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On a day when Netscape will be loosing its browser code onto the world, Microsoft will release some browser software of its own. But the event doesn't have quite the impact of Netscape's dramatic move.
Redmond is offering a component that pre-packages visual HTML editing tools so developers creating HTML editing software for Windows don't have to bother with development of such tools themselves.
"It's just a super-easy way to add editing to your HTML application without having to write it yourself," said Microsoft's Christine Chang, product manager for platform marketing.
The editing component incorporates Dynamic HTML (DHTML) features like cascading style sheets (CSS), and will be available in a free preview version starting tomorrow at the company's Web site. Its rendering is based on the same DHTML technology in the company's Internet Explorer 4.01 browser.
Certain functions, like drag-and-drop editing, are now automatic. To position dynamic components on a page, an application can let an author simply drop in a page element without having to write positioning code.
Though the tools may not be groundbreaking, developers will see a benefit in freed-up development time, Chang said. "Now application developers can spend their time building features that help differentiate their product."
Vendors of the current authoring tools can already add these capabilities on their own, but they have to write the code from scratch to do it.
Chang said that the HTML output by Microsoft's editing component will be compatible with competitors' browsers, within reason. "The CSS and HTML that's generated should render in any application that supports them," she said.
But she acknowledged that there have been differences in how the browsers do that. "The first generation CSS in browsers has been a little rocky," but she said the latest version of Explorer is up to snuff. Thus, for other browsers she said, "it all comes down to how well they support HTML and CSS."
