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Add-on Management Improvements in Internet Explorer 8

One of our goals with Internet Explorer 8 was to improve the experience of managing add-ons by bringing more types of add-ons into the management experience, and to make that experience more usable. Originally introduced in Windows XP Service Pack 2, we’ve updated the management UI in a big way for IE8.

Here’s a screen shot of the new UI:

IE8 Add-ons User Interface

A familiar interface…

When you look at the Manage Add-ons UI, you’ll probably feel comfortable with it quickly – it looks a lot like a Windows File Explorer window or the Control Panel in Windows Vista. You choose a category of object types from the left to view that list on the right. Select any item in the list and the details pane at the bottom will display information about the selected add-on.

Most changes you make in Manage Add-ons take effect immediately, although some (like disabling a toolbar or explorer bar) might still require you to restart Internet Explorer.

… with lots of improvements over IE7

You can resize the window to fit your screen resolution and personal preference, and can choose custom columns, grouping, and sorting order. These preferences will be remembered the next time you open Manage Add-ons.

Additionally:

  • You can select multiple Add-ons from the list (CTRL+click or drag to multi-select)
  • The list supports right-click context menu actions
  • Details about add-ons can be copied to the Windows clipboard and into email, a document editor, or a spreadsheet so you can share the list with tech support (or friends or family) more easily

No updates are required to existing controls to show up in this list

Developers do not need to make changes to existing controls to continue to be managed in IE8. However, with the richer set of information and controls put in the hands of the user in IE8, control authors might wish to provide more detailed information with their controls. While the same set of information (such as publisher or version) is available in IE8 as was available in IE7, now it’s easier for users to view it. Add-ons without sufficient information (like an empty publisher name or version number) are often removed or disabled by users.

Add-on developers should read this article and this blog post about ActiveX best practices for more information on how to properly develop IE add-ons.

It’s easier to get information about installed add-ons and find new add-ons with IE8

More detailed information about installed add-ons is available at a glance with IE8. We’ve also added links to make it easy to accomplish common tasks:

  • Find more add-ons with a single click. Just click “Find more add-ons…”
  • Don’t know what an add-on does? Click “Search for this add-on via default search provider” and we’ll help you find information about it online via your current default search provider
  • Want to know more about add-ons in general? Click “Learn more about add-ons”
  • Clicking “More information” displays more detailed technical information about installed add-ons, including file names, versions, and other properties. You can even view or clear the list of websites that ActiveX controls are allowed to run on for per-site installed ActiveX controls
  • Right-click any add-on to get easy access to common actions (like enable or disable)

New types to manage

In Internet Explorer 8, the list of add-ons you can manage has been expanded to include Explorer Bars, Search Providers, and Activities.

Explorer Bars

Explorer Bars are an extensibility type like toolbars that are supported by previous versions of Internet Explorer and IE8, but not listed in Manage Add-ons prior to IE8. With IE8 they are available so you have more control over what’s running in your browser.

IE8 Explorer Bar

Search Providers

In IE7 we added support for OpenSearch Search Providers, but they had their own, separate management window. We’ve kept the functionality of the management experience for Search Providers in IE8, but moved it here. IE8 helps you to quickly see what Search Providers are installed, which is your default, and where it is sending information when you submit a search. Additionally, you can change the order that Search Providers are listed (IE7 always sorted them alphabetically).

Search Providers Within Manage Add-ons

Internet Explorer 8 continues to support the OpenSearch standard for Search Providers. You can read more about OpenSearch here.

Activities

Activities, which are new to IE8, are also managed from the Manage Add-ons window. Just like Search Providers, you can view, manage, and remove installed Activities, find new Activities, and learn more about Activities directly from this window.

Managing Add-ons in No Add-ons Mode

IE7 and IE8 support “No Add-ons Mode,” a troubleshooting mode. When you run IE this way, no 3rd party code runs, which allows you to do things like disable troublesome controls or repair Windows via Windows Update (which is why that control is allowed to run in this mode). You can start No Add-ons Mode in a few ways:

  • Type iexplore –extoff in the Run box on the Start menu
  • Click “Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)” under All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools
  • Right-clicking the IE icon on the Start Menu (if IE is your default browser) and selecting “Browse Without Add-Ons”

In IE7 you couldn’t run Manage Add-ons while in No Add-ons Mode, but in IE8, you can. In fact, if you click the information bar that appears when you’re running in No Add-ons Mode, it offers a quick and convenient access point to Manage Add-ons:

Managing Add-ons in No Add-ons Mode

Remember, No Add-ons Mode is designed for troubleshooting IE. It’s probably not the way you want to experience websites all the time, as a lot of important functionality is often provided via add-ons.

