Microsoft Task Force
The WaSP / Microsoft Task Force was formed in July of 2005 to support Microsoft as the company begins increasing Web standards support in its products including the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser, developer tools including Visual Studio and ASP.NET, and designer tools such as Microsoft Expression Web Designer.
The Task Force is a highly cooperative collaboration between seemingly disparate ideologies. However, this unusual and sometimes controversial relationship has already born fruit as is evidenced by improvements to and advancement of Microsoft software as well as outreach and diplomacy initiatives between Microsoft and the Web standards community at large.
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Task Force Buzz
IE8 Has Arrived
By Aaron Gustafson | March 20th, 2009
With a greater focus on standards-compliance, it seems possible that Microsoft’s latest browser may redeem itself in the eyes of standards-savvy designers and developers.
As you may have heard, yesterday marked the official release of Internet Explorer 8. This new version of the oft-reviled browser has a completely rewritten rendering engine that was built, from the ground up, with the CSS 2.1 spec in hand. Improvements in this version include
- the death of
hasLayout objectfallbacks- stylable
legendelements - generated content (including support for dynamic attribute insertion via
attr()) - CSS counters
- support for the
quotesproperty - outline control
- data URIs
- full access to the
styleattribute via the DOM - mutable DOM prototypes
- and much more
This browser is a giant leap forward for standards support at Microsoft, but reviews so far seem mixed. What do you think?
More Buzz articles
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| Microsoft rethinks IE8′s default behavior | March 3rd, 2008 |
| WaSP Round Table: IE8′s Default Version Targeting Behavior | February 24th, 2008 |
| Opting-in to standards support | January 22nd, 2008 |
| IE8 passes Acid2 test | December 19th, 2007 |