Windows Experience Blog : IE Gallery

Live Search Web Slices for Internet Explorer 8

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:37:23 GMT

Have you ever been browsing the web and suddenly realized that you need to quickly check the weather, the traffic, or stock price for some company? With Internet Explorer 8 you can get all of that information, and much more, without ever having to navigate to another site or leave the page you are on. We call it a Web Slice. With Live Search and Internet Explorer 8, you can have quick access to this kind of information and more.

So what are Web Slices exactly? Web Slices bring the user’s favorite data directly into the Internet Explorer 8’s Favorites Bar, making it instantly available wherever the user goes on the Web. The screenshot below shows a Web Slice for tracking the weather for Seattle:

Instead of having to repeatedly visit websites to check for updated information, Web Slices allow people using Internet Explorer 8 to keep track of information from within a webpage right from the Favorites Bar. When a website has a Web Slice, users will be notified a Web Slice exists within that page in several ways:

A green Web Slice icon will appear in the Internet Explorer Toolbar (where the RSS feed icon usually is) notifying you that the webpage you are on has a Web Slice. As you move your mouse through the webpage, when you mouse over an area of the webpage that has the Web Slice, the Web Slice icon will also appear. This is because as I mentioned above, Web Slices are snippets of information within a webpage.

Today, Live Search provides several really neat Web Slices (that ties in with search results) that allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest information on local weather, traffic, top headlines, and stocks as you browse the web.

Live Search Weather Web Slice: When searching weather for a specific city or town in Live Search, the results provided show the current weather for that city or town and the forecast for the next 4 days. These results are also offered as a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8.

For example, if I search “weather Seattle” in Live Search, I get the current weather and 4-day forecast for Seattle. I can add to this Web Slice to my Favorites Bar and stay on top of the weather for Seattle. The Web Slice will regularly update with the latest weather information.

A screenshot for the Live Search Weather Web Slice can be seen above.

TIP: You can right click on a Web Slice on the Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 to “refresh” a specific Web Slice or all Web Slices to get up-to-date information.

Live Search Traffic Web Slice: This one is my personal favorite. In Live Search if you search on traffic for a specific city (like Seattle), you are given the latest traffic for that city in your results. These traffic results are also a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar. If you live in your browser – this could be a great way to stay up on traffic (and when it might be a good time to leave work!).

Please note that this Web Slice (and traffic results in Live Search) is only available for select cities that offer traffic data. If you search for traffic for your city or town and the search results don’t offer up any traffic then it is likely Live Search does not have traffic data for your city.

TIP: You can grab a specific Web Slice on your Favorites Bar and drag it left or right and change the order Web Slices and Favorites are displayed on your Favorites Bar.

Live Search Top Stories Web Slice: Stay on top of the top stores from Live Search! When you go to Live Search News, you can add the Top Story Web Slice to your Favorites Bar. It also works with specific search topics (like Windows 7) under Live Search News too.

Live Search Finance Web Slice: Just like with weather, you can search for stock results on a specific company on Live Search. The financial results for that company can be added to your Favorites Bar as a Web Slice.

TIP: You can grab the corner of the expanded Web Slice and make it bigger.

I hope you find these Web Slices useful! There are many other Web Slices available that do a variety of things – such as the eBay Web Slice that lets you track eBay auctions. In the next couple weeks I’ll be talking more about Web Slices and the Favorites Bar.

Last week we made available Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for folks to download. If you haven’t already, download it from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

To get even more Web Slices for Internet Explorer 8, head on over http://www.ieaddons.com!

Partners Take Advantage of IE8 Beta 2, New Languages Available

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:34:00 GMT

With the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 a few weeks ago, users were introduced to new features, such as Web Slices and Accelerators, as well as enhanced Search capabilities that make browsing the Web much easier. Users can now be exposed to specific bits of information they want quick access to - from the latest news to the latest weather to search for a new blue 8GB Zune. I'd like to take a moment to highlight just a few examples of partners who have taken advantage of IE8's capabilities in Beta 2.

Search:

New York Times Instant Search - By adding The New York Times as a Search Provider in IE8, users can search the latest headlines from The New York Times directly from IE8's inline search.

Web Slices:

Digg's Main Page Top 10 - Find the latest popular stories that have been "dug" on Digg with this Web Slice.

freenetMail - Let's subscribers check their freenetMail, or view meetings, tasks and birthdays.

And Me.dium offers several Search Providers, Web Slices, Accelerators and Add-ons for IE8 that users can enjoy - mixing browsing the Web with social networking! Click here to see Me.dium's offerings.

