This is all about my first experience with IE 8. Overall I enjoyed my experience.
1] Color Differentiation in URL Link – First thing I noticed was my page URL, which does not appear like earlier. In IE 8 the URL link is being displayed in two colors, the root site name only in darker tone whereas the standard prefixes (i.e. http: //www.) and the further page link information are in lighter shade, in gray color. For me it works because, while looking at URL, root site is the thing which should stand out from rest of the information. It helps to easily recollect site name.
2] Grouping of Related Tabs – This is an interesting thing, when working with multiple tabs with multiple context, at time you don’t remember which tabs are of related information. IN IE 8, they have come up with nice grouping of related tabs. First thing is that when you open a new tab from your current page, it will always be placed next to your adjacent tab so having proximity. Second thing is that all tabs originated from single page or form one another are displayed with similar and distinct tab colors hence forming a group.
3] Multiple Tabs handling – I also liked the placement and approach of handling multiple tabs. When we open multiple tabs, when all could not feet into the available screen area we got a tab scroll. This allows us to do tab scroll and see the hidden tab pages. In IE 8, apart from arrow indicator (« and »), combined list of all tabs is displayed as a drop down (tab list) in the left side of the screen. With click on the drop arrow, it displays all tabs list. Alongside it is the Quick Tabs icon, which allows you to open all opened tab pages in a new page as thumbnail icon, from where you can pick and open any tab. Quick tabs toggles over your current page view. This is handy from user’s view as it gives the option to pick from the list or select from quick tab thumbnails.
4] In Private Browsing – This is also a nice new feature included in IE 8. On selection, IE 8 opens a new browser window with IN Private Setting, in this setting whatever site you visit; IE does not store your browsing session data (i.e. cookies, temp internet files, history and other forms data). Many a times we all tend to browse in confidential manner, earlier in that cases, we need to user Tools – Internet options and from there we used to delete all private data. In Private browsing is made this easier now. For all confidential browsing you can use In Private Browsing Mode without worrying about deleting your browsing session data.
5] Compatibility View – Another nice feature is compatibility view. Some sites are designed for earlier version of browser and may not look good in the current version. IE 8 is having a Compatibility View option which allows displaying the site in compatible mode in case there is any compatibility issue. In the below picture you can see that in first image, the login area moved to right side of the page due to compatibility issue, which is actually placed in the center. With compatibility view in IE 8, the page can be displayed properly as displayed in next image.
6] Smart Screen Filter – Security wise IE 8 is having Smart Screen Filter, which warns if the visiting website is appear fake or harmful for your computer.
7] Map Accelerator – By selecting any address in your page and using Map Accelerator, it displays a map of the address displayed in a flyaway like a popup on the page.
8] Developer tool – It’s also a very cool tool. It is kind of combination of Firebug plug-in and browser tools of HTML Editors like Dreamweaver also combining accessibility check options. (Need a brief and separate article on this separately).
