Microsoft Team RSS Blog

That's very cool, anything that can be done to make the UI and contextual pieces of RSS easier for everyone to understand is a great thing.

Very good to see!

Another question, one i haven't seen posted anywhere.

Will you be supporting different versions of javascript (1.2+ - 1.5) in IE 7? Or even bring support for these languages to IE5.5+?

Now that AJAX applications are becoming more and more important it forces us programmers to use ugly solutions for problems ( http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Articles/38/fixing-the-back-button-and-enabling-bookmarking-for-ajax-apps/ )that wouldn't be there if there were support for things like .watch(), .unwatch(), getters and setters, etc.

For example: It's quite simple to hook .watch to document.location.href, and monitor if a new anchor is being called.

For IE, there is no support to track different propertychanges, and we need to create ugly iframe-based solutions to get pages in the history.
For as far as i've seen, it's not even possible to fix this using .htc files, so this is like IE4/NS4 all over again.

As MicroSoft has been developing AJAX based applications too, you guys must have had to work around this too.

It'd be nice to see MicroSoft's opinion on the whole AJAX and usabily issues, and other untouched but really important things for the web 2.0 (or even 3.0) like the Canvas element (currently supported by Firefox, and the guys at Opera are working on it too)

In the end, you could say that MicroSoft, as the largest player in the market could make or break these standards, so please give us webdevelopers some clarification on that :)

I think that this kind of collaboration is what RSS need to get more "mainstream". Hopefully with IE7, people will start to understand what RSS is all about.

Respect! (To Mozilla, for leading the way, and to IE/RSS team for doing the good thing.)

Who would have thought we would see the day?

Oh my god, Microsoft you copying a-holes. You guys can't make ANYTHING for yourselves! When you do, you take for freaking ever--Take that new UI font for Vista. IT TOOK THREE FRICKIN' YEARS!

GO LINUX!

Normally I would criticize anything good Microsoft does as an underhanded, backstabbing PR move, but even I can tell this is an honest attempt to create a standard Web interface for everyone, no matter what browser they want to use. Good work!

That's great! But how are you going to fit in the windows logo? ;)

Yup. We support all feed formats: Atom, RSS (2.0, 1.0 and the 0.9x formats). In most cases, when we use "RSS" in this general way, we're talking about syndication technologies in general.

I'm glad you guys are cooperating with Mozilla, Opera, etc on certain issues like this and security.

This icon, though - I never liked it in Mozilla. Every time I see it, I think "wireless". I _know_ what it's supposed to mean, but by now it's practically ingrained in my head that little waves means "wireless."

Plus, feeds aren't "broadcasted" anyway; as you know, they're client-pull.

Pretty please reconsider this decision...

Hang on!
"Amar and I took a visit down to Silicon Valley to meet with John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla to get their thoughts on it."

Wasn't this how the Apple Mac GUI interface got ripped off? I hope the Mozilla guys kept a good eye on you!

It's funny how IE development slowed to a grinding halt once the competitor became irrelevant. I suppose there was no need to "innovate" anymore. Now that FireFox makes even a slight threat of becoming popular off you go again. I love MS stuff, I use Windows everyday and I couldn't ever use Linux or the Mac cause the apps I use - and live-by everyday - just aren't there but for the sake of innovation I hope you guys fail to crush the competition this time.

This time though, the whole MS backwards compatability mentality that used to exist up to a few years ago is now out the window and I hope this only comes back to bite you in the bum!

I'm extremely impressed by this. Interoperability of this level (i.e. petty enough that cooperation could easily be sidestepped were that desired) is very much appreciated by all camps. Cheers guys.

- Chris

Great move, and a welcome change of pace from the browser wars. Of course, I have to ask: are aggregator developers free to use this same icon in their products?

Good to see, although it shouldn't have to take something as big as Firefox's popularity to impliment RSS support in IE.

I personally like your RSS icon better than the one in Firefox's default theme. Is the icon you have in this post free for anyone to use, or owned by MS and licensed under the EULA?

"I personally like your RSS icon better than the one in Firefox's default theme."

Er, it is the same icon used in Firefox 1.5 (go to a page with an RSS feed and you should see the icon appear in the address bar as the button to create a "Live Bookmark"). The one above is a higher resolution though.

In any event, definitely glad Microsoft is going for consistancy between browsers! =)

It was the right thing to do, Well done!

It's too bad that from a User's point of view the icon is devoid of meaning. I'm glad that MS decided to work with Mozilla on this one, however the icon is absolutely meanless.

