Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 7.0, due for beta this summer, will include improved support for two key Web standards – Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and PNG graphics.

I definitely think this is a great news for each and every Internet user because Internet Explorer (IE) is always the culprit for poor Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and PNG graphics support for the past few years. If you are using IE to view this blog, you’ll notice in the YaGoohoo!gle !! post, the picture background is gray in colour, whereas if you are using any other browser like Firefox and Opera, the background of that picture is actually transparent. This is due to the lack of support in PNG graphics by IE. Hope to see this problem sorted out when Microsoft launch the long-awaiting IE7.0 soon.

In a post to the MSDN IEBlog Web log on Friday, lead program manager Chris Wilson confirmed improvements to CSS and PNG support are on the way. “Our first and most important goal with our Cascading Style Sheet support is to remove the major inconsistencies so that Web developers have a consistent set of functionality on which they can rely,” he wrote.

PNG images will get alpha channel support, he said, allowing for transparent images and image overlays. “We’ve actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature,” Wilson wrote.

As for the CSS support, Some developers were sceptical that IE would pass a CSS compliance test known as Acid2. I have just tested recent versions of browsers such as Firefox 1.0.3 and Opera 7.54, and they both failed the test.

Anyway, I cannot be bias to any browser in CSS support, though Firefox is always my first choice for time being.
Let’s hope this CSS compliant problem can be sorted out in all web browsers. :)

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