Just a few days to the official release of Windows 10, but many of the new features that characterize it are already known and available to subscribers to the Insider program. In this article, we will see some of the news dedicated to the world of web developers: Microsoft Edge and Hosted Web App.
Microsoft Edge
After 20 years and several versions of Internet Explorer, with Windows 10 comes a completely new browser, called Microsoft Edge. Attention is focused not only on compatibility with W3C standards but also and above all with de facto standards, in order to promote interoperability.
Microsoft Edge uses a new rendering engine and a new Javascript engine, respectively EdgeHTML and Chackra. Furthermore, it is important to underline that it is a Universal Windows Platform, which will then be able to work on many types of devices and will always be updated for all users. Naturally, at this point it assumes a fundamental importance for developers to create websites that are responsive and able to adapt to different form factors.
Many pieces of code that were used only by Internet Explorer have been removed, and many new features have been added in parallel, the progress of which can be monitored at the following link.
Moreover, to check the compatibility of your website not only with Edge but more generally with all the different browsers, a website is available that can scan the fundamental characteristics of the site and for each of them evaluate the compatibility level.
Hosted Web App
Another important new feature of Windows 10 is that of the Hosted Web App, characterized by the fact that the code on which they are based runs on the server, and not within the application itself.
This feature allows the Hosted Web App to be always updated since updates are made exclusively on the server and are automatically reflected on applications. This means that there are no additional costs for the development and maintenance of the app, just work on the website.
The Hosted Web Apps have another very interesting feature: the ability to take advantage of the Universal Windows Platform APIs to use the features of the Windows 10 Apps. The interaction with Cortana, with the Calendar or the camera, or the possibility of send Toast notifications, are just some of the features available to you. Simply enter a check inside the code to see if it is running on the browser or within the application.
At this point we just have to wait for some practical demonstration of the technologies described up to now, so as to really understand the potential of the new Windows 10 web platform.
