Vendor and Customer Cranial Density
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| SFN Jan 24, 2005 5:04 AM EDT |
Our big browser problem is that we have one app (maybe it's not core but it would certainly be the mantle) that does not run on Firefox. In IE, the app is fine. In Firefox, a blank page displays. It's one of those "we only designed for IE and do not support other browsers" things. Personally, I'm inclined to get forceful with the vendor and threaten until they make whatever adjustment necessary (probably something quite minor) to make their app run on Firefox. Here's where the company's reluctance comes in. We've never been hit with any virus/trojan/malware that's done any real damage (knocking on every piece of wood within line of sight) so the higher-ups believe that there's no reason to switch. Sort of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" except that it is broke but we haven't had to deal with the consequences yet. So we continue to use IE because they must have this app. They honestly believe that the fact that this app only runs in IE is because of a shortcoming in Firefox. Customer stupidity aside, if you're a vendor that supplies apps that run via a browser interface, why would you not want to design your app to run on more than one browser? Unless of course, Bill and Steve Inc. is slipping cash into your pocket. I don't think that's the case with this particular company. So this is, what? Laziness? Cowardice? Subtle retardation? |
| PaulFerris Jan 24, 2005 5:31 AM EDT |
The last thing you said. From my experience, a lot of people design html in environments where IE "standards" thrive. Frontpage has "extentions" that are often useless or worse, distracting to the content being served. Take a good close look at LXer. It doesn't come off as all that flashy in the beginning. That initial flash is why some people go "wow!" when they first see a web site -- but on a news site the content is what keeps people coming back -- and if there's a bunch of junk on the screen it can detract at times from the focus. Advertising can be worse in that regard... Of course, there are times to break the rules (you may witness one of those times today;) but in general, simpler is better, and a lot of designers simply don't want to see this when they're going for look and feel issues. So, likely you've got some html layout clod that's doing some javascript or proprietary table tag (or worse, something that violates the web specs). Run it through html lint and see what falls out, my advice. You might find that they've got a bunch of broken table tags -- it's a wash from here because I can't see the html. Go to the page on the app in IE that won't display in firefox -- file "save as" and take a look with a text editor or html lint... --FeriCyde |
| SFN Jan 24, 2005 8:03 AM EDT |
I thought about doing that but HTML isn't really my strong suit. But, I'm trying to cut down on making excuses and I had some time to kill before a meeting so I figured I'd give it a shot. Guess what! The code is a mess. I mean a freaking mess. Little things like no ALT in the images. Bigger things like some IE-specific code. No DOCTYPE. No TYPE in the script. The list goes on and on. I found 37 different fouled-up snippets and I barely know what I'm doing. I've emailed the vendor. I'm guessing I'll hear from them in about an hour with a "thank you for your request". Then never again. Yes, my glass is half-empty. |
| PaulFerris Jan 24, 2005 8:57 AM EDT |
SFN: More power to you there! Maybe you can make the case that it isn't to web standards and could potentially break when a future version of IE is used on it. Even better -- it might not work with IE 1.0 -- get someone to load up an old version of windows 95 and see if the site won't load there -- then you have a case. Of course, the 95 box will get infected within seconds of being exposed to the net, so make sure it's good and firewalled :-) --FeriCyde |
| peragrin Jan 24, 2005 9:13 AM EDT |
Paul actually you can expose a fresh win95 to the internet without worries. The reason? All the really expolited code, needs features found in win98 or later. Heck most of those features require IE 5.0 or later, Win95 ships with 3.? . Security through obsolescence. Much stronger than security through obscurity. Even better try to find a program that supports win95 anymore. Firefox stopped with 0.3 I believe, though if you copied a sys file over you could make it run. until 0.9 never tried after that. |
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