Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 logoI’ve had a little bit of an opportunity to play around with Internet Explorer 9, and I’m still not sure if I like it or hate it. I am excited about the possibility of natively using some CSS3 and HTML5 in Internet Explorer, but I’m also disappointed by the lack of specific CSS3 elements.

On the plus side, IE9 does support almost all of the new CSS3 pseudo-classes (nth-child(), nth-of-type(), etc.), 2D transforms, almost the entire background module (multiple background images, background-clip, background-size, etc.), border-radius (rounded corners), box-shadow and RGBA colors.

Two CSS3 properties I’ve started using fairly regularly are generated gradients and border images. Unfortunately, IE9 doesn’t support either of those. Therefore, in order to produce the same effect, I still have to use a conditional stylesheet.

However, since IE9 does support so many other elements I regularly use, I can’t really just carry over my IE7 or IE8 stylesheet(s). I need to create an entirely new stylesheet just for IE9.

From a user-interface standpoint, I like the new look and functionality of IE9 much better than previous versions, and better than current versions of Firefox, Opera and Safari. However, I still don’t like it quite as much as Chrome’s interface.

Have you tried IE9, yet? If so, what do you think of it? You can read a comprehensive list of Internet Explorer’s CSS compatibility on Microsoft’s website.

One Response

  • Thanks for the information. I have not used ie9 yet as I find that it is better that you wait when it comes to microsoft. I did not know that it had started to support html5. The more microsoft is making the move toward web standards is a good thing.