More and more new Web Slices, Accelerators, Search Providers, and Add-ons are getting added to the Internet Explorer Gallery all the time.

Today we are also releasing IE8 Beta 2 in 21 more languages in addition to what we released last month (English, Germany, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese). The additional languages are: Arabic, Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

You can click here to download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 today.

For more about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, be sure to check out my comprehensive overview or this series of very cool IE8 videos that showcase many of the features available in IE8 Beta 2 today.

A Comprehensive Look at Internet Explorer Beta 2

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:29:00 GMT

Today, the Internet Explorer Team has made available Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 for all to download. You can read the IE Team's announcement of the new release and very important milestone here from IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch on the IEBlog.

Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Also be sure to read this post from Program Manager Jane Maliouta on upgrading to IE8 Beta 2. It includes some very important information such as how to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 and more.

Internet Explorer 8 comes packed with new features designed to make browsing the web much easier and finding what you want much quicker. Matter of fact, based on my own experiences with IE8 these past few weeks, finding your "stuff" quicker is a very strong theme in IE8. I've discovered with IE8 that browsing the web is much more efficient. There are some brand new features in IE8 I'd like to call out, based on my own experiences that I think users will find very useful in browsing the web. I've found these features in IE8 so useful in fact that I am using IE8 Beta 2 on all my PCs. Keep in mind there are far too many new features and changes in IE8 for me to highlight in a single post. I'm only going to cover some of IE8's biggest new features and features I use the most.

First off: when you fire up IE8 you'll notice that the IE "chrome" has changed from the glossy metallic look to a softer light blue look with less gloss.

The most notable change to the UI in Internet Explorer 8 users will take notice of is the Favorites Bar. And this is one of the new features in IE8 I use the most. Essentially - the Favorites Bar is designed to help users highlight there most used Favorites and other information they want quick access to.

Side note on customization in IE8: Many readers of this blog have expressed to me unhappiness with the lack of customization in IE7. IE8 brings some changes that allow much more customization that I think users will be happy with. You can unlock the toolbars and drag the IE menu bar to a variety of places in IE8. You can also right click in IE8's menu and choose Customize where you can have the refresh and stop buttons moved to the front of the Address Bar. Those who also prefer not to have the Favorites Bar showing will be pleased to know you can turn it off (although I don't know why you would want to!).

The Favorites Bar is also a key component to another new feature in IE8: Web Slices. Web Slices are little "slices" of information within a website that can be subscribed to and added to the Favorites Bar. As information within these Web Slices update, they become bold in the Favorites Bar signifying new information is available within a specific Web Slice. When I visit a website that has a Web Slice, instead of the standard orange RSS icon I get a green Web Slice icon. I visited Digg (a favorite website of mine) with IE8 and noticed that they have a Web Slice available for top "dugg" topics.

I clicked on the green Web Slice icon and added the Digg Web Slice to my Favorites Bar. There, I can click on the Digg Web Slice to check out the current top dugg posts.

Digg is one of my favorite Web Slices along with the Facebook Web Slice. The Facebook Web Slice allows you to stay on top of your Facebook friend's Status Updates. I found this very useful.

TIP: You can resize the Web Slice "window" by grabbing the bottom right-hand corner.

You are able to add RSS feeds you subscribe to in IE8 to the Favorites Bar as well. To stay on top of all the tech news happening in the blogosphere - I am constantly watching Techmeme. By subscribing to Techmeme's RSS feed and adding it to my Favorites Bar in IE8 - it's easier for me to keep tabs on the latest geek news.

When I subscribed to the Techmeme RSS feed, all I had to do was make sure "Add to Favorites Bar" was checked and when I hit subscribe - it automatically appeared in my Favorites Bar. When the feed updates, just like with Web Slices the RSS feed will become bold.

IE8 introduces the Smart Address Bar designed to help you get to where you want to go on the web quicker. One of the most common tasks for users in web browsers is getting back to websites they use regularly. Much of my web browsing is essentially getting to websites I regularly visit and check. With the Smart Address Bar - getting back to these sites is much easier.

The Smart Address Bar matches what I type in the address bar with websites in History, Favorites, and RSS Feeds. It also features an Autocomplete Suggestion as well for whatever website I am trying to get to. I've found that IE8's Autocomplete Suggestion has been pretty spot on which is great. Mistyped entries can also be deleted by simply clicking the red X to the right of any entry. Autocomplete works across your history as well as your feeds. Domain Highlighting is also used in the Smart Address Bar in IE8. This allows me to quickly identify which domain I'm on. If I am on the Windows Vista Team Blog, the Smart Address Bar will show the URL for the site as http://www.windowsvistablog.com/. However, only windowsvistablog.com is highlighted. Believe it or not this is actually a security feature. Domain Highlighting is designed to aid users in identifying deceptive phishing websites. If a user suddenly discovers a domain highlighted that doesn't make sense and seems a little shady, they can proceed in reporting the site via IE8 as a phishing site.

