Plug-ins Getting Unplugged from IE

Many of you may already be aware of the Eolas Technologies lawsuit against Microsoft for patent infringement as reported on News.com. It is perhaps the only time the general web community hasn't been rooting for the little guy to win out over Microsoft. For those who don't know, the short short on it is that Eolas has claimed that the concept of plug-ins, a patent owned by the University of California, and licensed exclusively to Eolas, has been infringed by the very ability of Internet Explorer to play plug-ins inline with browser content.

Ultimately, this means that running Flash movies, or other plug-ins, alongside web page content (Flash art on HTML pages, for example) is a violation and that developers need to find another way to do it — whether by invoking dialogs when a plug-in is about to launch or by opening alternative content in new application windows. The implications of this are big. So much so, that the W3C has weighed in and formed an advisory panel (the HTML Patent Advisory Group) and released a FAQ on how the patent may impact the web.

On Tuesday, Microsoft said that it will make adjustments to Internet Explorer by early 2004 to prevent it from infringing on the patent. For now, the changes will consist of the browser firing a dialog box before allowing the embedded plug-in to run. Microsoft, Apple, Macromedia, and Real Networks have all provided information to developers to allow them to avoid infringing on the Eolas patent. Sadly, most of these fixes require extensive use of client-side script and invalid HTML tags in order to work. Zeldman goes into detail on the validation and accessibility issues on his site, and has a number of links to examples and some thoughts on how this will pan out over the next few months.

Some links to the software makers on the hook:

• The Microsoft Developer Network site provides instructions for developers, as well as follow-up information on the changes to the handling of ActiveX controls by IE.
• Apple's Developer Connection offers suggestions and sample pages with QuickTime movies.
• Macromedia's Developer Center offers a number of FAQs and suggestions for developers. As Macromedia may stand the most to lose, they offer a number of pages devoted to the potential impact.
• RealNetworks also offers sample code and suggestions to work around the changes to Internet Explorer and the patent.

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ICANN Moves .org Away from VeriSign

This Saturday, the .org top-level domain (TLD) will no longer be privately managed. With VeriSign's contract with ICANN for management of the .org TLD ending December 31, 2002, ICANN put management of the new registry out to bid and has chosen the Internet Society (ISOC) / Public Interest Registry (PIR) to take over the registry.

Despite rumblings that the .org TLD might be restricted to not-for-profits sometime around 2007, the current move imposes no restrictions and instead only makes a suggestion that .org be used for "noncommercial" sites. From the PIR site:

Noncommercial endeavors are those not conducted or maintained for the purpose of making a profit. This wide range includes (but isn't limited to) charitable, artistic, scientific, personal, educational, social, cultural, and religious endeavors.

.ORG sites are run by clubs, incorporated and unincorporated not-for-profit organizations, industry associations, families, individuals, schools, foundations, and more. Even for-profit companies run .ORG sites devoted to their noncommercial activities, such as charitable or volunteer programs.

With the transition, PIR has claimed a number of benefits and improvements:

• Supposedly a .org domain name will be usable minutes after registration.
• All WHOIS data for the .org TLD will eventually be consolidated into one central database.
• Revenues from .org registrations will be donated to outreach and educational programs.

VeriSign will close the .org registry on Saturday, January 25th at 14:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. Eastern time in the USA). The registry database and other functions will then be transferred to PIR. PIR will reopen for new registrations at 23:00 UTC on Sunday, January 26 (6:00 p.m. Eastern time in the USA). During this shutdown, no new .org registrations (or updates to existing .org domains) will be possible.

For a period of time after the re-opening, PIR will impose a Stability Control period, expected to be completed within 48 hours of the reopening. During this period, no modifications will be allowed to existing .org domain records. New .org names can be registered after the registry re-opens, but once registered, no updates to the domain record will be allowed until the stability controls are removed.

You can find out more about the Public Interest Registry at http://www.pir.org/. Internic discusses the transition in a FAQ about the .org transition. Sadly, no releases on the move could be found on the VeriSign site.

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On Safari

So you've been wondering what all the hubbub is about this new browser that Apple has released, right? I bet you're thinking to yourself, "oh dear, even more browsers in which to test." Well, you're right, it is a new browser to test, but it's eerily familiar to many of us.

Apple announced Safari as its new web browser during its MacWorld bonanza, and posted a ~3MB beta download for Jaguar users (OSX v10.2, better for v10.2.3) on its site at http://apple.com/safari/. This page also contains all the latest marketing speak on the browser, something worth reading before downloading.

Safari is built on the KDE rendering engine, using KHTML and KJS libaries (opensource), all of which power the familiar *nix browser, Konqueror. For those who've never been able to test on Konqueror and have access to a Mac, now you can do some basic testing (it won't be an exact match, but it's a start). For those who don't have a Mac but do have access to Konqueror, the same logic applies, just reversed.

Below are some of the known features and bugs of the browser, and while not exhaustive by any means, is good way to get thinking about how it may render your sites.

• Supposedly CSS1, CSS2, DOM0, DOM1 (reportedly "almost"), and DOM2 compliant.
• In CSS testing, supports attribute selectors, :first-child pseudo-class, :hover on arbitrary elements (tr for sure, anyway), @media, and adjacent sibling selectors.
• Aiming for compliance with ECMA-262 3rd Edition (JavaScript 1.5).
• Can render Java applets.
• Reportedly renders more quickly than Netscape, Internet Explorer, or Chimera.
• Will try to download XHTML files with XML mimetype instead of just display them.
• 72dpi (versus 96dpi) rendering of type.
• Doesn't display link title attributes as tooltips.
• Pop-up blocking appears to be built in.
• Currently identifies self as ( Note the "like Gecko" comment.):
  Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48

Screen capture showing how the evolt.org home page renders in Safari. As you can see, it looks pretty darn good, which is a testament to Safari's rendering engine, and the swanky, valid code under evolt.org's hood.

Screen capture showing how a evolt.org article page renders in Safari. Much like the home page, it holds its own for interpreting the code on the page, handily accepting our compliant HTML and CSS and then rendering it into the work of art that you are reading now.

Further Reading

MacEdition Guide to CSS2 Support in Mac-only Browsers, and the first column is Safari. See the abridged version for comparisons with other browsers.

KDE-maintained compilation of CSS2.1 visual media support in KHTML/KDE3.1.

The developer list for the KHTML and KJS libraries that power Safari, which talks about bugs, fixes, and support.

A review at Dive Into Mark, including screen shots and the results on testing across the HTML and CSS specs, as well as a number of CSS techniques/hacks.

Review at Six Log, with reader comments.

Mac Net Journal has a review.

Insanely Great Mac reviews it, and has a bunch of user comments.

The Mac News has an overview.

Safari-specific AppleScripts.

Matt Haughey comments (of MetaFilter fame).

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