This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Web Buzz by Douglas Clifton. Original Post: IE7 Gets RSS Right Feed Title: blogZero Feed URL: http://loadaveragezero.com/app/s9y/index.php?/feeds/index.rss1 Feed Description: Web Development News, Culture and Opinion Latest Web Buzz Posts Latest Web Buzz Posts by Douglas Clifton Latest Posts From blogZero

I'm not going to comment on the shortcomings of the latest IE7 beta when it comes to standards, and in particular CSS support. There is enough discussion and debate going on in that regard already. I'm not even going to comment on the new interface, which some people seem to like. Okay, I can't help myself. I think the team should be concentrating on fixing bugs and bringing the browser up to modern levels so Web developers don't have such a huge headache on their hands due to one particular, and unfortunalty dominate, browser.

However, one feature that is spot on is the built-in support for RSS feeds. Like Firefox and other browsers that check for syndicated content, IE7 indicates their presence by displaying a special icon.

Now of course savvy Web surfers that use Firefox know they can install extensions like Sage and Feedview. Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" built-in feature for working with RSS feeds is weak, and the preview feature added by installing Feedview is lacking in some areas.

What we have to keep in mind is many IE users are casual users, and they are unaware of or simply confused by the gold mine of content that is available with feeds. Not to mention the convenience. Of course everyone knows by now that Safari (and it's little Japanese half-sister Shiira) have built-in RSS preview, as does OmniWeb—the Mac OS X family of browsers are on top of this trend (no matter which one you may prefer).

So what happens when you visit a feed with IE7? Just what you would expect (all along), the browser renders the feed so you can scan headlines, read the summary and visit the full article if it interests you. This is a huge improvement over a bunch of meaninless XML source code! Adding to this are features that include sorting by both date and title, filtering by category (you do use categories don't you?) and even keyword searching. Eureka! says the average Joe Web user, now I know what all those funky orange chicklets are for...

So to the IE7 team I say, good work. Now please fix the lackluster CSS support.