To exit No Add-ons Mode, simply close that browser window.

In Summary

We designed the Manage Add-ons interface to be more comprehensive in the types of objects it manages and the types of actions you can take. I’m interested in hearing any questions and feedback about this new management experience. Just leave a comment in the blog and I’ll read it!

Thanks!

Christopher Vaughan
Program Manager

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2008/03/20/add-on-management-improvements-in-internet-explorer-8/

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    So much attention to addons... and no attention to the options dialog, or the prompt/print dialogs. What gives?

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    Ah, so now I have an easier way to turn off BHO's when they infect my computer instead of removing them with adware software.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    These improvements are great! Thank you very much. This is a late request, but it would be cool if you could somehow make profiles of enabled/disabled addons and tie them to certain sites. there are some sites which require addons that do not play nice with other addons. I always have to go in and enable/disable combinations to get these sites to work. Great work so far, IE8 beta is working good for me.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    @ Steve : Thanks for the feedback. Have you tried IE8's per-use ActiveX control feature? You can now allow or disallow ActiveX controls only at certain sites, instead of allowing permissions universally. That way sites that need a given ActiveX control for legitimate reasons can be given permission to run them, but sites that don't can be blocked. The profile idea is interesting, I'll think about it. Thanks, -Christopher

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    This is a vast improvement over the maze of finding things in previous version of IE, congrats again on the great improvements added to IE8 thus far. What would be cool is the ability for the user/admin to make a text-comment about what the addon is. This should be completely restricted for software vendors. So for exmple I can mark something as an antivirus but if malware somehow got on to a client's system it couldn't mark itself as something.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    Good work. Firefox should also do the logical thing and move the search manager to the Addons manager.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The add-ons manager seems to use 16 color icons, is this a know bug?

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    Now all that's needed is for MSIE to lower the bar for add-on development itself; e.g. pure script-based add-ons instead of having to resort to .NET, COM or other sorts of windows-proprietary programming and having to deal with registry-settings and other install-complexities...

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    @Christopher Vaughan [MSFT]: Isn't each icon an array of icon images for each color-size pair?  If the authors are not making them so that the "best" ones are default, can't each image of the icon be queried and checked so the nicest one can display? Windows Explorer has little problem with this, so the IE team should be asking the "WE" team for some advice.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    When you reduce the width of the Add-ons window, the help text at the top gets truncated. The big blue title is redundant as the title of the window is already in the title bar. The 'category' column in the Activities list is redundant as everything is grouped into categories by default. The link to find more add-ons is very obscure and probably shouldn't use an ellipses as it's just a normal link like the one next to it (Learn more about add-ons). The light blue text for headings is very faint and has no contrast (obviously). The listing order column in the search providers list is/should be redundant. When clicking "Find more whatever", a new IE window opens instead of using an existing window. The UI for reordering search providers is unconventional and rudimentary. I mean, it uses plain 'hyperlinks' for 'Move up' and 'Move down'. What about drag and drop? Or at least some up/down arrows. Still in the search providers list, the 'Alphabetic sort' link is a bit confusing, you should just be able to click the 'Name' column to rearrange the providers by name. The usability of the search providers UI gets worse when you order the list by name, because then the 'Move up' and 'Move down' links don't do what they say. I am absolutely flabbergasted with the search providers list right now, I don't know what's happening.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    حسب تجربتي للاصدار الثامن جيد جدآ واكثر من رائع . شكرى لجهودكم .

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    Hi! I second the request for a managed plugin system in IE 8. It would really nice, if the IE 8 team adopted the common Add-In framework already available in the .NET 3.5 libraries. Beat the competition - just do it! go go go! (cue rally ..)

