About This Particular Macintosh 6.04 - eDisk

Finally, although IE 5 now supports proxy icons in its title bar, dragging one to the desktopproduces an IE .url file instead of a URL clipping.Macintosh Technology AdoptionMicrosoft supports Apple technologies in much the same way that it supports the Macintoshinterface: it usually tries to do the right thing, and does much better than Netscape, but fallsshort. IE 5 is the first major browser to support Navigation Services, and it even lets youopen more than one file at a time. It has rudimentary support for AppleScript, but it usesmonolithic command names like “PrintBrowserWindow” instead of the more AppleScriptlike“print the frontmost window.”The First Run installer simplifies the installation process, but IE 5 still fills your Extensionsfolder with shared libraries. These libraries are neither grouped into a single Microsoftfolder (to help reduce clutter), nor are they installed in the Application Support folder wherethey belong.The Mac OS 9 Keychain was first released nearly ten years ago with System 7 Pro, and plentyof applications from Anarchie to iCab to WebConfidential support it. However, IE 5 doesnot support this wonderful feature, instead maintaining its own list of your Web site passwords,which is less convenient and probably less secure.Tools MenuThe new Tools menu lets you access the new Auction Manager (discussed below), as well asthe Download Manager and the forms Auto-Fill feature, which do not seem to have changedsince IE 4.5. It also contains a new What’s Related feature, which uses the Alexa service tofind pages similar to the one that’s being displayed—just like in Netscape. At the bottom ofthe Tools menu are three other new “features”: permanent bookmarks to the Microsoft Network,Hotmail, and Encarta. I wonder whether these would be present if Microsoft sold IElike a normal product.Auction ManagerOne of the highly touted features of IE 5 is its Auction Manager, which at first looks usefuland convenient but ends up being a disappointment. The idea is that you can go to an itemATPM 6.04 ← 102 →Stuff: Internet Explorer 5.0