IE 8 : Version Targeting debated

Over at "A List Apart" Jeffrey Zeldman and Jeremy Keith aren't quite seeing eye to eye on Microsoft's plan for version targeting in Internet Explorer 8. The idea is that IE8 will allow you to define a meta element that tells the browser how to render the page. Therefore, if your page has a bunch of hacks that work in IE7 then the page won't break in IE8. The cusp of the ALA debate is that standards savvy developers will need to add the meta element or have their pages forever rendered ala-IE7 because IE8's default render engine is IE7. Jeremy Keith notes "If Microsoft are to be believed, the self-crippling default behavior of IE8+ is necessary to save the web" and "Version targeting is not a bad idea. The choice of delivery mechanisms—meta element or server header—is inspired. As an optional feature, this could prove to be a real lifesaver in some development environments. As a mandatory millstone however, it strikes a blow against progressive enhancement". This is a subtle but important debate and everyone should take a moment to read these two articles:

• Jeffrey Zeldman : Version targeting : Threat or Menace?
• Jeremy Keith : They Shoot Browsers, Don't They?
  

Blogged with Flock

Blogging From Contribute CS3

I'm currently trialing Adobe CS3 prior to upgrading from Macromedia Studio 8. In particular I was keen to try out the blogging options in Contribute CS3. Which is exactly where I'm writing this post. This functionality was released a few months ago. But I prefer to manage upgrades as new suites are released. I'd also tried this from work but have never been able to create the connection. Now I know that the problem is probably proxy related as I had no problem making this connection from home. What's nice about posting from Contribute is that you are writing directly into your page with all the pages available styles. So you get a real feel for how the final post will appear. The Blogger editor is very sensitive to whitespace and so you can end up with some unexpectedly large spaces in your post.

One potential limitation is Bloggers use of labels instead of Tags. There is a drop down in Contribute listing all existing Labels and you select the ones you want to use. But there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for adding new Labels. Which means I'll probably need to edit this again in Blogger to add Contribute as a Label. But perhaps I'm just missing the option. It is very much a first try.

Flex LinkButton : Transparent Backgrounds?

For a current project I have a container which has a gradient background. Within this I have a series of LinkButtons. I only want the text color of the LinkButton to change on rollOver. If the background of the container was solid I could set the rollOver color to match the background. But the gradient makes this impossible. So I went to the styles for LinkButton expecting to find a backgroundAlpha property. But it seems the LinkButton lacks this or any similar style that I could use. It took me a little while to realise there is a relatively simple solution. Which is to create a skin with a transparent background and to use this for the LinkButton's overSkin and downSkin. I already had a few skins that I was embedding from a swf so I just created a new movieClip which contained a transparent object and added a linkageID of clear_bg. Exported the swf and defined a new style for my LinkButtons. Simple and yet effective. I'd love to hear if there was a style I could have used to get the same result.

  LinkButton {
      overSkin:Embed("my_skins.swf#clear_bg");
      upSkin:Embed("my_skins.swf#clear_bg");
      downSkin:Embed("my_skins.swf#clear_bg");
  }