| Figure 2. Image of an Accelerator menu in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2.
An example of a “send” Accelerator could involve sending a segment of a news article to a blog application. After a user highlights a section she finds interesting, she can use the blog Accelerator, which navigates to her blog site with the selection already available in the edit field.
For more information on Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, see the OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide.
Web Slices
Users commonly visit many Web sites several times a day to check for updates. The introduction of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds can make this experience easier for users, although this requires a nontrivial amount of work on behalf of the developer.
Web Slices is a new feature for Web sites that enable users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page through simple HTML annotations, with prominent access to the Web page. Web Slices behave just like feeds in that users can subscribe to them and receive update notifications when the content changes. Sites are polled on an interval similar to how RSS feeds are handled. Site operators may also define the suggested interval for frequently updating content such as auctions or an e-mail inbox.
A Web Slice is a section within a Web page that is treated like a “subscribable” item, just like a feed. To enable Web Slices on your Web site, you annotate your Web page with class names for the title, description, and other “subscribable” properties. The Web Slice format uses a variation of the hAtom Microformat.
Users of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 can discover Web Slices within a Web page and add them to the Favorites bar, a dedicated row below the Address bar for easy access to links. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 subscribes to the Web page, detects changes in the Web Slice, and notifies the user when updates occur. Users can preview these updates directly from the Favorites bar and click through to the Web site to get more information.
For more information on creating Web Slices with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, see “Subscribing to Content with Web Slices” on MSDN.
Enhanced Instant Search
Internet Explorer 7 has a built-in search box to the right of the Address bar. When the user enters a search term, that term is passed from the search box to the user’s preferred search engine and the user is taken to search results page from that provider.
The search box in Internet Explorer 8 looks similar, but it’s more helpful. As users type a search term, they will see real-time search suggestions from their chosen search provider, recommending common searches related to the text that is typed. Users can click on a suggestion at any time to immediately execute the search without having to type the entire word or phrase. Not only does this save time, but it increases the odds that the search results will be relevant.
Internet Explorer 8 also enables search providers to deliver direct results and “visual search” images that provide users with immediate answers. For example, if you enter a stock ticker symbol, the search provider could provide a stock quote and a corresponding chart directly in the search box drop-down list. Internet Explorer 8 provides the enabling technology, but the choice of what to show is made by the search provider.
For more information on enhanced search in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, see “Search Provider Extensibility in Internet Explorer” on MSDN.
In addition to the features presented previously in this overview, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 introduces many features intended primarily for end-users or for IT pros (such as network administrators) that also have relevance for developers. Read on for details. The most current information for end-users will always be on the Features page of the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 site, and the most current information for IT pros will always be on the Internet Explorer TechCenter.
Crash Recovery
With the advent of tabbed browsers, users typically have multiple browser tabs active within a single instance of the browser. Internet Explorer 8 has a new feature called LCIE (Loosely-coupled Internet Explorer), with which the window frame and the browser tabs run in different processes and potentially at different Windows integrity levels. In Internet Explorer 8, thanks to the LCIE architecture, a crash in one browser tab does not cause the entire browser to crash, thereby helping to prevent the user from losing the pages they are browsing. In addition to saving users time, crash recovery in Internet Explorer 8 will also mean that IT professionals can spend less time helping users recover lost data. Recovering gracefully from crashes helps save time and money and can help increase user and IT staff productivity due to fewer interruptions.
In addition, Internet Explorer 8 has Automatic Crash Recovery. A tab that crashes will be restored automatically to its former state. In the unlikely event that the window frame itself crashes or closes unexpectedly, the entire session, including all tabs, will be restored. If a user was entering information on a Web page, such as writing an e-mail or filling out a form, and the page crashes, Internet Explorer 8 will attempt to recover the information entered when it returns the page.
Figure 3. Image of crash recovery in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2.
While perhaps less unnerving than a crash, accidental closure of a tab can be just as frustrating. Internet Explorer 8 reduces that frustration by letting users restore recently closed tabs from the New Tab page.
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