Tasman (layout engine)
Encyclopedia
Tasman was a layout engine
developed by Microsoft
for inclusion in the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer 5. Tasman was an attempt to improve support for web standards, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium
. At the time of its release, Tasman was seen as the layout engine with the best support for web standards such as HTML and CSS
. Internet Explorer for Mac is no longer supported, but newer versions of Tasman are incorporated in some other Microsoft products.
Tantek Çelik
led the team that developed the Tasman engine as the Software Development Lead. Tasman later became used as the layout engine for the MSN for Mac OS X
and Office 2004 for Mac
.
On May 15, 2003 Microsoft released the subscription-only MSN for Mac OS X
browser, which used an upgraded version of Tasman (version 0.9) as its layout engine. In a posting to the Mac Internet Explorer Talk list, Internet Explorer for Mac Program Manager Jimmy Grewal listed a number of improvements:
For a while Tasman was improved as part of a number of TV set-top box projects at Microsoft reaching version 1.0. The Tasman engine is now used in the Microsoft TV
Mediaroom Edition.
On May 11, 2004 Microsoft started shipping Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac
which incorporates a version of the Tasman layout engine in its email client Entourage
. Since Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
, Entourage has been replaced by Macintosh version of Microsoft Outlook
which uses WebKit
layout engine instead.
Layout engine
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
developed by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
for inclusion in the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer 5. Tasman was an attempt to improve support for web standards, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
. At the time of its release, Tasman was seen as the layout engine with the best support for web standards such as HTML and CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
. Internet Explorer for Mac is no longer supported, but newer versions of Tasman are incorporated in some other Microsoft products.
Tantek Çelik
Tantek Çelik
Tantek Çelik is a computer scientist of Turkish-American descent and was the Chief Technologist at Technorati. He is one of the principal editors of several CSS Specifications....
led the team that developed the Tasman engine as the Software Development Lead. Tasman later became used as the layout engine for the MSN for Mac OS X
MSN for Mac OS X
MSN for Mac OS X, was a dial-up client interface to Microsoft's pay-for-access online services for Mac users. It was discontinued in March 2005. The software was, in some respects, comparable to the AOL dial-up client given its channelized interface, built-in chat and instant messaging...
and Office 2004 for Mac
Office 2004 for Mac
Office 2004 for Mac is a version of Microsoft Office developed for Apple's Mac OS X operating system. The software was originally written for the PowerPC Macs, so Macs with Intel CPUs must run the program under Mac OS X's Rosetta emulation layer....
.
Version history
The first version of Tasman (referred to as "v0") was released with Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition on March 27, 2000. An upgraded version (version 0.1) followed on with the release of Internet Explorer 5.1 for Mac.On May 15, 2003 Microsoft released the subscription-only MSN for Mac OS X
MSN for Mac OS X
MSN for Mac OS X, was a dial-up client interface to Microsoft's pay-for-access online services for Mac users. It was discontinued in March 2005. The software was, in some respects, comparable to the AOL dial-up client given its channelized interface, built-in chat and instant messaging...
browser, which used an upgraded version of Tasman (version 0.9) as its layout engine. In a posting to the Mac Internet Explorer Talk list, Internet Explorer for Mac Program Manager Jimmy Grewal listed a number of improvements:
- Full UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
support. - Improved CSSCascading Style SheetsCascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
support, with CSS 3 Selectors, CSS TV Profile and @media - Improved DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
support with DOM 1 Core and DOM 2 Core, Style, and Events. Also improved compatibility with Windows IE DOM. - XHTMLXHTMLXHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
1.0 and 1.1 support, although it is not activated in MSN for Mac OS X. - Better support for Mac OS X features such as CoreGraphicsQuartz (graphics layer)Quartz specifically refers to a pair of Mac OS X technologies, each part of the Core Graphics framework: Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor. It includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card...
, ATSUIApple Type Services for Unicode ImagingThe Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging is the set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text starting with Mac OS 8.5 and in Mac OS X.It replaced the WorldScript engine for legacy encodings....
and CFSocketCore FoundationCore Foundation is a C application programming interface in Mac OS X & iOS, and is a mix of low-level routines and wrapper functions...
networking.
For a while Tasman was improved as part of a number of TV set-top box projects at Microsoft reaching version 1.0. The Tasman engine is now used in the Microsoft TV
Microsoft TV
Microsoft TV is a division within Microsoft Corporation that develops Smart TV software platforms for use in set top boxes to access programming over a Cable TV network. It provides integrated audio, video and data services over a single network.-UltimateTV:...
Mediaroom Edition.
On May 11, 2004 Microsoft started shipping Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
which incorporates a version of the Tasman layout engine in its email client Entourage
Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Entourage was an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS included...
. Since Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is the most recent version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Mac OS X. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and is comparable to Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows....
, Entourage has been replaced by Macintosh version of Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
which uses WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
layout engine instead.