It's another hieroglyphic for the user to decode. Shame on both camps for employing terrible user interface designers.

The only icon that has it right is safari's its' a beautiful tiny button (nearly the same size as that one) but says "RSS" and is easily understandable by everyone.

I'm so glad to see that Microsoft is finally getting smarter. See, all you have to do now is copy the rest of Firefox.

Geez, can't come up with anything yourselves anymore, can you? Apparently, MS hasn't got the memo that Google + Firefox is the way of the future.

Nice!

This is all fine and good.... but will IE7 Support PNG's properly? Will it render CSS better?

That is what is important for semless browsing experience.... not some silly rss buttion.

That is great! Nice one.

Yay for consistency!

>The only icon that has it right is safari's its' a
>beautiful tiny button (nearly the same size as that
>one) but says "RSS" and is easily understandable by
>everyone.

You don't suppose that your average user knows or cares about what "RSS" means? And what about Atom? Acronyms suck. A good symbol (one can argue if the current icon is a good one though) is better than any acronym. Considering that there are windows users in other countries who are not that familiar with latin characters abbreviating english-named formats. Additionally, nobody really knows what RSS means. (rich site summary? really simple syndication? ...)
If you want to educate the non-geeks about RSS, you need more understandable symbols and metaphors.

Awsome! :)

I hope you allow Mozilla to use your icons and other resources if they so wish in the future.

I think it is a great idea to have this shared recognizable icon.

And to be honest: Who really cares what format it is as long as it is readable by my reader and does the things I want?

Maybe some geeks, but to every one else this is just "little orange thing = feed for me".

OMG! Microsoft is stealing the ideas of the open source company. And I swear you that they will give Mozilla an a**-kick after they stole the idea. SHAME ON YOU M$! Create you own ideas.

cute

LoL

This is very good news. It's nice to see that competitors _can_ work together for the common good.

let this be one of the steps to create a standardisation of the web browsing experience. My proposal for the next step: SVG (with all the experience of the SVGextension XAML - I know it's a bit more than SVG - this one should be easy for you guys ;-) ). Ups, i started dreaming... guess eaven the "new MS" would not go that far ... or..?!?

Hi people of Microsoft!

I am glad to read that you at microsoft change your minds a little bit in that direction to work together with people from the OSS department.
:)

My name is Heiko and i am a Linux user.I think it is time to stop the "war" between Microsoft and Linux.
Microsoft should accept that Linux is there and won't disappear anymore.There could be some peaceful teamwork in the interest of users from both sides ...

Life got harder for Microsoft (since Linux came up), but I think Microsoft won't ever loose it's domination
in most IT business fields.For most people Windows will be a good choice as an easy to use operating system.

The competition between Linux and Windows was a benefit for both OS:
If the Desktop of Windows wouldn't be the standard to measure with, then Linux or other OSS OS would still have it's inconsistent icons, Windowmanagers and so on.

Windows improved a lot in terms of stability and shows
that there is a rethinking that being secure is more import as being comfortable ...

To Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the leaders of MS:
We (Linux, *BSD, Unix people) don't wan't world domination or the fall of MS !

We want fair standards for interoperable documents or protocols, because we (Linux etc. people) want to share documents, with our friends, co-workers that use
MS Windows :)

If people at MS open their minds and show that MS can be fair, stand other OS beside Windows and care about their customers wishes and problems, MS customers won't run over to Linux - believe it !

In using that icon of firefox for your browser you gave a sign that there can be hope.
Hope that MS and OSS can live happily together in peace.

Best regards,
Heiko

Hi Jane,

Is this icon available for others to use? Are there licensing terms that go along with it? It would be great to see everyone allowed to standardize on this icon.

Thanks!

Good first step, Now, go integrate Gecko as your layout engine, and my life will be much easier!

If microsoft would have made IE7 years ago, with the features people NEEDED, Firefox wouldnt have been that successful now.

Instead, we have a bunch of fanboys running around yelling Firefox RULEZ. Firefox isnt all that great of a browser. Its not a fast as people proclaim it to be. Ive been running IE7 b1 forever and its a great thing. I cant wait for the new build. IE7 is good stuff. Deploying right away on my network when the final is released.

Good work. Do not care about politics. Just find the best solution for the users.

Excellent! great choice, and it's good to see some collaboration here ;)

Why do we need IE7 anyway? Unless, you make it open source, uninstallable and bug-free, I don't see a need for this browser.

As much as I like the icon, I'm more impressed with the colaboration. I'd written MS off a while ago and have switched to mostly non-MS products. I can't believe it, but I'm actually going to check out IE 7 and maybe hold off on my desktop OS switch.

