Under the patronage of Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, we will kick off a Web Platform series on March 8thin Dubai at Microsoft Tech·Ed Middle East 2011 . The session formats will be varied – a mix of classroom, interactive, conversational, and traditional lecture. To best prepare for the IE9 for Developerssession, please walk through some of the exercises below.  We welcome your comments and look to you for inspiration on customizing this session in advance to meet your needs.

 

Getting Started with Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 release is planned for the first half of calendar year 2011. This is a short list of helpful resources for developers planning on getting their sites and add-on’s ready for IE9.

· Internet Explorer Cookbook - Developer Compatibility Guidance

· IE9 Release Notes

· IE9 Developers Guide

· IE9 Users Guide

· IE Blog (announcements and developer guidance)

Testing Your Site - IE 9 Platform Preview 7

The IE9 platform preview allows site developers to get a head start testing for IE9, and can be used side-by-side with IE8 without having to download the full RC version of IE9. Platform previews have the latest updates to the rendering and scripting engines. If you are testing or developing site content, platform preview is the best choice for testing.

For testing site compatibility, the best choice is to download IE9 Platform Preview.

To open a file or URL, use the Page | Open menu.

Testing Your Add-on’s or Pinning – IE 9 RC

If you need to test add-ons such as BHO’s or toolbars, you can install the IE 9 RC. The IE9 RC is the full browser including the navigation menus and tabs. The IE9 RC can also be used to develop and test the new site “pinning” of your site to the Windows 7 taskbar.

For more information, see: IE Blog: Putting sites at the center of the browsing experience, using the whole PC: IE9 RC Available for Download

For testing add-ons and pinning, the best choice is to download IE9 RC.

Note: IE9 RC will replace IE8 on the installed machine. You will need to uninstall IE9 RC to revert back to IE8.

Getting Started with Built-in Developer Tools:

IE9 Platform Preview and IE9 RC include the IE built-in developer tools. While either the IE9 Platform Preview or IE9 RC window is active, press F12 to access the developer tools.

· For debugging JavaScript, click the Script tab. Click the “Start Debugging” button.

· For debugging HTML and CSS, quickly find the page area of interest by using Find | Select element by click. View / modify HTML or CSS in the appropriate tab.

For more information on debugging with developer tools, see: Developer Tools Overviews and Tutorials

IE9 Standards Mode

IE9 defaults to IE9 Standards mode. This is the fastest and most standards compliant mode. The goal is to enable site developers to be able to code their sites with the same markup and avoid browser detection.

For more information, see: Running today’s different markup

IE9 Cross-browser Best Practices

IE9 reduces the differences between browsers and enables developers to use the same markup across browsers. The goal is to allow developers to use the same HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and reduce the need for code and markup specific to a browser. The following links provide guidance on moving your site to using the same markup across browsers:

· Update Existing Code to Work Across Browsers

· Use Feature and Behavior Detection

· IE Blog: Same Markup: Writing Cross-Browser Code

Compatibility Features for Developers:

As IE changes and supports new technologies, in some scenarios, you may still need IE’s legacy behavior. There are many different technologies that enable developers to adjust how IE displays their site’s markup.

For more information, see:

· IE Blog: IE’s Compatibility Features for Site Developers

· IE9’s faster, more capable Compatibility View List

If you are working outside the US, you likely do not need to be prompted for an area code every time you add a phone number to your contacts.  I have used Outlook since the days it was called Schedule Plus (this is why we at Microsoft call it s+ when we send invites).  Even still, I have hard time finding the option to turn this off every time I repave my machine.   A second annoyance is that Outlook will remove the plus sign (+) you place in front of an international number.

The reason why this option is difficult to find in Outlook is because it is not set from Outlook. You will need to go to Control Panel, Phone & Modem and select a country.

For area code, I use 00 to represent the +1.  This resolves the second issue and stops Outlook from deleting the plus (+) prefix when entering numbers in Outlook.  That’s it!

Interested in developing for the Cloud? Use these samples to get you kick started!

You can drill down by language, and then categories to find a specific rated sample, along with information about the author.