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    انترنت اكسلورر 8 افضل من 7 واتمنا ان الاصدار التجريبي ما يطول

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The filter select field obviously doesn't fit well in that side panel, move it to the top, above the border. The headings appear to be a non-standard (for Vista) colour, other Vista windows have a much darker blue. There are two close buttons, one should be enough. Here's a few of these ideas put into a mock-up: http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/6189/ie8b1addonsoy3.png

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    @ Christopher On IE8 Beta 1 on XP we see an issue with one of our controls (on corporate clients in its millions) and some others such as Shockwave. +++++++++++++++++++++ Can't uninstall from Downloaded Program Files : "MeadCo SCriptX will be permanently uninstalled" : OK "Failed to remove MeadCo ScriptX" +++++++++++++++++++++ We see occasional crashing on occache.dll to accompany this. This also breaks our .msi installation, which looks for and uninstalls any existing.cab-based install before proceeding. More detail is available if required, including other issues with uninstall on IE8 Beta 1 on Windows Vista.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    "Can't uninstall from Downloaded Program Files :" Sorry, I should have said that we already submitted a bug report on connect, so this is for extra visibility.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    Glad to see the updates. I hope we continue to get improved developer add-ons. I choose my primary browser based on the developer add-ons available, and use other browsers for testing.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    I've commented on a couple of other IE blog postings, but this one seems the most promising. I noticed Eric Lawrence's link to http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/dev.asp and his statement that .NET "extensions" have been possible since .NET 1.1/IE6, but only through a six year old bandobject wrapper on codeproject.com. It doesn't do much to hide the the underlying COM plumbing from the .NET developer. Is there a plan for the IE team to create some supported plumbing for managed bandobjects and BHOs? The Office team did something like that (a managed shim project) for Office add-ons before VSTO was available, and it definitely spurred office development. I have some IE addon ideas, and call me lazy, but I'd love to be able to try some things without needing to learn C++ and COM.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    Could we have a download manager please? Even my cell browser supports pausing and resuming of downloads...

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    Gotta love Ben's comments. Please do what he says, it makes sense.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    You might want to look at the choice of colours used in that dialog under XP. If, like me, you have a light highlight colour, the headings become virtually invisible. It really looks a mess under XP as it matches nothing else on IE or the system.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    I love everyone's enthusiasm and passion around this feature. We have some bugs and issues in our B1 UI that we're working on, but what's in B1 is basically our final design- we don't have plans to change our layout to use tabs instead, for instance. In general what I'm hearing is that people like the technical improvements, which is great. -Christopher

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    @Christopher Vaughan[MSFT] Why release a Beta to the public, if you are not open to constructive criticism on design flaws and usability issues? This is almost as bad as the core IE folks that think that since the prompt() dialog kinda works, that it shouldn't be touched, even though it is a usability nightmare! bug 109 & 139 http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/2007/10/bug-109-javascript-prompt-in-ie-how-did.html http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/2008/02/bug-139-javascript-dialogs-dont-center.html I just don't get the feeling of community involvement at all from Microsoft.  The DOM fixes in IE8 Standards mode are about the only good thing in IE8 so far!

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    I like the improvement. But just like other people said, can we have scripting support? It takes too much trouble to make add-on. You guys are not thinging leaving it to Live Tool Bar team to do this? Are you? And I certainly hate COM objects because I don't know where to delete it. If it is just a scripting object, you can simply store the text code file in an easy to find "Add-On Script" folder. If I don't like it, I can delete the code and I am 100% sure that means the program is gone. Rather than deleting a Yahoo tool bar using uninstaller and find out that the tool bar is still there. I would be great to have something like VBA on Excel for IE.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    "We have some bugs and issues in our B1 UI that we're working on, but what's in B1 is basically our final design- we don't have plans to change our layout to use tabs instead, for instance." That's ok, I only focused on how to improve the UI in ways that wouldn't require an overhaul of the design. I haven't touched on the details pane yet because it seems so useless, my only suggestion would be to remove the pane completely and present the details another way. But that would require too much work. "I love everyone's enthusiasm and passion around this feature." Should be: I love everyone's concerns about our UI.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    "We have some bugs and issues in our B1 UI that we're working on, but what's in B1 is basically our final design- we don't have plans to change our layout to use tabs instead, for instance."

