Posts tagged ‘web browsers’
Flash support is increasingly a minefield
Posted Wednesday, March 13th, 2013.
Filed under e-learning, web design and development with the tags Adobe, Adobe Flash, Flash Player, opinion, web browsers, web design and development
Back in 2011, I mentioned that Microsoft was about to halt development of the Silverlight plugin, that Flash mobile was being discontinued, and that Adobe recommended HTML5 for enterprise RIA development instead of Flex, which was being open-sourced. My post was a little long-winded, but the short version was: whoa, the times-are-a-changin’, it’s getting dangerous to [...]
Sniffing Internet Explorer via JavaScript
Posted Wednesday, May 18th, 2011.
Filed under JavaScript, web design and development with the tags How-to, Internet Explorer, JavaScript, SWFObject, web browsers, web design and development
I’ve been reviewing bug submissions for the SWFObject project and was reminded of a big problem with SWFObject 2.2: the JavaScript technique it uses for detecting Internet Explorer does not work in Internet Explorer 9.
Providing the same UI across browsers
Posted Thursday, April 8th, 2010.
Filed under web design and development with the tags CSS, HTML, interface design, opinion, UI, web browsers, web design and development
If you change the default controls to match the look and feel of something your visitor has never seen before, you run the risk of creating confusion, distrust, or alienation. Even worse, if the controls are poorly made or conceived — and many are — you might make your site less usable. A cardinal sin.
The more I think about it, the real beneficiaries of a uniform UI across browsers aren’t the site visitors, but rather the designers who demand artistic control and the clients who insist the product looks the same everywhere, without understanding that it’s okay (even expected) to have some differences.
HTML5 Video, minus Ogg
Posted Friday, March 19th, 2010.
Filed under JavaScript, web design and development with the tags Adobe Flash, How-to, HTML 5, JavaScript, JavaScript UI Goodies, web browsers, web design and development
Mozilla, the makers of Firefox, refuse to support the MP4/H.264 standard because it isn’t open-source and free from licensing constraints. Without Ogg, Firefox’s HTML5 video is rendered useless and requires a Flash-based fallback system. However, Firefox’s handling of the video element breaks the fallback mechanism. A scripted solution is required.
Here’s a simple script that will detect whether HTML 5 video is supported in the browser, and if it is, will check to see if this is Firefox. If yes, it deletes the specified video element but leaves the Flash fallback in its place.
Viewing PDFs in a Browser on a Mac
Posted Saturday, February 20th, 2010.
Filed under General with the tags Adobe Reader, firefox, How-to, PDF, PDFObject, safari, web browsers, web design and development
As a Mac user, one of the more annoying issues I frequently encounter is funky PDF handling in Firefox and Safari. Here are some things you can do to get PDFs working in your browser(s).
Eolas is at it again
Posted Tuesday, October 6th, 2009.
Filed under General, web design and development with the tags Blackboard v Desire2Learn, Eolas, opinion, Rant, SWFObject, UCSF, web browsers, web design and development
This week — a year and a half after settling with Microsoft — Eolas has gone on the attack again, filing suit against “Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Argosy Publishing (publisher of The Visible Body), Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, J. C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, ‘transactional’ adult entertainment provider New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Rent-a-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube.”
Gotchas in Internet Explorer 8
Posted Saturday, March 21st, 2009.
Filed under JavaScript, web design and development with the tags best practices, CSS, How-to, Internet Explorer 8, JavaScript, Microsoft, standards, web browsers, web design and development
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is at Release Candidate 1, which means it will be released very shortly. IE8 is a brand-new browser and will represent a considerable shift from IE7/IE6; it will follow standards more closely and will offer much improved CSS 2.1 support. However, because of some of these changes, it is also widely understood that IE8 might ‘break’ websites that have relied on IE-specific hacks targeted at previous versions if Internet Explorer.
Disabling those pesky pop-up blockers
Posted Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008.
Filed under General, web design and development with the tags e-learning, How-to, pop-up blockers, web browsers
Here’s a list of common pop-up blockers with links to the manufacturer’s instructions for handling said blocker. Enjoy.
Dealing with Internet Explorer in your JavaScript Code
Posted Tuesday, November 25th, 2008.
Filed under General, JavaScript, web design and development with the tags How-to, JavaScript, jQuery, MooTools, standards, web browsers
It’s almost the end of 2008, and thanks to the hard work of web standardistas, browser vendors, and JavaScript framework developers, cross-browser JavaScript code is much less of an issue than it used to be. Even Microsoft is feeling the love — the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 will be a (mostly) clean break from legacy Internet Explorer releases and will behave much more like Firefox, Safari (WebKit) and Opera. …And they rejoiced.
So why is it that when I look under the hood of some recently produced web pages (learning management systems, courses produced by e-learning rapid development tools, general web pages, etc.), the pages’ JavaScript often includes incredibly out-of-date and bad-practice Internet Explorer detection?
Here’s a quick rundown on the dos and don’ts.
IE’s “Click to activate” a thing of the past
Posted Wednesday, April 16th, 2008.
Filed under web design and development with the tags Eolas, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, web browsers, web design and development
In case you hadn’t already heard: The “click to activate” behavior, formerly required for ActiveX controls embedded in some webpages, is now permanently removed from Internet Explorer. You’ll need to get the April 2008 Internet Explorer Cumulative Update. I believe the proper response is “woot!” [ Read the full Official IEBlog announcement.]
