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If you'd like to know exactly where Internet Explorer 9 stands on support for emerging web standards in its current beta release form, Microsoft has put together a comprehensive list of all the supported HTML5 and CSS 3 features in IE9. The document notes that IE 9 is still a beta release, and the list is subject to change, but it makes a good list to help you get up to speed on IE 9's new capabilities.
Internet Explorer 9 is a major leap forward for Microsoft in its promise to deliver solid web standards support. Although IE 9 still lags behind its competitors when it comes to supporting the latest HTML5 and CSS 3 code, it's leaps and bounds beyond where IE 8 left off.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the list is that Microsoft has opted to skip the vender prefix in most of its CSS 3 support and simply use, for example, the border-radius rule. That means if you've been adding the straight CSS 3 rules in additions to the -webkit, -moz and -o prefixes, your fancy style sheets should already work in IE 9.
Among the good news for web developers in IE 9 is support for CSS 3's border-radius property, opacity in images, CSS media queries and the new web fonts format, WOFF.
IE9's WOFF support even has a nice showcase: a series of CSS font experiments dubbed Lost World's Fairs. Using WOFF and Typekit, web designers Jason Santa Maria, Frank Chimero and Naz Hamid have put together some very impressive font demos to advertise World's Fairs that never happened (we're partial to the Atlantis World's Fair).
The demos will work in any modern browser, including the new IE 9 beta.
While IE 9 isn't a final release yet, things are definitely look up for web developers. Yes, we'll still be supporting IE 7 and IE 8 for some time, and yes, IE9 still lacks a few things, like support for CSS 3 text-shadows or HTML5's form elements, but it's a step in the right direction.
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