IE7 RSS Nightmare
3 years, 1 month ago 
I’m not going to lie, I’ve got several reasons to be biased towards Safari over the upcoming IE7. I’ll do this methodically. Firstly, Safari is great at CSS, where IE7 is, well, sketchy at best. Secondly, Safari looks much, much cooler than any version of IE has ever done. Judging by what I’ve seen to provoke me to write this article, that’s going to stay the same way for some time. Finally, Safari is already here! IE7 isn’t going to be arriving any time soon.
I’ve already made my views clear about Longhorn’s user interface. I found a demo screenshot of IE7’s RSS support earlier today and was just as shocked and appalled as I was when I wrote that previous post. Just looking at it - it seems - well, wrong! Colours are nasty, the layout looks like a huge step back from Windows XP - They’ve gone back to 98! Another few aspects caught my eye as well. It looks like something I’ve seen before…
Oh, that’s right - I remember. Safari. I’ve circled everything in green that’s copied directly from Safari (or other browsers - Firefox for instance). To summarise, that’s:
- The right hand sidebar. It’s even practically the same colour for goodness sake.
- “Sort By” on the right. Exactly the same in Safari RSS.
- The search field at the top, on the right. Again, the same in Safari.
- The same grayed out date/time comment under the post title
- Finally - not specifically RSS - but IE7’s got a search field in the top right of the browser. Just like Safari.
I think I’ve made my point. Then, I’ve circled in red something that’s just terrible from a usability point of view. Why, oh why, would you stick a menu bar underneath the address bar in the browser. It intrudes on the webpage itself, it’s impractical. It wasn’t too bad before at the top of the browser window. Sure, it wasn’t as well thought out as putting it across the top of the screen, a la OSX, but it wasn’t bad.
Microsoft keep on saying that they haven’t finalised the user interface for Longhorn (or IE7), and I hope to goodness that they really mean that. If the final version does keep these design traits they will be showing some horrendous flaws. One, will be the inability to come up with anything original. Another will be the fact that any new ideas they have scraped together - they’re just awful!
Please Microsoft. Prove me wrong.
Ie7, Rss, Safari, Browser
June 26th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Just another reason to switch to Apple. Bill is running scared. He doesnt know what to do with himself. Apples market share jumped from.. something like 2% to 16%!
Unless Microsoft pulls something out of their Hat and makes their OS totally stable and usable and patches all the holes.. then they are dead in the water. Apple is approaching fast behind them and as far as I am concerned I am an apple man (well until I get a mac, can’t afford one right now).
I was just as shocked and displeased with IE7.. its a safari and firefox hybrid.. ok mostly safari.
June 26th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
I’ve seen the video you took the screenshot from, and oh my. The team seemed so utterly excited that they’d come up with some revolutionary stuff.
I am seriously considering abandoning windows for good, and also linux (of which i’m not entirely fond of anyway)
June 27th, 2005 at 7:59 am
lol, same here. I WILL abandon Windows as soon as I can get a mac.
I don’t think David wants me posting my free mac mini links here though.
June 27th, 2005 at 8:12 am
I was just watching the video here:
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about58286.html
and the guy was talking about how a simple program can tap into the RSS side of the system and do stuff..
Can I say MAJOR SECURITY HOLE. I am just waiting for like ASP enabled RSS Feeds (that only work in IE) where some hacker can tap into a feed remotely and insert a malicious piece of code that when executed on a windows system in IE can like format their hard drive.
This RSS thing from MSFT really scares me.
June 27th, 2005 at 8:16 am
I feel like im posting tons of comments on this, but as I watch the video more I heard the guy repeatidly say:
“IE Chrome”.
Isnt chrome the backend for Firefox, or the interface at least? Is MSFT stealing code?
June 27th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
‘‚ÄúIE Chrome‚Äù.
Isnt chrome the backend for Firefox, or the interface at least? Is MSFT stealing code?’
The term ‘chrome’ is a fairly industry-wide (or rather, client application building industry wide) term for UI within applications. Mozilla just calls it’s interface resources ‘chrome’ - these resources are then rendered using XUL bindings.
‘I‚Äôve circled everything in green that‚Äôs copied directly from Safari (or other browsers - Firefox for instance).
[…]
* The right hand sidebar. It‚Äôs even practically the same colour for goodness sake.’
Did it occur to you that a right-hand sidebar in a pale shade of grey would be the most logical choice for filtering controls for this sort of RSS display? There are only so many ways one can provide a very simplistic view on RSS data, and if the formula works… What’s more, to say that this was copied from Safari is as silly as people saying ‘Microsoft copied the idea of the GUI from Apple’ - it’s a 2 column layout, with the content on the left, where westerners expect to start reading, so it’s the logical layout.
‘*‚ÄúSort By‚Äù on the right. Exactly the same in Safari RSS.’
So you’re saying that, because this is IE and not Safari, users shouldn’t be allowed to sort the content of the RSS? If they are allowed, where else would you propose that the controls are placed? In the window’s title bar, perhaps? I’d say this is the most logical location, personally.
