Internet Explorer 5.5 Second-generation Dynamic HTML Technology Forrest Stroud
Second-generation Dynamic HTML Technology
The most notable change is in IE 5's support for second-generation Dynamic HTML. The new DHTML Behaviors allow developers to build re-usable scripts that any Web page can reference for use. If this sounds similar to CSS, it is -- just as Cascading Style Sheets enabled you to separate the format of a page from its content, DHTML Behaviors now allow you to separate the actual dynamic behaviors from the content as well.
Among the additional Web design technology improvements in version 5 are dramatically improved TABLE rendering performance for fixed tables as well as improved performance for pages with Dynamic HTML content (which has also been given a more efficient rendering engine), XML (the future of the Web?) support, multiple CSS class support, dynamic properties for any and all page elements, dynamic relative/absolute positioning support, full drag and drop object model support (move content across frames or even into other applications), and persistence technology (allows any element to retain its current state even when a user leaves a page and later returns to it). An overview of the new features is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie5/default.asp.