Kudos to the MS and Mozilla teams for collaborating on this.

Is this icon free for anyone to use?

That's great... I'm still not using IE though...

Very nice! I'm glade to see this kind of collaboration, at the end of day it will be win-win situation for both vendor and end users!

Awesome! Now all we have to do is agree to NOT use ActiveX to keep our webpages crossbrowser and crossplatform compatible.

No comment about the rss icon...just the lame nerds who think posting "FF RuLeZ!" and other retarded jargon are really sorta pathetic and certainly not going to positively urge anyone at MS to move toward your frame of mind.

In fact, it just reveals how utterly pathetic a loud (but small minority) the Firefox crowd has.

Party on Wayne.

Party on Garth.

Excellent

I'm glad (elated, actually) to see that you are attempting to collaborate with the developers of other web browsers.

It seems to me that Microsoft actually trying to take IE7 in the direction of a really decent web browser rather than just another tool to monopolize the desktop. If the result of this cooperation is that IE7 becomes a halfway decent browser, I might not be quite so adamant that all my friends and family use Firefox exclusively in the future.

The one thing I'm still waiting to hear on is real web standards compliance. That would be a deal-maker for myself and a lot of my fellow developers.

Nice one! I wish microsoft stopped developing it's own standards of everything.

--linux abuser-- ;)

What is with everyone lambasting this?

Hell, I'll admit, i use ArchLinux 95% of my time on my machine. I do not use many Microsoft products, but you people are claiming microsoft stole yet another firefox idea -- come on. Can you not comprehend why this was done?

Standards.

At least we can hopfully have SOME standards developing.

Grow up, kudos to Mozilla and IE for their collaboration.

This cooperation should be a general model for the Future.

I sure hope that the visit MS made to Mozilla was not just about using some stupid icon.

How about work together so the damn browser renders look the same and the developers of web sites don't have to program in broswer checkers so their code works properly.

This collab with the firefox team is one of the most competent things I've heard of microsoft doing. You know what would really pull me back into the market for at least some microsoft software? Linux Compatibility. I know, I know. Free analogs, and all that. I'm jsut saying, I'd buy a heck of a lot more microsoft software if I could use it on all of my boxes, and interoperability were less of an issue. Just my two cents.

I liked the IE7 icon better :<

I mean, the RSS written one

I love how these egomaniacs posting comments (especially the ones who dont run windows) think that anyone cares that they will continue to not use Windows or IE.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Are you guys this insufferable in person too?

-Vince p

OK, a graphic standard is good.

However, what about the (alternative) text that describes the icon? Shouldn't that be standardized as well, so that folks using assistive technology like screen readers can easily locate RSS feeds on a web page?

If a true standard is your goal, don't forget about users with disabilities, and how they will use this information!

I hate Microsoft but this is by far, one of the best things i've read about IE7... keep making everything user-friendly and the world will be happy.

Good ! Next step : porting of IE7 on *nix platform !
;-)

Dance with the devil ... Microsoft are masters at making friends when it suits them. Just like banks ...

In the future, RSS will become more bi-directional, hence this icon will be visually wrong.

just nice - keep on!

Wonderful! Really!

Now, please, will you copy CSS and XHTML parsing too from Gecko? And PNG correct support, please...
Maybe junking MSHTML and integrating Gecko once and for all, just to show that you RESPECT deveopers as you say in all Dev Meetings...

Please, focus on making Exploder something a litle more in standard... For the sake of a nicer web.
For us all...

Thanx.

只要是符合用户要求的，我们就支持！

how about standardizing all the other icons:
Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop, Home, Find, Bookmarks.

and call them Bookmarks instead of Favorites for christ sake! not all web pages in my bookmarks are my favorites. the proper term is Bookmark! or 'Webmark' :)

Now you just have to stop using ActiveX. :)

OMFG!!!
IT'S AN ICON!!!
I'VE GOT A HUGE FVCKING CHUB!!!

I'M GOING TO CREAM ALL OVER THE KEYBOAAASDLKFJ

OOPS, TOO LATE!!!

THIS IS THE BEST EVAR

Way to go! It simply was the only choice! Give us even more compatibily please. Presently. To often I have to switch from one browser to the other depending on which pages I am visiting. Yes. Ultimately. It is up to the designers of these sites to get it staight. Ultimately, standards are the only way to make a developers life simpler, not to mention lowering the costs and frustration of any company wanting to make teir presence known on the world wide web and beyound!

Thanks for a small, but great decision.

Keep up the good work.