IE8 B2 is out!! Go get it now!! From the IE Blog:
We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 today for public download. You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. Please try it out!
You’ll find versions for 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon.
While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. Before the team blogs about our Beta 2 in detail, here’s an overview of what you’ll find in IE8.
We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services).
Go ahead and download it here!
Update1 - Okay, so it seems to have some troubles with certain buttons on my site, as well as with Gmail chat. From what I can tell, Gmail is set to the “Older Version” mode, with no way to change back. Also, no javascript buttons/rollovers seem to work for me. Interesting.
Update 2 - It appears to have to do with Javascript, although I don’t know what yet (I’ll have a post when I do). I’m currently on the latest version (JRE 1.6.0_05-b13) and it says it’s enabled. Oddly when using the “Emulate IE7″ mode, it causes everything rendered in IE8 to work again, although Gmail looks a bit funky now (see image below). Very odd…
Update 3 - Installed on my Vista system and the problem remains. I’ve now decided that it’s not a problem with Javascript, but perhaps just an issue in how Internet Explorer 8 renders certain code (other sites with issues don’t use Javascript). Now, the weird thing… my new updated design passes both the “Valid CSS” check and the “Valid XHTML 1.1 Strict” test… and it is completely broken in IE8. I’m going to hope that there is just a problem with the program, and not something perhaps worse (web designers having to re-design sites for IE6 and IE7 know what I mean). Screenshots below. Let’s hope my next IE post is good news!
