As we’ve discussed many times on this blog, Internet Explorer 9 provides developers powerful new capabilities with the same HTML, CSS, and JavaScript used for other browsers. In addition to improving the product in an effort to make Web developers’ lives easier, we’ve also strived to improve the developer content provided on MSDN.
The Internet Explorer developer content team writes and maintains all of the content you see in the “HTML and CSS” and “Internet Explorer Development” nodes on the MSDN library, plus the Internet Explorer Developer Center. As we do with the product, we listen to your feedback on how to improve and have taken a new approach with the release of Internet Explorer 9.
We’d like to take this opportunity to point out some highlights of the new content we’ve been working on, along with an explanation of our approach to documentation for Internet Explorer 9 and how it’s different from what we’ve done for prior releases. This post also provides links to the various types of developer content available to help you quickly find the content most helpful to you.
A New Content Philosophy
We are trying a different content philosophy. Using scenario-based samples and tutorials built around real-world Web development, we highlight how developers can use modern standards and the new features in Internet Explorer 9. Each section presents one or more developer scenarios, followed by a number of sub-tasks designed to achieve a specific goal, such as creating an elegant Web design that uses rounded corners or a page that plays audio without an external add-on. This is a deliberate attempt to add value beyond our feature-based documentation.
We hope you will find the newer content engaging in the way it follows the thought process through the tasks that accomplish development in the real world.
Samples and Tutorials
For example, this tutorial walks you through creating SVG “friction gears.” The sample is a creative use of HTML5 graphics animation. The documents that accompany the sample provide complete step-by-step tutorials, starting with the simple rotation of a square and ending with a seventeen-gear example (with audio).
The Intermediate SVG Animation tutorial demonstrates collision detection and the physics of the motion of balls in an arena, starting with a single ball bouncing off one wall, proceeding to interactions that are more complicated, building to a circular arena with many objects bouncing off one another.
These are just some of the recent samples. There are many more. And an SVG-based video game will be covered in Advanced SVG Animation, coming up in our next update. Visit the IE9 Samples and Tutorials section frequently to see newly added scenarios pertaining to these key areas and more:
Content You Can Count On
- CSS3: Adding elegance to a Web design by rounding corners, adding drop shadows, creating stylish buttons, and using advanced typography.
- Debugging and Troubleshooting Your Web page: Using the Internet Explorer 9 F12 developer tools to find solutions to problems.
- Enabling Standards Support: Using Web standards effectively.
- Geolocation: Tailoring the user experience according to the user’s geographical location.
- HTML5 Audio and Video: Embedding audio and video in a Web page.
- HTML5 Graphics: Choosing between Canvas and SVG based on the graphics requirements of a Web page, designing a game, adding photo effects, and creating animation.
- Pinned Sites: Integrating a Web site with the Windows 7 desktop.
Of course, content other than scenario-based tutorials is also available. If you want the complete API reference, use the more traditional documentation, available for JavaScript and C++ here:
For a single place to learn about every new feature in IE9, use the Internet Explorer 9 Guide for Developers which we updated with every Platform Preview release since PPB1 of IE9 in March of 2010. If you’re interested in IE10, the IE10 Platform Preview 1 Developer's Guide offers an exhaustive list of what is available in IE10 Platform Preview 1. It contains CSS3 Flexible Box, CSS3 Gradients, ECMAScript5 strict mode, and more.
If you are looking for the latest pointers to IE developer news and downloads, the Internet Explorer Developer Center is your best stop. Check out these sub-sites on the IE9 developer center:
Finally, the Windows Internet Explorer Standards Support documentation details variations, clarifications, and extensions to relevant final approved Web standards supported by Internet Explorer, and it has been kept updated for IE9.
Increased Support for Localized Content
For the first time in the history of Internet Explorer developer content, the samples and tutorials were made simultaneously available in 8 languages, concurrently with these IE9 RC and RTW releases : German, Spanish, French, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Chinese (Simplified), and Japanese, allowing us to more effectively support a broader global developer audience.
And, like the conceptual content, we’ve published localized versions of the Developer Guide: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Italian, Russian, and Japanese.
Your Feedback Helps Us
We hope you find our content informative and useful for your needs. We welcome your feedback. Please feel free to comment on this blog post, or if you have specific feedback about any of our MSDN content, look for the “Feedback” link at the bottom of the page. Click it, and you’ll have the opportunity to comment on the usefulness of each topic that we’ve written. We read everything that’s submitted and act on it.
—Internet Explorer Developer Content Contributors
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