| Other names | MSHTML[1][2][3] |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
| Initial release | August 1997; 27 years ago (1997-08) |
| Final release | 8.0 |
| Written in | C++[4] |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Successor | EdgeHTML |
| Type | Browser engine |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | docs |
Trident[1][2][3] (also known asMSHTML[1][2][5]) is aproprietarybrowser engine for theMicrosoft Windows version ofInternet Explorer, developed byMicrosoft.
MSHTML debuted with the release ofInternet Explorer 4 in 1997. For versions7 and8 of Internet Explorer, Microsoft made significant changes to MSHTML'slayout capabilities to improve compliance withWeb standards and add support for new technologies.[6][7][8]
MSHTML will continue to receive security updates[9] for the IE mode ofMicrosoft Edge until at least 2029. However, support for new Web standards will not be added.
MSHTML was designed as asoftware component to allowsoftware developers to easily add web browsing functionality to their own applications. It presents aCOM interface for accessing and editing web pages in any COM-supported environment, likeC++ and.NET. For instance, a web browser control can be added to a C++ program and MSHTML can then be used to access the page currently displayed in the web browser and retrieve element values. Events from the web browser control can also be captured. MSHTML functionality becomes available by linking the filemshtml.dll to the software project.
| MSHTML version | MSHTML.dll version | Internet Explorer version | Internet Explorer Mobile version | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No version[10] | 4.0.x | 4.0 | — | Initial version. |
| 5.0.x | 5.0 | — | ImprovedCSS 1 support and had sweeping changes in CSS 2 rendering. | |
| 5.5.x | 5.5 | — | Corrected issues with CSS handling. | |
| 6.0.x | 6.0 | — | Corrected thebox model and addedquirks mode withDTD switching. | |
| 7.0.x | 7.0 | — | Fixed many CSS rendering issues and added partialPNG alpha support. | |
| — | — | 6.0 | IEMobile 6 combines many features of IE 6, 7, and 8.[11] | |
| 3.1[12][13] | 7.0 | — | 7.0 | Second port on a mobile system of MSHTML. IE Mobile version forWindows Phone 7. |
| 4.0[14] | 8.0.x | 8.0 | — | First version to pass theAcid 2 test.[4] Added full support for CSS 2.1.[15] |
| 5.0[10] | 9.0.x | 9.0 | 9.0 | Added support forSVG,XHTML,HTML5, andCSS 3. Added a new hardware-acceleratedJScript engine namedChakra. Scores 100/100 on theAcid3 test. Included with IE 9 Mobile in Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango". |
| 6.0[16] | 10.0.x | 10.0 | 10.0[17] | More support forCSS 3,HTML5 andES5. Included inWindows Phone 8. Support forlinear gradient CSS transitions.[18] |
| 7.0 | 11.0.x | 11.0 | 11.0 | Support forWebGL andSPDY. Improved support for HTML5.[19] Speed improvement.[20] Included inWindows Phone 8.1. |
All versions ofInternet Explorer for Windows from 4.0 onwards use MSHTML, and it is also used by various otherweb browsers and software components (seeInternet Explorer shells). InWindows 98,Windows Me, andWindows 2000, it is also used for the Windows file manager/shell,Windows Explorer.[21] The Add/Remove Programs tool in Windows 2000 uses MSHTML to render the list of installed programs,[22] and in Windows XP it is also used for the User Accounts Control Panel, which is anHTML Application.[23] MSHTML, however, was not used byInternet Explorer for Mac (which usedTasman starting with version 5.0), nor by the early versions ofInternet Explorer Mobile.
Some other MSHTML-based applications include:
Current versions of MSHTML, as ofInternet Explorer 9, have introduced support for CSS 3, HTML5, and SVG, as well as other modern web standards. Web standards compliance was gradually improved with the evolution of MSHTML. Although each version of IE has improved standards support, including the introduction of a "standards-compliant mode" inversion 6, the core standards that are used to build web pages (HTML and CSS) were sometimes implemented in an incomplete fashion. For example, there was no support for the<abbr> element which is part of the HTML 4.01 standard prior to IE 8. There were also some CSS attributes missing from MSHTML, like min-height, etc. as of Internet Explorer 6. As ofInternet Explorer 8 CSS 2.1 is fully supported as well as some CSS 3.0 attributes.[15] This lack of standards compliance has been known to cause rendering bugs and lack of support for modern web technologies, which often increases development time for web pages.[25] Still, HTML rendering differences between standards-compliant browsers are not yet completely resolved.
Apart from MSHTML, Microsoft also has and uses several other layout engines. One of them, known asTasman, was used inInternet Explorer 5 for Mac. Development of Internet Explorer for Mac was halted in roughly 2003, but development of Tasman continued to a limited extent, and was later included inOffice 2004 for Mac.Office for Mac 2011 uses the open sourceWebKit engine. Microsoft's now defunct web design product,Expression Web, as well asVisual Studio 2008 and later, do not use Internet Explorer's MSHTML engine, but rather a different engine.[26]
In 2014, MSHTML wasforked to create the engineEdgeHTML forMicrosoft Edge [Legacy] onWindows 10. The new engine is "designed for interoperability with the modern web" and deprecates or removes a number of legacy components and behaviors, including document modes, ensuring that pure, standards-compliant HTML will render properly in browsers without the need for special considerations by web developers.[27][28] This resulted in a completely new browser called Microsoft Edge (later referred to as "Microsoft EdgeLegacy",[29] with a flat blue "e" icon) which replacedInternet Explorer as Windows' stock browser and became the base of Microsoft's web related services, until its replacement with aBlink /Chromium[30][31]-based browser, also calledMicrosoft Edge[32][33] (with a brand new wave-like icon) in late 2020.
Microsoft is committed to supporting Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge through at least 2029, on supported operating systems.
SharePoint Designer doesn't use Trident. SharePoint Designer, Expression Web, and the next version of Visual Studio's Visual Web Designer (code name Orcas) all use the same standards-based web design component. This component was developed jointly by the three product teams for high fidelity rendering of web standards like CSS, XHTML, as well as ASP.net.
The new Microsoft Edge is based on Chromium and was released on January 15, 2020
