FEEDS AND WEB SLICES INTERNET EXPLORER WINDOWS

Similarly, the Live Search traffic map displayed only a tiny map of an area, with no visible traffic information. For example, the eBay Web Slices I tried didn't show any actual bidding or auction information, like on an auction site they only displayed a graphic of the item being sold, which isn't particularly helpful. Web Slices sound simple to create and can be useful, but in practice there are problems, depending upon how the actual Web Slice is written. When you're on a page that has Web Slices, click the icon and you'll see a list of every slice on the page. You can click through to go to the Web page that hosts the slice, or view it in the drop-down. Click the Web Slice, and it drops down and displays the content. When its content changes, the title turns bold. Select one, and a listing for the Web Slice then appears on your Favorites bar. Click its down arrow and you'll see a list of all Web Slices on the page. When you visit a Web page that can deliver information via a Web Slice, the Web Slice icon on the Favorites bar turns green. So, for example, if you want to watch stock prices you can get information from the Web Slice without having to visit the Web page that houses that information. They deliver changing information from a Web page you're not actively visiting directly to IE8. Web Slices offer another way of easily getting information. Accelerators can be written using basic XML, though, so they may well catch on if enough sites and people decide to write them. In addition, the Live Maps Accelerator had a problem finding addresses when they were on separate lines on a Web page - for example, when the street address was on one line and the city was beneath it.Īnother problem is that there simply aren't many Accelerators available at this point. Microsoft says it is working on the problem. On some PCs, including the one I used to test IE8, Accelerators and Web Slices won't display if you have Google Gears installed. I did have some problems with Accelerators. There are others as well, including ones from Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Yahoo.

FEEDS AND WEB SLICES INTERNET EXPLORER WINDOWS

The address bar is no longer just a location for typing a URL - it also searches through your Favorites, History and RSS feeds.Īs you might expect, many of the currently available Accelerators are written by Microsoft to take advantage of its services, such as Live Maps, Live Search and Windows Live Spaces. You can interact with the flyaway map just as if you were on the map site itself. Highlight the address, and then choose a maps accelerator, and you'll see a map of the address displayed in a flyaway - a kind of pop-up on the page - or else on another tab, depending on how that particular accelerator was written. Let's say, for example, that you're on a Web page with an address on it. Think of an Accelerator as a mini-mashup that delivers information from another Web site directly to your current browser page. Perhaps the most noticeable new features in IE8 are Accelerators and Web Slices, both designed to let you get information from Web pages and services without having to visit them. Now when you use the Address Bar, information from RSS feeds will be displayed as well. Check the box next to Feeds, and click OK and then OK again. Choose Tools->Internet Options->Content, then click the Settings button next to AutoComplete. You can also have the address bar display matching sites from RSS feeds as well. To visit the site, highlight it in the list and press Enter. So, for example, type 'gra' and you'll see a list of all of the sites in your History and Favorites that contain those letters - not just at the beginning of the URL, but also in page titles, or anywhere in the URL.

Start to type a URL, and you'll get a list of results from your History and Favorites, organized by category. Type in a term, and Internet Explorer does a search, using your default search engine. As with Firefox and Chrome, the address bar now operates as an all-in-one search tool that searches the Web as well as previously visited Web sites, Favorites and RSS feeds. It's no longer just a location for typing in a Web address. The address bar is also getting a big makeover.

Feeds and web slices internet explorer