The first beta of Internet Explorer 7 was a joke when they announced that all they improved as far as standards support was fixing two CSS bugs and adding buggy alphatransparent PNG support, but now Microsoft has promised some actual progress.

Chris Wilson posted a list of new features that will definitely be in the next version of Internet Explorer. Here is his list:

Bug fixes

• Peekaboo bug
• Guillotine bug
• Duplicate Character bug
• Border Chaos
• No Scroll bug
• 3 Pixel Text Jog
• Magic Creeping Text bug
• Bottom Margin bug on Hover
• Losing the ability to highlight text under the top border
• IE/Win Line-height bug
• Double Float Margin Bug
• Quirky Percentages in IE
• Duplicate indent
• Moving viewport scrollbar outside HTML borders
• 1 px border style
• Disappearing List-background
• Fix width:auto

New features

• HTML 4.01 ABBR tag
• Improved (though not yet perfect) <object> fallback
• CSS 2.1 Selector support (child, adjacent, attribute, first-child etc.)
• CSS 2.1 Fixed positioning
• Alpha channel in PNG images
• Fix :hover on all elements
• Background-attachment: fixed on all elements not just body

Now, this isn't nearly enough for Internet Explorer to contend with the other major browsers, but it's definitely progress, and it will make the headache of Internet Explorer much more bearable for the time being.

I have to say, I do like Chris Wilson. He seems to actually be honest and caring about our concerns. It was a breath of fresh air when he admitted, without a bunch of fluff, what we have been asking Microsoft to admit for a long time: that Internet Explorer is a pain for web developers and that the Internet Explorer 7 beta 1 was a slap in our faces. We simply don't believe Microsoft when they say that they're paying attention to us until they finally express what we've been feeling for so long. They've done so much fluff and puff over the years that we can't trust them anymore. And as I commented on that blog post, this list of features and fixes isn't going to be enough to redeem them. The web development community will applaud any improvements in standards support, but I believe that we currently have no trust left in Microsoft as far as Internet Explorer goes. They are going to have to break their backs trying to please us if they want us to trust them. Falling short of other browsers, which Internet Explorer 7 will still almost definitely do, will not earn them an ounce of trust. But any progress will certainly make our lives easier, which in turn will do them a service. In a world with choice, you can't make profit without giving charity.

I'm pumped for it. I'm hoping they'll revamp the DOM event system, too.

Great post on the IEBlog regarding this matter. I completely agree with everything you said. I just hope Microsoft read, and take in, what you said - it's what we're all thinking.