  • Wow! way to be a team player! If you have no plans to fix it, then why bother releasing a beta, just go straight to RTM so that we can all suffer with this. 1.) Most users aren't on Vista yet (or avoid it like the plague) thus it isn't familiar at all. 2.) Why show disabled ones first? This typically isn't what I care about, because I disabled them! just show them in context, grayed out. 3.) Could you use more whitespace at the top of this dialog? surely we can reduce the table view of addons to something with only 5 results (/sarcasm) 4.) Disabled/Enabled "fieldset" groupers are un-necs. the column indicates their status. 5.) whitespace at the bottom of the screen is also abundant, at the cost of hiding details with ellipses...
  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    UI dude: multi-row tabs are unwieldy. But that fact, along with the age of tabs, does not mean there's no place for tabs at all. Quite the contrary--tabs in a single row are and remain a far more intuitive control than list selectors. Any good UI textbook will tell you that.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    UI dude: multi-row tabs are unwieldy. But that fact, along with the age of tabs, does not mean there's no place for tabs at all. Quite the contrary--tabs in a single row are and remain a far more intuitive control than list selectors. Any good UI textbook will tell you that.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    So long as we're talking about add-ons, here's something you can pass along to the Windows Live Toolbar engineering team: it causes IE to behave sluggishly. Often, when closing an IE tab or window, there'll be a noticeable delay of several seconds where nothing happens before the browser actually exits; occasionally, there'll be a much longer delay when starting IE before the browser actually loads (I would assume that the Toolbar is attempting to retrieve data from the Internet before it starts; if the Toolbar has trouble communicating with its servers, then the browser simply hangs until the Toolbar is finished loading, then accesses its home page of MSN). Disable the toolbar, and these delays go away. I've noticed this behavior in both IE7 and IE8, and am running Windows XP SP2.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    This looks quite good, except substiting lists for Tabs.  Since the amount of choice in the left list ist clearly limited, it seems to me as well that Tabs would be a better and more intuitive choice. Functionality-wise it looks good. Now to the off-topic parts (only because these topics have never been discussed on this blog so far): Any news though on what IE8 will and will not be able to render:

  • proper support for application/xhtml+xml? (Including the refusal of non-well-formed xhtml)
  • SVG Tiny? Will the following be fixed:
  • proper ARIA support without proprietary twists? Especially concerning accessibility, please be interoperable!
  • proper, syncronous XmlHttpRequest without proprietary twists?
  • also, xhtml-like namespaces should be removed from from html parsing mode or such an extension should be discussed within the HTML5 WG
  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    I would like to be able to maximize the add-on manager window, and also, I don't like the fact that some of the text within the add-on manager just cuts out, rather than wraps. http://fpvnpa.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pI2sODD5_ocb5JQnsqDMfrJ5kxrZdBr6HzPo2mQy7MPKWPbUTUzuyzdTjJSNEiN8WrMreBpVehkWTfL_6AFHKRw/add-on-manager.png

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    Does anyone else find it odd, that in Microsoft's IE Feedback site Connect (the pseudo-public bug tracker), that the Status options are: Bug/Feature Status list: 1 Active 2 Resolved 3 Closed 4 Not Active 5 Not Closed I don't understand 4 and 5, but where is the "Fixed" status? I was hoping to query for which bugs have already been fixed internally, so that I can avoid worrying about making workarounds... but I can't even run such a search! I also thought that maybe the "Resolved" status might be doubled up to indicate "Resolved-not-a-bug", "Resolved-works-as-designed", AND "Resolved-we-fixed-this-internally"... But the number of resolved bugs is Zarro. Just wondering when "Fixed" is going to be "Fixed" in Connect.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    A download manager would be really really nice. Or some simple resume support. And yeah I know that there are programs like IE Pro that support it. But build-in would be much nicer.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    Now that search provider is included in Manage add-ons are you going to remove the search provider option in Internet Options and replace it manage add-ons. A UI update for internet option is always welcome. MIA: DOWNLOAD MANAGER ability two view two tabs in one Internet Explorer Windows

