A similar discussion is taking place in the MSN forum, but I wanted to open up the discussion here, because the end-user discussions and the developer discussions are two completely different things, and it seems the other discussion is happening purely from the end user perspective. Here's a link to the download: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx Be careful! The beta will overwrite your existing IE6 installation. So, unless you have no more use for IE6, you must install this in a separate OS boot, or a machine other than your primary PC. IE is being very selective about what it fixes and what it doesn't fix, and this is a problem. Is anyone here using any iteration of a "* html" hack? Well, this method for targeting IE no longer functions, but the reasons for hacking in the first place still do Thus far, I've heard three suggestions for replacing * html. The first involves using the lang attribute for <body>, which is compliant in XHTML Strict 1.0 but not 1.1. The second involves using @import all. Apparently, neither IE6 nor IE7 recognizes the @import command when all is one of its attributes, though it's as likely as anything that they will fix this as well before the final release. The third is to use IE conditional statements, which is about the most asinine construct I've ever seen. You NEVER use a commenting mechanism to execute commands. That's insanity! Anywho, that should be enough to get the ball rolling. What are your thoughts?
It does seem illogical to execute comments. Much of MS's creations seem to be improvised rather than well planned. However, it is still more useful than any hack. Every hack comes with the possibly of failing at any time due to an update. Conditional comments do not have this problem. Further, an update may fix the rendering problem, but not the hack. Conditional comments allows you to explicitly state what versions of IE should read inside the comment.
This is the one thing that MS did within the creation of its constructs that it got right - the ability to specify which hunk of crap version you're attempting to work around. <soapbox>I'm not an MS hater by any means, but when a company releases a heinously shoddy product and refuses all but critical security support for five years, presumably because its market saturation has made support an unnecessary expense, it's justified to call the product itself precisely what it is, a fly-infested pile of horse dung. What I'm afraid of is that future versions aren't going to be much better. Maybe the GUI will be better to use, but other browsers will surpass it quickly enough, and MS will not make improvements for another five years. (Besides, it still doesn't come close to touching Opera).</soapbox> Tests on the first beta reveal very few fixes took place on the Web rendering side of things. I have a laptop with SP2 on it hiding in my closet. I'll dust it off and get IE7 on there for some serious testing soon enough...