There's an interesting conspiracy theory
over at Zeldman's joint.
Dave Winer puts the death of IE5/Mac into context,
concluding "It took (Bill Gates) ten years to erase the web as a
threat. It's done now. He owns it, it's in the trunk (I know you don't
like to hear this), it's locked, and they're driving it off a cliff
into the ocean."
The timing of recent events bears out Dave's thesis, at least as far as Microsoft's intentions
are concerned. The U.S. government found Microsoft guilty of having
criminally abused its monopoly power to crush competing Internet-based
businesses. Yet the government did nothing about it. The AOL lawsuit
posed a problem for Microsoft; so Microsoft bought off AOL. Only after AOL took the money
did Microsoft quietly let slip the news that it intends to kill its Mac
and Windows browsers. (And in fact, we now learn, some eighteen months
ago a few Microsoft marketers told a designer friend that the company
intended to kill its own browsers once all the legal hubbub died down.)
By its recent actions, Microsoft seems to believe that if consumers
want the Internet, they will use the next version of Windows to access
Microsoft-based web services and MSN content, and to download XBox
patches. And some consumers will do just that. But consumers have a
choice.
So what does all this mean? Nothing to web developers IMO - just that IE will be around for a long time and (hopefully) will continue to support web standards. I think it will - Microsoft never seems to get rid of its codebases.
Are you a keyboard monkey that hates using your mouse? If so, you can bet your webapp's powerusers feel the same way. How about giving them the power to navigate your app using keyboard shortcuts? It's easy to do by adding an "accesskey" attribute to your links and form elements, but how do you tell your users they exist? Zeldman's got the goods:
In Issue No. 158 of A List Apart,
For People Who Make Websites: All your favorite applications have
shortcut keys. So can your site, thanks to the XHTML accesskey
attribute. Accesskeys make sites more accessible for people who cannot
use a mouse. Unfortunately, almost no designer uses accesskeys,
because, unless they View Source, most visitors can't tell that you've
put these nifty navigational shortcuts to work on your site. In
"Accesskeys: Unlocking Hidden Navigation," Stuart Robertson unlocks the
secret of providing visible accesskey shortcuts. Dig in and have fun.
Tim Bray (founder of XML) has posted a blog story titled "