Internet Explorer 5 New Feature Overview
A few years ago, people were able to work and function without being connected to the Internet.  Today people need to live in a connected world at home and at work.  Corporations, end users, PC manufacturers and software designers all use the Web in their daily activities.  The Web has also become a complete platform for developers.  The Web provides information gathering, document publishing and collaboration, multimedia, online communication, commerce, electronic services, and network-based applications.  Internet Explorer 5 was created to work for novice users and for developers.

Internet Explorer 5 is the browser that saves you time on the things you do most often
Simple to find & organize information anywhere on the Web
Feature	Description
Search Assistant	Task-oriented wizard that helps users to perform more accurate searches. Facilitates searches for different kinds of information (web sites, people, companies, maps, etc.), using different web resources of the user's choice.
Search Hit-highlighting	Search words are automatically highlighted on the page that returns results.
Explorer Bar enhancements across Favorites, History, & Search	Favorites, History, & Search offer more familiar scrollbars and background color. Maintaining the last state of the browser is also offered.  When users close the browser with the Explorer bar open, the next time they open the browser, the Explorer bar will be exposed.
Smart Frameset Favorites	When adding a favorite web site, Internet Explorer recognizes appropriate frameset arrangements rather than simply defaulting to the outermost frame URL.
Import and Export Favorites	Users can import Netscape Bookmarks into Internet Explorer as Favorites, or export your Favorites as Netscape Bookmarks at any time from the File menu.
Organize Favorites Dialog	Easier to create new folders, move Favorites from one folder to another, to rename Favorites, or to delete them.  Also offers additional information about the Favorites, such as the URL, the number of times visited, the date last visited, and whether the user has designated to make it available for viewing offline.
Searching History	To enable easy location of recently viewed sites, you now have multiple views of History--by date, by site, by most visited, by order visited today. Within each view, sites are sorted by domain name rather than the first portion of the URL (e.g., Microsoft rather than Www). Users can also conduct a search within the History bar by words or by URLs.
"Go" button	Users can type in their URL or search in the Address Bar and either press "Enter" or click the new "Go" button. Primarily for novice users. Users who prefer to press "Enter" can remove button if desired.
Toolbar Customization	Users can add new buttons to the toolbar, like Folder, Cut, Copy, and Paste, for example.
Per Connection Proxy Settings	A single machine can now be easily utilized on different networks through different types of connections as Internet Explorer enables the setup of multiple connectoids, each with different proxy servers.
Make Available Offline	You can designate what content you want to view offline through a simple checkbox in the Add to Favorites dialog entitled "Make Available Offline."
Windows Synchronization Manager	You can use Windows Synchronization Manager to synchronize Web pages, mail, etc. with one command for easy online/offline use. You can also designate what you want to synchronize and when.
Approved Sites List	You no longer have to rely on sites to evaluate themselves.  This is especially useful for parents and administrators who can approve or disapprove which sites their children can view.
Tip of the Day	You can get up to speed using Internet Explorer's new Tip of the Day option.
FTP Folders	Folders based on File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers are displayed with the same user interface that displays folders on your hard drive.
Built-in Intelligence to automate most common Web tasks
AutoCorrect	Internet Explorer 5 automatically corrects common misspellings in URL conventions like http://, www, .com, and so on.
AutoComplete Forms	You can use AutoComplete to fill out forms on the Web, including single-line edits and username/passwords. This information is stored on your computer and cannot be accessed until you select it..
AutoDetect Offline	AutoDetect Offline grays out Favorites that are unavailable when you're offline.
AutoConfiguration Proxy	When connecting to a new network, Internet Explorer will automatically locate the new proxy server with Internet Explorer's Web Proxy AutoDiscovery (WPAD) protocol.
Favorites/History Offline Notification	When you're working offline, unavailable Favorites and Histories are grayed out.
Save Complete Web Page	You can save entire Web pages with their images to use offline or to share with others via e-mail.
Smart Script Error Avoidance	When you're confronted with a script error, you can decide which script errors you want to view in the future, or whether to be prompted to view specific errors.
Active HTTP Errors	If you type in a URL which does not exist, Internet Explorer replaces the standard "HTTP 404"-type errors with a friendly error message that suggests where you might find the site you're looking for.
Smart Editing	You can edit HTML documents using the program in which they were originally created.  For example, you can open an HTML document in MS Word and use its editing features.
Freedom of Choice to use the Web the way you want
Web-based Mail Integration	You can select Web-based mail providers like MSN Hotmail as your default mail client so that mail to links, Read Mail, and Send Page, work with Web mail.
Default HTML Editor	You can designate your default HTML editor. You can also choose additional editing programs from a drop-down menu off the "Edit" button on the Internet Explorer toolbar.
Home Page Access/Modification	Through script, developers can create an option users can choose that makes the developer's page their homepage.
Explorer Bar extensibility	Richer Explorer Bar object model enables content providers like portals, news sites, ISVs, etc. to utilize vertical or horizontal Explorer bars to provide users easier access to wide range of information on the Web.
