Statistics indicate that an end user spends significant amount of time on a
browser while working on a PC. This comes as no surprise since we are living in
an era of information explosion, dominated by the hunger to share and consume
data. This is also a very interesting period as we are witnessing the evolution
of Hypertext Markup Life (HTML), in the context of massive growth and desire to
innovate on the Web. User Experience while on WWW using a browser is a
definitive moment for a consumer to express. With this prelude, and waiting to
land on the tarmac is Internet Explorer 9.0.
Before we delve into the new features of IE9, it is worthwhile to note that
the Platform Preview 4 was released recently
(http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/). This is a classic demonstration of the new
web platform capabilities that is inherent with IE9. Browsing through the
capability demos is a reminder of what is in store when the new avatar is
released to the Web. Certain capabilities that we often desired to demonstrate
on the Web are coming to life. The browser has undergone a level of
reengineering to bring out differentiated & unique browsing experience in light
of other competitive browsers.
The new browser is faster than its predecessors and even other browsers. Its
HTML 5 compliant. Below is a quick snapshot of core IE9 features and
capabilities
1. Performance: It has two facets. First being speed of rendering with its
new JavaScript engine and interoperable markup experience across browsers being
the second.
2. Standards Compliance: HTML 5, CSS3 and SVG1.1 are W3C's standards that are
evolving for a while now. IE9 has embraced these standards.
3. Graphics: Leverages GPU capability in rendering hardware accelerated HTML5
graphics. A key boost to performance and hence enriched end user experience.
4. Windows 7 Experience: Localized & native browsing experience by customized
sites, enabled by taskbar integration/jump lists.
Let us take a close look at each of the above to understand the power of IE9
and the new age browsing experience it can provide to users.
IE9 uses reengineered processing engine that harness the GPU power as well, which is evident from this Fish Tank test. |
Improved performance
IE9 gets a facelift with new JavaScript engine called 'Chakra'. The
perception of speed is quite strong among the consumers, though we really cannot
visualize or quantify speed in our naked eye.The SunSpider results which are
published along with the platform preview portray a clear picture of IE9's
JavaScript engine performance. The results indicate that the performance is
multiple folds faster than earlier versions of IE and other recent releases of
competitive browsers. While this is a fact, the contributing factor is the
intelligent compilation of code base. It is quite interesting as this is where
the engine leverages the power of hardware. When a page loads, in order to
ensure that there is no lag in processing, the code is first interpreted. In the
meantime, the engine compiles the code in the background and switches over to
compiled code to provide a native processing experience. The 'Fish Tank' Speed
Demo as part of Platform Preview is an evidence of the reengineered processing
engine.
Another important element that is a key takeaway for developers from a
performance point of view is interoperability of markup. Write once and have the
site work across different browsers is seeing the light of the day. During the
development of IE9, significant amount of test cases were built and the same has
been submitted to W3C along with the results (over 2000). In literal sense this
means that other browsers can take the test cases and results available with W3C
to check for interoperability. A definite contribution that would make life lot
easier for developers who always had little fixes to ensure the markup yielded
unified output across browsers. Do take a look at the IE Testing Center results
published as part of Platform Preview 4.
Standards compliance
The buzz words that are making rounds these days are HTML5 and CSS3. Most of
the modern day browsers are promising conformance to Web standards. IE9 has
phenomenal Acid3 results which are a measure of Web browser platforms
conformance with Web standards. Do take a look at the Acid3 results published in
Platform Preview 4 to check on the scores. The story continues for CSS3 and SVG
1.1 (Second Edition) as well.
From a CSS3 perspective, the support for selective page styling based on the
delivery medium (mobile device, netbook or a standard computer) is worth a
mention. This will go a long way in ensuring that an online property is made
available for variety of consuming devices. From a standards perspective, it
also marks end to the pixel based positioning (rasterized images) compared to
vector graphics rendering based on shapes enabled by SVG.
Leveraging the processing power of the PC
PCs have become meatier and promise to get ever better with next generation
processors in the making. One can imagine the lack of utilization of such power
while an end user spends significant amount of time on a browser. In a regular
PC operating environment, the CPU hands off process intensive activities like
high graphics games/2D imaging to Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). IE9
unfailingly hands off tasks to GPU to power HTML, Audio/Video & SVG.
In addition to hardware acceleration, JavaScript engine also leverages the
hardware power during compilation to provide superior operating experience to an
end user. All of these, justify the processing power a PC holds and extends it
for application usage.
Windows 7 & IE9
Windows 7 exposes user experience elements like shell integration (jump
lists, pinning to taskbar) for every application to capitalize on. Likewise IE9
provides a similar operating experience to end users while they are browsing
websites. For a developer, this means an opportunity to customize a website and
localize it on Windows 7. This very element, for an end user, provides a
perception of operating in a local environment vs. within a browser while
accessing a website. The capability of Hardware Acceleration and leveraging
local processing power coupled by this combination of IE9 on Windows 7, presents
an all new Web browsing platform offering power browsing experience to end
users.
Sandeep J Alur, Microsoft Corporation India