Microsoft Unveils Guidelines for IE Add-On Developers
Add-ons are a great way to enhance the user experience that the Microsoft developed Internet Explorer web browser provides. You need only visit the official IE add-ons web page (click here) and select one of many add-ons to enhance your IE browser. Thousands of add-ons have been downloaded so far – if you are a developer and would like to join in, if you would like to develop an IE add-on and release it to the public, then you must know that Microsoft has released a set of guidelines that will help you in coming up with a high quality add-on.
“We have published a full list of guidelines to help add-on developers create quality add-ons. We created these guidelines to respond to demand from the developer community and to help share the thinking of the IE team, gathered from years of providing support to users and developers. We strongly recommend that developers follow these guidelines when developing add-ons for IE users. We occasionally come across add-ons that violate these guidelines so egregiously that we treat them as malware; on the other hand, we frequently see really helpful and creative add-ons that put the “user in control” and enhance the browsing experience,” explained Frank Olivier and Herman Ng, Internet Explorer Program Management
Here is the abbreviated version of the full list of guidelines Frank Olivier and Herman Ng mentioned above:
- Internet Explorer already provides a long list of features, features that the user undoubtedly wants access to. Your add-on should not block the user from accessing these features. According to telemetry gathered from IE users, blocking access to the features they are already familiar with causes them to become confused and unhappy.
- IE users can control their browsing experience by playing with the browser’s settings. The add-on you develop must not hinder the user from taking advantage of these settings.
- Do not use unsupported APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
If you would like to get Internet Explorer 8, you can download straight from FindMySoft here.
Alternatively you could grab it straight from Microsoft here.
“We have published a full list of guidelines to help add-on developers create quality add-ons. We created these guidelines to respond to demand from the developer community and to help share the thinking of the IE team, gathered from years of providing support to users and developers. We strongly recommend that developers follow these guidelines when developing add-ons for IE users. We occasionally come across add-ons that violate these guidelines so egregiously that we treat them as malware; on the other hand, we frequently see really helpful and creative add-ons that put the “user in control” and enhance the browsing experience,” explained Frank Olivier and Herman Ng, Internet Explorer Program Management
Here is the abbreviated version of the full list of guidelines Frank Olivier and Herman Ng mentioned above:
- Internet Explorer already provides a long list of features, features that the user undoubtedly wants access to. Your add-on should not block the user from accessing these features. According to telemetry gathered from IE users, blocking access to the features they are already familiar with causes them to become confused and unhappy.
- IE users can control their browsing experience by playing with the browser’s settings. The add-on you develop must not hinder the user from taking advantage of these settings.
- Do not use unsupported APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
If you would like to get Internet Explorer 8, you can download straight from FindMySoft here.
Alternatively you could grab it straight from Microsoft here.
