Get Ready for IE Changes

Macromedia have reacted quickly and positively and set up an active content developer center here.

But let's be honest, we're looking at a future where none of these workarounds have been implemented, the interrupt alert becomes the new "skip intro" button and Flash once again becomes reviled the world over.

Bang goes a career in Flash development.

But one guy got rich off this. That's the American Way, ain't it?

What can we charge clients to update pages? Plenty I bet. Your carreer as a Flash developer isn't over, this stuff is just one more step we have to do in building pages. It sucks on a lot of levels, and unfortunately none of them are ones that clients will really understand..

a, you are one of the most cynical yet manipulative human beings I have ever met. You're my hero!

My biggest concern over this is not updating current pages, but archives of embedded content being damaged. We all know homestarrunner.com will be updated, but what about my all-time-favorite "all your base"?!? That's a classic lost!

</sarcasm>

It shouldn't actually lead to "page bloat" since external JavaScript files can be cached.

Anyway, I know this sounds like a significant issue right now, but at the end of the day, it's really nothing more than using a different set of tags to load Flash and other "active content". It will take some getting used to, but so did OBJECT and EMBED tags. And in fact, there are already a lot people who use this technique because they see advantage in having that extra hook that JavaScript gives them.

Christian

It has been a while since I have seen such an asinine solution. Go ahead and slap some JavaScript around your object and embed tags. They should hold like bandaids on a broken water main.

I doubt this will be an end to the EOLAS garbage... Get ready for the great user confusion. What if most people don't adopt the JS BS, and users actually get used to the annoying pop up message? Will they think there is something wrong with your site since it makes no such prompt?

But don't worry folks, as I have found a real solution. In true Johnny Appleseed fashion I will be walking down every road installing Mozilla on every PC in the land. That ought to solve everything (until EOLAS points the lawsuits at everyone in the world...).

Can I suggest that everyone in the world name that external javascript screwyoueolas.js ?

Though, of course, I am going to wait a year or so and then sue the hell out of anyone using my screwyoueolas.js technique.

I was just going to wait until the global frustration level was suitably high and then swoop in to save the day with yet another youngpup js hack.

wooha. thanks eolas.

Although I do understand the concern of having to change a massive amount of pages web wide...let's be honest. The number of users that will actually download this release -- a release that does nothing but 'break' new things as opposed to fix a number of bugs (including but not limited to CSS bugs), is IMO small.

Yes, it will have to be done, but given the fact MS has announced no major browser releases until the next version of windows, this will be a problem for the 'cutting-edge' technologist that just must upgrade their already POS IE.

Okay, so I just read MS's page about distribution...

yeah, this will be insanity.

I for one, am going into denial, until i actually see it happen. Can anyone tell me what the timeline on this thing that really isn't happening might be?

What I know is... I have been running a site for over a year using the javascript include method and have had no problems, at least no has complained otherwise. It's just another way of doing it. However, I vote we start calling it the "Doyle hack" in memory of this.

Has Microsoft officially said that the browser upgrade will only contain this change? I was hoping that even though they promised no more releases to the stand alone version they'd slip some bug fixes in there. Who am I kidding?

"Can anyone tell me what the timeline on this thing that really isn’t happening might be?"

Good point. That's one of the big imponderables right now. How fast will it spread? Will there be reversals before then? Will other browsers be affected? None of us have solid answers to these questions yet, sorry.

So... what we've got is that Microsoft is saying they'll start distribution in spring. There's a legal appeal in process, but these are typically long... it's hard for me to see this occurring before distribution starts. The adoption rate is a key variable, and I can't estimate this myself.

What we *do* have is control over the ways to reduce site accommodation... the Macromedia utilities are due in Novemeber and from what I understand will have source code included to be able to used for other ActiveX Controls and Netscape Plugins. There's work underway to reduce the costs of accommodating this upcoming browser.

I know this isn't a satisfactory answer, but do you see a way to take this discussion further...?

Thanks,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support

ack, sorry, typo... should be "What we *do* have is control over the ways to reduce [the costs of] site accommodation."

jd/mm

Of course, none of this affects those of us who only develop using standards-based technologies which don't revolve around some sort of proprietary plugin, right?

http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/09/12/savingTheBrowser.html

Interesting reading. I wonder if someone over at the obviously large legal department at MS will notice and use this as a prior art example in the appeal?

Tom T, I wonder if MS can introduce new evidence (such as explained by Ozzie) at the appelate level. Though IANAL., my understanding is that appeals are generally limited to correcting errors (made by the judge?) at trial. If so, one wonders how the surely top-notch, extremely expensive MS lawyers could have missed such a crucial piece of evidence unless, of course, certain TFH theorists are correct in asserting that MS wanted to lose this one in order to completely change the way the web works. MS, after all, can easily afford to pay this judgement and the development costs.

Tom T, I wonder if MS can introduce new evidence (such as explained by Ozzie) at the appelate level. Though IANAL., my understanding is that appeals are generally limited to correcting errors (made by the judge?) at trial. If so, one wonders how the surely top-notch, extremely expensive MS lawyers could have missed such a crucial piece of evidence unless, of course, certain TFH theorists are correct in asserting that MS wanted to lose this one in order to completely change the way the web works. MS, after all, can easily afford to pay this judgement and the development costs.

I'm amazed at how many web developers are blaming Eolas/Mike Doyle for this. He filed the patent in 1994, MS knew about the commercial licensing fees, ignored them, and now that they lost in court, they are making life difficult for web developers by changing IE rather than paying the licensing fees to Eolas. Based on my reading of the documents, Mike Doyle acted in good faith by allowing free use of the technology for non-commercial uses, but charged a licensing fee for commercial uses. Isn't that standard practice?

"Of course, none of this affects those of us who only develop using standards-based technologies which don’t revolve around some sort of proprietary plugin, right?"

Actually, the W3C is currently studying the impact of this patent claim upon its own HTML specifications:
http://www.w3.org/2003/09/w3c-html-pag-charter.html

(CNET has news this afternoon about the next development in the case, btw... fascinating.)

jd/mm

How is the way the OBJECT tag operates any different from the IMG tag? The IMG tag allows seamless loading of media into the page it pretty much the same way. In fact, depending on who you ask and what standard you look at, we should all be using OBJECT for our images, too.

This lawsuit was asinine.

Yeah, standards based pages should be safe, but what happens to xhtml 2? The similarity of images to objects, and the inclusion of both through an object tag is the way xhtml 2 is ment to be working:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-object.html#s_objectmodule

I wonder how Eolas will/can affect that.