser toolbar. Basically, WebSlices look like Favorites on your Links toolbar but they have a little arrow next to them - clicking on this arrow will show you a small window of live web content.

Live Maps Integration: Another WebSlice was integration with Live Maps. It appeared that you could even highlight text on a page, like an address, and then right-click and choose Live Maps from the context menu to get a WebSlice preview of that location on a map in a small pop-up window. How convenient!

Integration with Me.dium: Me.dium integration will be supported in IE8 via WebSlices. Me.dium will now help web surfers discover and view WebSlices directly from the sidebar. The Me.dium sidebar will alert users to the presence of WebSlices on any page – and even allows users to read each WebSlice, without leaving the Sidebar. In addition, Me.dium will make real-time recommendations for other WebSlices on other relevant web pages and provides direct links to them based on the real time activity of other Me.dium users.

Me.dium Activities in Action

Working with AJAX Pages: IE8 will offer better functionality when it comes to AJAX web pages. The example showed a page where you could zoom in using AJAX technology. Previously, hit the IE "Back" button would take you back to the last page you were on. Now, "Back" will zoom you out.

We can now find out what other features IE8 has to offer, since the beta is now publicly available for download. To get IE8, you can download it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm.

MIX has started, and we have the news we have been waiting for, for some time. What is IE 8 going to do?

Microsoft has put out an IE 8 Readiness Report that discusses everything.

There is a TON of amazing stuff here. It also looks like they will be using the standards for most of this stuff, but we need to see more. E.g. is cross domain messaging using postMessage?

But, having 6 connections per host and the like is huge:

Ajax Improvements

A white paper is here:

1. AJAX Navigation enables users to navigate back
   and forth without leaving the AJAX application and could be used
   navigating a page without performing a traditional full navigation.
   This allows websites to trigger an update to browser components like
   the address bar by setting the window.location.hash value, firing an
   event to alert components in the page and even creating an entry in
   the travel log.
2. DOM Storage is a simple-to-use method for
   storing and retrieving strings of key/value pair data. Data can be
   stored per tab instance for a session or persisted to the local
   machine. This allows pages to cache text on the machine which
   reduces the effect of network latencies by providing faster access
   to pre-cached data. Several innovative uses are possible. For
   example, use this in combination with the new network connectivity
   event to allow a page to cache data if it detects that the computer
   is offline.
3. Connectivity events allow websites to check
   when the user is connected to the network and receive notification
   of connectivity changes.
4. Six connections per host instead of two for
   broadband scenarios and a scriptable property allow for more
   improved performance by allowing parallelization of downloads in
   Internet Explorer 8. In addition, this increases functionality by
   ensuring a request is not blocked to a host if two connections
   already exist. Websites can optimize their downloads based on a
   scriptable property.
5. XMLHTTPRequest Enhancements include a timeout
   property that can be set to cancel the request if necessary,
   allowing developers to manage the request better.

Cross domain is here:

• With Cross-domain Request (XDR), developers can
  create cross-site data aggregation scenarios. Similar to the
  XMLHttpRequest object but with a simpler programming model, this
  request, called XDomainRequest, is the easiest way to make anonymous
  requests to third-party sites that support XDR and opt in to making
  their data available across domains. Three lines of code will have
  you making basic cross-site requests. This will ensure data
  aggregation for public sites (such as blogs) will be simple, secure
  and fast.
• Cross-document Messaging (XDM) APIs allow
  communication between documents from different domains through
  IFrames in a way that is easy, secure and standardized.

HTML and CSS

• CSS 2.1 Compliance
• Data URI Support
• Better CSS printing
• CSS Selector API support
• Acid2 support
• Better DOM Core support

New Features

• Activities are contextual menu options which quickly access a service from any Web page. Users typically copy and paste from one Web page to another. Internet Explorer 8 Activities make this common pattern easier to do.
• WebSlices is a new feature for websites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a webpage. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

And we also have other features such as less memory leaks!

What do you think?

Me.dium, the social browsing folks, have put together some examples using the new Activities and Web Slices features.

You can install their Activity if you have IE 8, or you can take a look below:

As part of Activities,
Me.dium now offers a powerful “Social Discovery” Activity from any page. Me.dium’s “Discover” Activity gives you recommendations, related to a page or selected key words, which are influenced by the real time surfing activity of all Me.dium users. Me.dium also displays a “real-time map” of user activity on the pages related to the selected text, page, or link so users can see how popular those pages are with Me.dium users in real time.

This is their XML file.

Are you excited about activities or any other IE 8 new features? Or are you the kind of guy that is just happen that the darn 2 connection limit is 6?

출처 : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/internet_explorer_8_has_arrived.php

http://ajaxian.com/archives/medium-shows-off-new-ie-8-features

http://ajaxian.com/archives/ie-8-better-ajax-css-dom-and-new-features