This feature allows one to layout elements on top of any other element, including on top of system controls like select boxes or scroll bars. We do agree that it is a nice feature, but in todays world, browsers should not expose such functionality and this page shows why.
Before anything else, let's note though that Mozilla has a similar feature; however, before a page can use it, the end-user must explicitely let the browser know that the page is “trusted”, for reasons that you'll fully understand after you walk through the demo below.
We won't provide technical details on how the popup is constructed; if you are a developer and are interested in this (but hopefully not) you can find out about it in MSDN.
Show demo | « Back to the previous page
See, this cool functionality is a problem in itself: it allows one to do nasty things with your browser.
Here we opened a popup which completely covers your screen. You do agree that no website should be allowed to do that, right? I mean, we could have displayed a copy of the “Blue Screen Of Death” (also known as BSOD, you know, something like “Internet Explorer has caused a General Protection Fault and you are required to power down your machine in order to continue using it”).
Fortunately, Microsoft gave a good thought to these situations, therefore pressing ESC will dismiss the popup.
Go on, try it. Press some key.
See how quick it reappears? ;-)
Microsoft really did think about it, only not enough:
- the popup is not allowed to receive keyboard events; however they seem to forget that the main window does intercept keyboard events, which is where we reopen the popup. ;-)
- the ESC key, in particular, will close the popup without going through our handler, so it should close it for good. Nice try, M$ ;-) See below.
- the popup does not provide an "onclose" event, so if you press ESC or found some other bizzare way to close it, you close it. However, IE provides a way to check if the popup is visible. We do this check 100 times per second; if it's closed, we display it again ;-)
Our demonstration is not over. Press almost any key, including ESC, to continue ;-)
It gets annoying, doesn't it?
There are keys that we can't intercept. Like F5 which refreshes the page. If we would be really bad, we would display the popup right when the lage is loaded, but hey, we're the good guys.
We would like to see that Microsoft keeps their promise and focuses to fix their W3 compliance bugs, instead of providing a bunch of useless and sometimes dangerous features. We would like to see that Microsoft encourages usage of Web standards instead of IE-specific features. We would like to see that Microsoft accepts the Web as it is, with an open mind: it belongs to everyone, not only to Windows users.
In order for Microsoft to do anything about it, they must loose popularity. You see, since IE is used by 95% of web surfers, Microsoft did not release any new version of it, didn't fix any of the existing bugs, even more: they stated that IE6 is the last standalone browser release, all further releases will come with a new Windows release! Guess what: if you want to have IE7, you have to pay for Windows 2003!
Since Windows NT, Microsoft operating systems are stalling, which is why they need to rely on “features” like these: do you want “ClearType” font antialiasing? Then go on buy Windows XP! People don't know that this technology is available in Linux before Windows XP was released, nor do they know that Apple used this technology 20 years ago! They simply believe that Microsoft invented it and they honestly believe that it's impossible to provide it in Windows versions older than XP. The same with IE: do you want IE7? Then go on buy Windows 2003!
We are wondering what will be “the next big feature”. Perhaps a codec for a super-new movie format which is impossible to implement in Windows 2003? Let's get real.. The truth is: Microsoft is selling buggy products, because they are popular, and they are popular because they sell nicely packaged buggy products. If you want to end this story, you have the power. Just say no. Don't give them any more money for nothing.
Felling controlled by your browser? ;-) That's because you use Internet Explorer.
The situation itself is strange, because of all modern browsers nowadays, IE provides the most pathetic feature set, has more known security holes than any other browser and the poorest support for Web standards.
Why using it? Switch to a browser that allows you to control what happens with your computer. Switch to a browser which is still maintained. We don't recommend one. Just pick anything but Internet Explorer.
Our demo is over. Press ESC.
Oh, did we mention that IE is a poor browser?
Because of its flaws concerning Web standards, web applications which work with any browser are harder to develop: a developer practically needs to write large areas of code twice: one which only targets IE, while other which targets standard-compliant browsers.
Given this, the cost of producing web application is high and guess where it reflects? To you, dear end-user.
OK, now we're done. Promise. Press ESC.