IE7 and View Source

I’ve been watching news about IE7 quite closely, with a lot more interest than I’d had in prior upgrades. Trying to figure out what Microsoft will do to make up for lost time, something they’ve been able to do reasonably often. Intrigued by the Ozzie factor. Who wouldn’t be?
It was in that frame of mind that I came across Chris Messina’s recent post on the subject; thanks, Chris!. And as I read through it, I noticed Chris’s comment on View Source and followed the link to the Release Notes.

I wasn’t too bothered to find out that Windows SharePoint Server cannot import Excel spreadsheets while IE7 is running; my attitude to Excel is probably such that I consider the inability to import spreadsheets a selling feature.

But no more View Source? Why? This doesn’t feel right to me. Definitely not a feature.
I think it was Paul Graham who first wrote about the value of View Source, how it allowed the curious to enjoy that “So that’s how they did it” moment. How it helped innovation. And now we have this.

Can’t help but feel that there are more “unintended” consequences to come.

Oh well.

Update:I was wrong. As the comments show, it would appear that View Source itself is not disabled, just the back-door approach to using it. That’s what happens when you critique words rather than real functions. Mea culpa.

5 thoughts on “IE7 and View Source”

  2. To be clear — I’m not sure that they did away with View Source entirely… only the view-source: pseudo-protocol.

    That means that links that use view-source: instead of http:// will no longer work. More of a security thing than killing the world’s best “look under the hook” feature.

  3. Pingback: iface thoughts » Blog Archive » IE7, That It Is

  4. I am not sure what MS meant by that but this is not correct. I have IE7 on Vista RC2 and have no problems with view source. It shows up in crappy notepad but its there…

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