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    Super Drag and Drop? Right click add keyword for search? Shouldn't be extensions but built in the browser.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    Let's see, IE8 still doesn't FULLY support the following web standards that MS should have supported long back:

  • XHTML
  • DOM Level 2 - partial support
  • DOM Level 3
  • Various XML standards (XForms, EXSLT etc)
  • SVG
  • JavaScript 1.8
  • CSS 3
  • APNG - Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 support it
  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    >Now that search provider is included in Manage add-ons are you going to remove the search provider option in Internet Options and replace it manage add-ons. Your question is answered by actually using the IE8 beta rather than just reading blog posts. The answer is "yes".  The Search Defaults Settings button in Internet Options launches this new dialog with the "Search Providers" category selected.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Hey IE team, I understand that the final version of IE8 is not yet determined, but can you at least tell:

  1. Whether it will simultaneously release with Windows 7 or much earlier than that (as expected).
  2. Whether it will release in 2008 or 2009?
  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Surprising you've gone for the Unix convention of -extoff when /extoff would be more in-keeping with Windows. And also surprising you haven't used the familiar Windows terminology of safe mode - eg /safemode

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Ben, it's obvious that the IE team isn't going to make IE8 be "XP look-and-feel on XP" and "Vista on Vista" and "Win7 on Win7". That would just be dumb. XP and Vista are both done deals for the Windows team. So the Windows team is working on Win7 right now.  Obviously IE is going to be part of Win7, and since the IE team is part the Windows team, it only stands to reason they're writing for Win7, with a backward eye on Vista and XP.  And since they're starting with the IE7 codebase, chances are much of it will still look like IE7. The new stuff will probably look like Win7 as much it can, within whatever limits still running on XP poses. Perhaps they'll change icons or color gradients or twiddly stuff like that, but overall, they're coding for Win7. I think developers love to get their minds wrapped around some notion of "XP conventions" that are set in stone. The web uses a lot of different UI concepts, and it toddles along just fine.  The world won't fall apart because IE8 looks more like Vista on XP than it "should" according to some nebulous XP guidelines. As to your discussion about the context menu functions, sounds like you found some bugs for them to fix.  Or maybe call them design changes. All of them seem reasonable in scope for a beta 1.  They're refinement, not "hey, start over with a different design, willya?" like the tab control stuff. The system menu icon: dialogs don't usually show them, and this is a dialog.  It's one of the visual cues that separate a dialog from a top level window.  If they added max, min, and system menu, yet left the window modal, people would be saying "Hey, it looks like a regular window but why does it act modal?" I think this dialog has some visual sloppiness but it's beta 1. They probably have a stack of polish bugs to go fix. BTW, I'm not defending their UI. I'm explaining my view of why they chose what they chose.  I think a three pane design works here, so I agree with their overall design. Not the same thing. I have to say many of the comments here show a lack of analytical effort and plain laziness.  If you want to critique someone's UI, then at least actually install it and use it for a while. It's clear only a minority of commenters actually did that.  That's just lazy, and that's what motivated me to comment in the first place.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    secuer ie can no cennet to internet

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    secuer ie can no cennet to internet

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Thanks for implementing some requests. But I do have a questions about this interface in combination with group policies. Within our company we're using the policy settings "deny all add-ons unless specifically allowed in the add-on list". This policy has proven its use:  it has reduced helpdesk calls and made the browser much more stable. The only downside is the management of the allow list. I've made suggestions in the past to allow management based on the publisher information which would greatly reduce the overhead. The biggest issue is when a user is navigating to a web site that uses an add-on which is not yet installed and isn't on the allow list. In this scenario the add-on management interface is completely useless because it doesn't show any information about this add-on, which makes it hard to add this add-on to the allow list. Until now we're using a sort of debugging tool called kapimon which allows us to see which add-on's are blocked. Although this works, it's rather difficult and requires administrator rights. Wouldn't it be possible to show the class-id in the add-on interface of a blocked add-on? I know other fields will be difficult to show but you could leave them blank or display "unknown". This would really help us in troubleshooting add-on management via group policies. Could you take a look at management of add-on’s based on other criteria such as publisher, etc.? I would also be very interested in seeing detailed information what per-user ActiveX controls is all about. Thanks, Kris

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    Great, an easy way to disable that POS Acrobat reader plugin.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    Hey, IE team, IE7 added the option to prevent using Javascript to modify the status bar. Can you add the ability to allow users to disable the option when right click is disabled on a web page, so right click cannot be disabled.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    @someone Let's see, IE8 still doesn't FULLY support the following web standards that MS should have supported long back:

  • CSS 3 ... CSS 3 isn't even fully finalized yet, to my knowledge. How could they "FULLY" support it?
  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    I missed the IE chat! :( Will you be posting the transcript soon? Is the bug tracking public yet?