‘*The search field at the top, on the right. Again, the same in Safari.’
What’s the most likely operation a user is going to want to carry out on a mass of data in a feed? Search. Therefore where’s the most usable place for search to be? At the top of the feed viewing controls.
‘*The same grayed out date/time comment under the post title’
You mean to say Safari was the first ever application to use the format:
[Title in striking format]
[Metadata in muted format]
I think not. Another fairly standard design choice.
‘* Finally - not specifically RSS - but IE7‚Äôs got a search field in the top right of the browser. Just like Safari.’
By the same token, why does Safari have it’s address field in the same place as IE’s or Netscape’s? Because it’s the commonly recognised place for the control. If people can’t find a control where they expect it to be, they give up.
I’m sorry David, but most of this post just seems like you’re saying that Microsoft aren’t allowed to use common-sense UI design principles because they’re Microsoft.
Also, with regards IE7 not being here ‘any time soon’, it’s due to enter beta 1 in the next few months, as I understand it… I wouldn’t be surprised if they launch it at PDC05.
Oh, and before anyone starts calling me an MS fanboy, the only time I use Windows is at work, and even then, I use Firefox for all my web development (until I have to validate on IE).
P.S.: Patrick, what you’re suggesting won’t be possible - the ‘RSS side of the system’ has to be monitored by the individual application (or the user has to be running a plugin or the like), and, the last I checked, the enhanced content that was being supported within the RSS feeds were things like iCal appointments, mp3s, vCards, and the like. And again, the user would have to explicitly choose to subscribe to said feed, and allow their applications to read the feeds. Where’s the hole?
June 27th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
Well maybe it was the way the guy described it, but the way I see it, is when some service that involves the internet is so tightly integrated into the OS, there is going to be a hacker that exploits it.
Some average joe is going to see an RSS feed on a site, click it, and be hijacked. I have seen ads in RSS feeds (I could have sworn that /. was doing it for a little bit, but they have appeared to stop), and where theres ads, there are spyware and security holes (in IE at least), and some site is going to be running ads or something in their feed and a user is going to be hit.
June 28th, 2005 at 3:11 am
Patrick:
Well maybe it was the way the guy described it, but the way I see it, is when some service that involves the internet is so tightly integrated into the OS, there is going to be a hacker that exploits it.
Does Tiger not have RSS built into the OS?
June 28th, 2005 at 5:40 am
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June 29th, 2005 at 6:55 am
“Does Tiger not have RSS built into the OS?”
I don’t believe RSS is built into the OS. The only thing that has RSS is safari, and really, its not RSS. Just a stylesheet that is applied when Safari detects an RSS feed.
Read more here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/
Also, it’s very similar to what firefox does.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
I totally agree with Steven Marshall, and personally, I don’t see the point in a Mac…
Sure they look better than PCs… and there OS looks good.
But the amount of software and user surrport out there for windows…
And I don’t know why you lot say Apple is more secure… I known people that have set up there little mac, and then hacked it, Its only becuase major buisinesses use Windows that people target them for information.
… No point in macs. Other than for people to know your rich, and for it to look good.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
Have a used a Mac? - It’s like the difference between mouldy cheese and a diamond.
Apple is rock solid, shiny and timeless. Windows looks nasty, smells suspicious and is full of holes.
June 29th, 2005 at 8:28 pm
“And I don‚Äôt know why you lot say Apple is more secure‚Ķ I known people that have set up there little mac, and then hacked it, Its only becuase major buisinesses use Windows that people target them for information.”
Well, yeah, if you set up your own mac, and you want to hack it. You already know the root password.. I could hack my windows box.. oh dear.. let me format my hard drive.. jeeze.
And i absolutley agree with David.
I think truly deep down in CS’s little heart he is begging for a mac..
June 30th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Having said everything I have, I still wouldn’t ever actively choose Windows over my PowerMac - it’s just so much nicer for day to day use.
That said, Windows isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be, most of the time, and if you know what you doing. That, though, is the difference - you have to know what you’re doing with Windows to keep it clean and secure, whereas Mac OS X is (more) secure by default.
Oh, and if anyone’s interested, I use OmniWeb when I’m on my Mac… Now that’s a browser!
July 14th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
I really don’t understand how MS’s designers work. They just suck.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:28 pm
This article is pathetic.
“The search field at the top, on the right. Again, the same in Safari.”
Ummm… yeah… and just like a dozen Microsoft apps. Microsoft wrote the book(s), literally!, on good UI design. You think Apple didn’t read it?
There’s only so much UI that needs to be wrapped around reading freakin’ RSS. I’ve seen IE7 and Safari and guess what? They have similar basic elements and only some of them are in the same place. Hell, there’s a 50/50 chance that MS would put the search on the left or right, but since so many other MS products have it on the right, now they’re copying crApple?
LOL
Gimme a break.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:44 am
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