The second most common thing I do in the web browser is web search. IE8 has some impressive enhancements to its inline search box that make search. When I search for something, I can quickly switch between multiple search providers by clicking the search provider icon.

With Live Search as a search provider (the default search provider on my PCs), when I typed in something I was looking for - Live Search offers me suggestions in real-time to help me find what I'm looking for. When searching the web via IE8's inline search box - it also searches your web history as well.

So what if you want to find something on a specific webpage you are on? IE8 is very accommodating with this scenario. Using the feature Find-on-Page (Ctrl + F), I can quickly get search results for something I am looking for on single page.

When I press Ctrl + F, the Find-on-Page Toolbar appears (under the tabs) and allows me to search the site. In the above screenshot, I searched the Featured Community website Windows-Now for the term "windows". As you can see, Find-on-Page highlights each instance of the term I am searching for and also counts the results. Find-on-Page found 20 results for the word "windows" on this specific page on Windows-Now.

Another way to find information within specific websites is to use Accelerators in IE8. In IE8 Beta 1 we called these "Activities" but in IE8 Beta 2 they are now called Accelerators. Accelerators appear in IE8 when you highlight text and right-click on the blue Accelerator icon. Here I highlighted the word "virtual machine" and used the Encarta Accelerator to find the definition of "virtual machine".

If I am visiting a website that has an address that I want to quickly map - I can use the Live Search Maps Accelerator to quickly map the address. Accelerators don't have to just come from Microsoft. 3rd parties can take full advantage of creating Accelerators and users can quickly add in IE8.

TIP: You can manage Accelerators, Search Providers, and Toolbars & Extensions all in one spot via IE8's updated Manage Add-ons Panel by going to Tools and then Manage Add-ons.

There are a few more things I'd like to call out in IE8 I think users will enjoy. Managing Tabs in IE8 is enhanced to accommodate getting to those websites you like to visit. For example, when I open a new tab in IE8, it allows me to re-open closed tabs. For me, many closed tabs were websites I often visit so it's nice to be able to simply open a new tab and quickly re-open a website I want to get to again.

The new tab screen also allows you to access Accelerators as well.

Another new thing with tabs is Tab Groups. I have a habit of right-clicking on hyperlinks and clicking "Open in New Tab". When I do this - a new tab is of course opened but the tab that I opened a new tab on as well as the new tab is colored. These Tab Groups allow me to keep track of groups of tabs that I am going between. I've found this incredibly useful in managing what I do in IE8.

Speaking of tabs, IE8 comes with a crash recovery feature for when a tab in IE8 crashes it is automatically reloaded and restored. The real beauty of this feature is that, unlike other browsers, IE8 does not need to restart in the event of a crash. You could be watching a video in one tab and if another tab crashes you won't miss a thing. It' crash recovery done right. Any information entered on the page such as a email you're writing in Windows Live Hotmail or a form you are filling out is automatically restored.

As many folks know by now, the Internet Explorer Team has focused on making IE8 standards compliant. IE8 passes the Acid2 Test and offers full support for the CSS 2.1 specification. These are just two of the many changes made in IE8 to support standards and interoperability. Because of these changes, users may notice some of their websites make not look correctly because they were designed for older browsers. IE8 comes with a feature called Compatibility View that lets users quickly switch from IE8's standards compliant layout engine to IE7's layout engine.

Unlike in Beta 1 of IE8, switching into Compatibility View doesn't require the restart of IE8. When you click on the Compatibility View button on a specific website - that website is refreshed in "compatibility mode". Compatibility View works on a per-website (domain) basis.

For more information on Compatibility Mode in IE8 Beta 2 - read this in-depth post from IE Lead Program Manager Scott Dickens.

UPDATE: Ed Bott just posted his comprehensive look at IE8 Beta 2. You can read his post here.

I am just touching the tip of the iceberg here with IE8 features. Expect more in-depth coverage from the folks working on these features in IE8 from the IE Team themselves over on the IEBlog in the coming weeks.

Congratulations to the IE Team for this excellent release!

Also take note of a brand new design for the IE Add-ons site launching for IE8 called the Internet Explorer Gallery at www.ieaddons.com.

The Internet Explorer Gallery allows you to find all kinds of neat Accelerators, Web Slices, and Search Providers. It's a great place to start after you get Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 installed!