Hot on the heels of Netscape's preview release, Microsoft
has described the functionality in its new (Windows-only) Internet
Explorer 5.5 beta.
For XML developers, the most interesting aspect of the
beta is probably Internet Explorer's
use of
MSXML3, a much faster and more up-to-date XML parser
engine. [Update: MSXML 3 didn't ship with Internet Explorer 5.5, though it can be added as a separate upgrade.]
The rest of the
picture isn't as bright, at least from a standards
perspective. Microsoft appears to be pushing forward with
its own behavior
model, which is related to an old draft for CSS3 at
the W3C but interacts with the Document Object Model in ways
that aren't specified at all by the W3C.
CSS development in general is improved by support for the
first-letter and first-line pseudo-elements, as well as
vertical text
layout, but there's no sign of additional support for the
whitespace or display properties that make it possible to
create XML
layouts that are comparable to HTML. There are, however,
new non-standard options for color scrollbars.