Internet Explorer 5 saves you time creating rich enterprise-ready Web-based applications
Fast Page Rendering and Data Processing --
New Dynamic HTML Rendering Engine	Large documents built with Dynamic HTML and pages with data binding technology have a new efficient rendering engine.  This engine allows content to be viewed significantly faster than in Internet Explorer 4.0.
TABLE Performance Improvements	Internet Explorer supports "fixed" table layouts, which display tables much faster because they avoid calculating the minimum and maximum size of each cell in the table before rendering.
HTTP-Expires Header	Internet Explorer 5 will not automatically check the network when an object from the cache has not yet expired, which reduces network traffic and improves performance.
Render-First	During the time prior to the expiration time, which is specified in the cache control header, Internet Explorer will render from the cache and then do the if-modified-since call to the server, but it will not re-render, even if a newer version is available.
Platform for enterprise-ready applications
Multiple CSS class support	A list of CSS classes can be applied to any element, which makes it much simpler to write script for different actions that occur on a single element.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) enhancements	XML can be embedded into a document as data or meta-data, with the entire XML Document Object Model exposed. XML tags can also be intermixed within the HTML document, where CSS properties can be directly applied to them, controlling their appearance.
Dynamic Properties	Instead of creating long, complicated scripts to perform relatively simple activities, any property on a page can be defined as a function of any other property.
"CurrentStyle" Object	The CurrentStyle object exposes the exact value that each element on a page is using for all of its CSS properties, not just the ones that have been explicitly placed on that object.
Dynamic Relative/Absolute Positioning Support	Authors can enable actions like Drag and Drop functionality in their applications much easier.  Elements can be placed on a page with relative positioning, but can revert to an absolute position "on the fly."
Full Drag and Drop Object Model Support	You can now build applications that allow users to drag content between frames and even to other applications.
Retaining Persistence	Any element on a page, such as a collapsible outline, can remain in its current state, even when your users leave that page and return later. While developers have had a limited way to do this in the past with cookies, Internet Explorer's new persistence technology provides a richer XML-based way to accomplish this, which avoids the 4K size limit for cookies.
Client Capabilities	Through scripting, authors can query which features of the browser are available or not, e.g., whether Java or ActiveX has been disabled, so that they can serve up the right content, and the pages appear exactly as they intended them to on the clients' platform.
Browser-less applications (.hta)	By building a "browser-less" application, developers can create anything from a calculator to a 401(K) tool, which is not cluttered by the browser's user interface.
New Debugging Messages ("Developer Mode")	When debugging an application, authors need descriptive feedback to know exactly where problems may be occurring. The error messages in Internet Explorer have been improved to give the developer detailed messages about scripting errors, HTML structure errors and other useful information for diagnosing application errors. This option is turned off by default for most users who are simply browsing the web.
Compatibility Mode	This special mode of Internet Explorer enables developers to test their sites using Internet Explorer 4 or 5.
Dynamic HTML's Power
Dynamic HTML Behaviors	Just as CSS enabled Web site producers to separate the content of a page from the format of a page, DHTML Behaviors separates behaviors too. Developers can build reusable scripts and custom XML tags that Web pages can simply reference. For example, a producer can write a script that commands text or pictures to fly in from the right side of the page. This script can be referenced from any page simply by calling its name and pointing to it. This allows writers to focus on content, graphic designers to focus on format, and developers to focus on engineering.
Internet Explorer 5 saves you time deploying and managing the most cost-effective Web solution
Faster and Smarter Installs/Downloads
AutoInstall	Users can install a 6.5-7MB browser-only version of Internet Explorer which includes the majority of components used on the Web. When users encounter a page which requires a component not on the computer, Internet Explorer will install it on demand.
Web-optimized Download	Setup has the ability to detect if a certain compatible version of a component is available on the machine (e.g., Java Virtual Machine). If so, it will not install the newest version until a user needs it, resulting in faster downloads.
Powerful Customization and Deployment for Administrators via Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) 5
Pre-install Components	Custom components can now be installed before Internet Explorer. For example, you can run a registry cleaning utility before you install the browser, thereby ensuring that none of the newly created browser registry entries are deleted.
Customize Custom Install	Administrators can pick and choose which components are available in the Custom install option.
Customize Browser Toolbars	Custom toolbar buttons can be added to launch applications or run scripts. The default toolbar buttons can each be disabled, reordered, etc. as well.
Favorites Customization	Favorites can be ordered and can also be placed either at the top or bottom of the list. Favorites can also be deleted during auto-configuration.
Customize Install Directory	Administrators can designate the directory in which Internet Explorer is installed.
Update Check Page	The browser can be re-directed at start to a custom URL at designated intervals. This can be used to post updates, periodic news, and so on.
"Feature Selection" Mode	Administrators can customize the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard to cover only the those features they want to use when they're customizing Internet Explorer for their organizations.
Automatic Digital Signing	IEAK users have the ability to pick a certificate they have purchased for signing code and the IEAK will automatically digitally sign the code it produces.
Integrated Customization & Deployment with Office 2000 Custom Install Wizard (OCIW)	Administrators can now easily customize Internet Explorer packages along with Microsoft Office, seamlessly entering the IEAK during an OCIW session. This results in single customization and deployment of productivity and Web client tools.