Internet Explorer 7 fixed up? Nope.

A recent post on the IE Blog seemed hopeful. They’ve made a lot of fixes recently. But reports from beta testers, found in the comments of the post, were discouraging, as what IE claimed to have fixed was still erratic and fundamentally broken, and there are still major parts of the CSS1 spec that are ignored, while they are trying to incorporate the CSS2 spec. You can’t build a house without a foundation… it’s no wonder it’s breaking sites. Here’s a list of top issues reported by Tino Zijdel.

• Float model is still incorrect in many cases
• Basic CSS positioning is still incorrect in many cases
• z-index is still incorrect
• inheritance is still broken in almost all cases
• margin-collapsing is still incorrect

Without full support for the basic CSS standard, we will still have to hack around IE7. We will still have to support IE6. Our lives are no easier because of this release. I’m tired of all of the positive feedback that Microsoft is getting on their blog for releasing something that is only going to make our lives more difficult. As the number one browser on the web, it’s their obligation to produce a product that pioneers web standards and sets the bar for accessibility and standards-compliance, rather than being the riptide that keeps pulling it back.