Friday, July 28th, 2006
IE7 XMLHttpRequest – Native or Not?
Category: IE, XmlHttpRequest
The IE team have promoted the new IE7 as including native XMLHttpRequest. This is the case, insofar as you can instantiate an XHR using new XMLHttpRequest(). More importantly than the syntax, XHR will still work when ActiveX has been disabled (unlike IE6 and below).
On the other hand, Shawn notes that some issues exist. Some have pointed out that its more of a native facade than a native Javascript object. Specifically:
- xhr.prototype fails. Indeed, it’s reported that any dynamic member creation fails (e.g. xhr.callId = 25; an idiom that can be useful for Call Tracking). If this is still the case, it’s not the behavior of a native object and it’s not consistent with other browsers.
- It’s also worth pointing out that IE has an option to disable native XHR. (Aside: can we switch to positive terminology already – “enable” rather than “disable” … it’s hardly a secret of HCI that options should be stated in the positive :-/). The XHR option is, reasonably enough, motivated by security. Although it sounds like XHR will default to enabled (sorry, “not disabled”), it’s still a reality that some users will be continue to be lost if you rely on XHR. Don’t throw out that IFrame just yet!
IE7 XHR – Native or Not?
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4.2 rating from 46 votes
I definitely wouldn’t say to keep or start using iframes, but I do think people should keep in mind that if MS says “native support” they don’t actually mean “native” as in a “native JavaScript” object.
Using IFrames to get around the user’s choice of disabling XHR is a bad idea, anyways.
All of MSIE’s “native” objects are crippled in the same way.
This sound a bit like their “native” support for transparent PNG:s that fails in the same way as IE 6 when combined with the opacity filter….
Sounds just as ‘native’ as the read-only TBODY shizzle.
In short: This proves that they did just a couple of quick hacks to make it look like it works, but it doesn’t because it’s not STRUCTURALLY correct.
This kind of represents my current view of IE7:
IE7 = (IE4 + hacks^2) + (IE5 + hacks^2) + (IE6 + hacks^2) + (loadOfNewHacks^2) – SomeOutDatedCrap
Prepare yourself for a shitload of new problems…
Oh yeah don’t forget the “SomeShitWheStoleFromFireFox” part of the equasion…
[...] Parece ser que por narices vamos a tener IE7 en nuestros PC’s, pero es que además el objeto XMLHTTPRequest parece no ser el nativo…. si es que hacen lo que les da la gana… [...]
You know, I wouldn’t even care if they just stole everything from Firefox. But they have to wait for years, finally steal it, break it, and then put it in a release while pretending they came up with it on their own.
If they would just steal it outright, we would at least have something closer to consistency and ease of development.
¿XMLHttpRequest nativo en IE7 o no?
Uno de los anuncios que más esperamos del nuevo IE7 es que el objeto XMLHttpRequest (XHR) iba a ser nativo y no será necesario el uso de ActiveX. Tan solo es necesario crear una nueva instancia de este objeto new…
Who Wants to Develop Web Apps on Microsoft
Ajaxian asks whether IE7 XHR is native, well, sort of. After being case-blind throughout its existence, Microsoft finally gives up on case-blindness and makes IE7 XmlHttpRequest case-sensitive….
[...] Michael Mahemoff at Ajaxian addresses the issue of native XMLHttpRequest support in IE 7. The IE 7 team has repeatedly stated, with relative fanfare, that the new browser will include native XMLHttpRequest. But, as Michael points out, the question remains: just how native is this native XMLHttpRequest [...]
[...] Michael Mahemoff at Ajaxian addresses the issue of native XMLHttpRequest support in IE 7 Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible. [...]
Looking forvard for a great and interesting discussion on this topic. Keep it up!
if i run my project in IE7 i am getting following error
System.MissingMethodException.
any help?
thanks in advance.
hi i am running my asp.net ajax application in windows 2003 server with iis6 but everything is working fine in all the browsers but i am getting following error in Internet Explorer 7….
MissingMethodException: Method not found
any help?.
thanks in advance.
Yoganand
IE7 has a nice little feature that disables posting silently to iframes (using client side scripting) too – so you probably wouldn’t even find the error for weeks. Iframes aren’t a solution. Kicking Bill Gates squarely in the knackers should be considered.
Hai friends i have done a site in AJAX.It works well except IE7.
Even in IE 7 onload i am calling a file through ajax its working well.But if i fire another event in ajax ,its not functioning.Ajax request is sent to server successfully.But response is not coming from server.Any one help me please? advance thanks!
Nothing can be as good as Fire Fox at least I never loose my connection like IE7 has been doing me. It’s frustrating but I know the anwer is near. I hope!
I never had problems in FireFox, but IE is unpredictable.