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    I wish to be able to enable an add-in only for some websites, e.g. on some websites “flush” provides value, however on most websites it just slows me down and crashes IE.   I think I am looking for something like a tool bar that lets me turn on/off all add-ins that are in the “sometime enable” category, and then for IE to remember my choose for the given web site.

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    It looks really good! Hope there will not be a lot of bugs when this IE version comes out!

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    Guess what, I get to fix your mistakes again!

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    IE8 is messing up too many webpages. I need to uninstall it and reinstall IE7. IE7 kept locking up in Vista and Vista SP1. Someone said it was because of some addons. Well, there are too many addons to figure out the offender. At least IE7 worked and did not mess up webpages like IE8. How do I uninstall IE8? I tried the usual method Add/Remove Programs but IE8 is not listed. Thank in advance. My email is jahind@gmail.com

  • Anonymous
    March 27, 2008
    UI Dude wrote: "The system menu icon: dialogs don't usually show them, and this is a dialog.  It's one of the visual cues that separate a dialog from a top level window.  If they added max, min, and system menu, yet left the window modal, people would be saying "Hey, it looks like a regular window but why does it act modal?" Perhaps it should be modeless and shown in the taskbar, then? Bookmarks Manager and Downloads Manager from Firefox are a good examples of how well this can work. A modeless Add-ons Manager in IE8 would be similarly effective, I think. There are many badly designed applications on any OS you care to mention. Bad design needs to be reduced, not encouraged. There are guidelines for GUIs on Windows XP. There is a wide range standard controls. Users do find it harder when they are completely ignored. For example, inconsistent iconography makes it harder to figure out at a glance what a toolbar button with no text label will do. Sure you can hover the mouse and get a tooltip. But this isn't helping users get things done. And if the tooltip text is inconsistent with the platform? Then it's no help anyway and users lose faith in waiting for tooltips next time there's something they don't recognise immediately. OS consistency is an open-and-shut case, imho. Products excel when they heed it. "As to your discussion about the context menu functions, sounds like you found some bugs for them to fix.  Or maybe call them design changes. All of them seem reasonable in scope for a beta 1.  They're refinement, not 'hey, start over with a different design, willya?' like the tab control stuff." Yes, you could look at it that way. Then again, if these features are too difficult to get right perhaps they should be dropped? Clicking column headers covers the most useful sorting abilities already. It takes fewer clicks on larger hit areas, too. I wonder if the IE team have discussions like this in the corridors and cafeteria? :)

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2008
    Built in Download Manager is absolute for any good browser. Whenever I need to download files for more than 500MB, I install DAP, put download request into it. As soon as download completes, I uninstall DAP! Why can't a basic Pause/Resume be implemented in IE, if not extensive DM?

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2008
    I AM NOT A DELOPER SO THESE COMMENTS ARE TOO MUCH FOR ME

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2008
    I AM NOT A DELOPER SO THESE COMMENTS ARE TOO MUCH FOR ME

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2008
    Seriously, what is the improvement in experience? They've added a left nav. Sounds like snake oil to me.

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2008
    Hi, I’m Matt Crowley, Program Manager for Extensibility with Internet Explorer. The team was very excited

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2009
    이 글은 Internet Explorer 개발 팀 블로그 (영어)의 번역 문서입니다. 이 글에 포함된 정보는 Internet Explorer 개발 팀 블로그 (영어)가 생성된 시점의

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2009
        아래 글은 IEBlog에 올라온 IE 8 보안 관련 글 중 두번째 글을 번역한 것입니다. 현재 파트 5까지 나와있는데 시리즈로 번역할 예정입니다. 이 글 뿐