Hi All,

I haven't yet downloaded the developer preview of this software.  I have no
idea what parts of it will or won't work with what screen readers at this
time.  Interesting to note that Active Accessibility or accessibility in
general wasn't mentioned once in this document.  My initial read of this
tells me that Microsoft's vision of the web is going to be even more point
and click oriented and I wonder if keyboard access is going to be made
available to all these handy features they are adding.  That's not to
mention handling the increasingly visually complex nature of content and
layout that many screen readers and users find a challenge to access.

On the flip side I do wonder what the potential for better access to tables
might be like.  If some behind-the-scenes interaction between the browser
and a screen reader takes place perhaps there's the possibility of being
able to read a table's content more effectively.  Jaws for Windows 3.2
introduces this capability when navigating in Word tables and some sort of
screen reader independent ability to handle this in web browsers would be
nice.

It would be good to hear from anyone who's actively exploring IE 5 to see
where accessibility is at this time and what Microsoft's plans are.  Will
Active Accessibility be included in the full program or will it be stripped
away again or will things be someplace in the middle as they are now
leaving the current mess with respect to IE 4.01?

From: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie5/overview.htm

Internet Explorer 5.0 Developer Preview
New Features for Authors
Internet Explorer 4.0 has made significant strides in making the Internet a
powerful, robust way to build Web-based applications. It is still the only
browser to support technologies and standards such as Dynamic HTML, a
Document Object Model, CSS 2.0, PICS, XML, CDF, ActiveX, Java, and an open
scripting model for technologies like JavaScript or ECMAScript. Internet
Explorer 5.0 aims to extend this platform to enable developers and content
providers much easier ways to build richer applications and provide
information to their users.

Microsoft views the Internet as the most exciting growth opportunity for
the computing industry and for our own business. We appreciate the role
that successful open standards can play in accelerating growth by letting
every vendor participate, and we are committed to working with the W3C and
other appropriate standards bodies to further advance all Internet-based
technologies.

Below is a table listing the major features of the Developer Preview of
Internet Explorer 5.0, divided into the following categories:

Fast Page Rendering and Data Processing
Platform for Enterprise-Ready Applications
Extensibility and Componentization
 Fast Page Rendering and Data Processing
<TABLE> Performance Improvements Internet Explorer has support for "fixed"
table layouts. This renders tables much faster, as the "fixed" table layout
allows Internet Explorer 5.0 to display the table without calculating the
minimum and maximum size of the cells. Because the extra calculation is not
needed, table data can be displayed on the page, even while the rest of the
table is still loading. This feature is particularly advantageous with
tables used to display spreadsheet-like data, and for tables used for
layout when the width of the columns is known at design time.
HTTP-Expires Header Internet Explorer 5.0 won't automatically check the
network first when an object from the cache has not yet expired. Network
traffic is thus reduced and performance improved.
Improved Performance Large documents built with Dynamic HTML and pages with
DataBinding technology have a new efficient rendering engine, allowing
content to appear significantly faster than with Internet Explorer 4.0.

 Enables Enterprise-Ready Applications
Multiple CSS class support Any element can take a list of CSS classes,
making it much simpler to write script when different actions are to occur
on a single element. For example, it's much shorter to write the code for a
picture that changes once when the mouse moves over it, and then again when
it is clicked.
XML Support XML can be embedded into a document as data or meta-data, with
the entire XML Document Object Model exposed. XML tags can also be
intermixed within the HTML document, where CSS properties can be directly
applied to them, thereby controlling their appearance.
Dynamic Properties Instead of creating long, complicated scripts to perform
relatively simple activities, now any property on a page can be defined as
a function of any other property. For example, the font size of a section
of text can be set to 20% of the width of a table or the whole page, and
then the font size will change dynamically (almost like a Microsoft Excel
formula recalculating) if the page is resized, without refreshing the page
from the Web server.
"CurrentStyle" Object The currentStyle object exposes the exact value that
each element on a page is using for all of its CSS properties, not just the
ones that have been explicitly placed on that object.
Dynamic Relative / Absolute Positioning Support Authors can enable actions
like Drag and Drop functionality in their applications much easier, as
elements can be placed on a page with Relative Positioning, but can then
revert to an Absolute Position "on the fly."
Full Drag and Drop Object Model Support While users have always had a rich
way of sharing content between applications with drag and drop, Microsoft
has extended the Internet Explorer object model to provide further mouse
actions, such as cursor control, drag initialization, and clipboard
support, to create even richer applications. You can now build applications
that allow users to drag content between frames and even to other
applications.
Retaining Persistence Any element on a page, such as a collapsible outline,
can remain in its current state, even when your users leave that page and
return later. While developers have had a limited way to do this in the
past with cookies, Internet Explorer's new persistence technology provides
a richer XML-based way to accomplish this, thus eliminating the cookie 4K
limit.
Client Capabilities In order for content providers and authors to provide
the best level of content for their users, it's becoming crucially
important for these developers to know not only what version of each
browser is being used, but also what technologies have been turned on or
off by the user. Through scripting, authors can query which features of the
browser are available or not (perhaps Java or ActiveX has been disabled),
so that they can serve up the right content, and have the pages appear
exactly as intended on the clients' platform.
<HTMLAREA> Internet Explorer 5.0 introduces a new intrinsic control similar
to text boxes or drop-down boxes, allowing developers to insert a separate
HTML-enabled area into their pages where users can insert content. This
will allow users to insert comments or any content they wish, and embelish
it with all the power and functionality of HTML.
Browser-less applications (.hta) Applications are being built today with
the powerful technologies that the Internet brings, from HTML to scripting,
ActiveX, and Java. However, it doesn't always make sense to require these
applications to appear inside a browser. By building a "browser-less"
application, developers can create anything from a calculator to a 401K
tool that is not cluttered by the user interface of browsing software.
New Debugging Messages When debugging an application, authors need
descriptive feedback to know exactly where problems may be occurring. The
Error messages in Internet Explorer 5.0 have been improved to provide
detailed messages about scripting errors, HTML structure errors, and other
useful information for diagnosing application errors. This option is turned
off by default for the majority of users who are simply browsing the Web.

Extensibility and Componentization
DHTML Behaviors Just as Cascading StyleSheets enabled Web site producers to
separate the content of a page from its format, DHTML Behaviors extends
that idea to separate Behaviors as well. This allows developers to build
re-usable scripts that Web pages can simply reference. For example, you can
write a script that tells text or pictures to fly in from the right side of
the page. This script can be referenced from any page simply by calling its
name and pointing to it. This allows writers to focus on content, graphic
designers to focus on format, and developers to focus on engineering.
WebBrowser Control Updated to Internet Explorer 5.0 Any applications that
are currently embedding Internet functionality with the Internet Explorer
WebBrowser (AOL, Quicken, FrontPage, etc.) are automatically upgraded to
Internet Explorer 5.0, when installed on the user's PC.