Browser problems with ucapps.de and Smash's store

[stryd_one]

Hi guys,

A little thing has bugged me for ages so I thought I'd bring it up. As a one-time web dev myself I absolutely understand that browser cross-compatibility is a tricky SOB, so there's no pressure to fix these issues but... When using IE;

ucapps.de chops the end off of text in some of it's tables

and

Smash's store's live board maps disappear

These are both OK with firefox.

I've attached screenshots to demonstrate, hope this helps. I'd be more than happy to try and fix this for you if you don't have the time or inclination, but seeing as I don't do web dev professionally any more I don't know if I could fix it as fast as you guys :)

StupidBrowsers.JPG

[smashtv]

To be completely honest I don't know whether to fix this or not.....

It's basically Microsoft bullying people into ignoring the html standards, for a browser experience that is less than you would possibly expect out of anything else.

More Wintendo anyone?    ;D

Think of it this way:

Someone wants to build their SID using the an ultra-spike 2000 ATX switching power supply because someone gave it to them for free when they were scrapping a doorstop PC.  It will work, the SID will make sound, but the experience won't be great due to the noise and hum.  Do we tell them to start stacking caps between the rails to reduce the noise, or do we tell them to get a linear power supply going like was originally intended? 

Not trying to bash MS, tech support puts food on the table for a lot of people.  I was so impressed during the transition from DOS to win 3.1 that I went out and bought a mac.  These days I'm so impressed with how secure/virus proof/stable Wintendo has become, how well it works with known standards, and how many junk/process patents MS likes to milk the industry with, I'll walk past all those BSOD havin' machines to buy my next mac.  :)

Maybe a small "get firefox" button on both sites would be the best fix?  ;D

Best

Smash

[stryd_one]

LOL I know what you mean...

I took a look at this and noticed that some were OK and some weren't... turns out it's the height="*" and width="*" statements in the IMG tags... Seems IE assumes *=0. WTF.

I'm really not sure what's up with that because I'm positive that I've used it before. I have a feeling that it will resize the image to the object containing it (like a table or something) and because this image is not contained it has a null value for the size attributes of the container. If I could be f*cked, I'd make a page with some tables to test it ;)

Anyway just thought I'd let you know the quick fix. I know exactly what you mean with that "get firefox" thing, but the unfortunate truth is that most users still run IE, supply and demand.... Personally, I have to use both for work because of various web-based frontends that don't work right with either FF or IE, but although FF is certainly more strict in it's observations of the supposedly accepted standards (grrr M$) the majority of people use it, so the majority of pages work with it, so it's set as my default because it's the one that works the majority of the time.

Of course, then there's the moralistic side of the argument - sometimes it's tempting to say 'no, damnit, i refuse to condone this. follow the standards or miss out on my site.'

The thing that really sh*ts me is that we shouldn't have to worry about this at all. How bloody hard is it to get the Mozilla, MS and W3C in a room and sort it out?! I think they're all as bad as each other sometimes....

[stryd_one]

OK figured out what's up with ucapps.de's tables. It's a three-hit combo. Unfortunately once again I think that it's a matter of following the DTD but interpreting it differently.

Our three culprits are the TABLE tag's WIDTH and CELLSPACING attributes...

<TABLE WIDTH=100% BORDER=0 CELLSPACING="5" CELLPADDING=0>

combined with the CSS attributes for the table and it's cells.

font-size:10pt;

When FF renders the table, it takes the 100% width of the container, creates the cells, subtracts the cellspacing from the cell size, and wraps the text according to that size.

When IE renders the table, it takes the 100% width of the container, creates the cells, and wraps the text according to that size, but then the cellspacing cuts down the size of the cells, leaving insufficient space for the text.

Obviously the FF way is preferable, but there is are two ways to get them both to work -

1) Just remove the WIDTH=100% and allow the cells to take as much room as they need

2) Subtract the cellspacing from the table width to allow for IE <TABLE WIDTH=95% BORDER=0 CELLSPACING="5%" CELLPADDING=0>

3) Do <TABLE WIDTH=580....

Option 1) means less control but IE and FF both appear to render very similarly, and the result is close to the one we have now

Option 2) gives more control, but renders 5% smaller in FF.

Option 3) takes into account that all of this sits within a 600px wide table, and spares the 20px of cellspacing. This renders the same in both browsers but is more static.

I think that given the non-dynamic nature of the ucapps.de site, option 3 would be best.

Of course all that stuff I said before about whther you should bother fixing it still counts :)

[smashtv]

I took a look at this and noticed that some were OK and some weren't... turns out it's the height="*" and width="*" statements in the IMG tags... Seems IE assumes *=0. WTF.

Wow if it is just that I need to step off my high horse a minute and own up to my lazy html....I have no idea but I doubt "*" is any standard!  ;D

If you happen to have a spare minute and Internet Exploder open already, let me know if my SID page is working as expected now....I'm sifting through all of my sloppy html now replacing the * with real numbers....

Good eye on ya Stryd, thanks man!

Smash

[stryd_one]

No, no, you were right.

The DTD says, that the '*' should be recognised as '1*', using the format where 'n*' will size the object to a minimum dimension of 'n', and resize above that where necessary; for eg 20* will be a minimum fo 20px, and can be resized above that.

I believe that is the reason why we don't see one of those placeholder images with the red X (like when the image is missing)... The image is there, but it's 1 pixel across, because it's been stretched to 'NULL' (the size IE thinks the container is). FF sees the container size as NULL and avoids the resize entirely, giving us a normal sized image.

It's another case of interpretation of the standard. Technically speaking, FF and IE are both in the right (actually I think IE is more right on this one, 'NULL' means 'NULL' not 'ignore this setting' , but there is no real standard, because the end behaviour is completely different. ....What a crock! :D

Heheheh now you know why I avoided mentioning this ;)

PS "NULL means NULL!" AAAHAHAHAH lordy me that's funny. I love accidental jokes :)

[nebula]

FWIW I'm a Mac user at home as well, and at work I find MSIE on Windows to be just a horrid browsing experience.  No tabs,  lots of pages lay out poorly, and -- did you ever notice this -- it can't print!  Just go to any page with tables or frames, and try to print without having at least one edge cropped off.

Seriously, Microsoft has totally missed the browser boat.  Everybody who's anybody is using FireFox or some other browser that actually works nowadays.  I say that if people can't get another browser working then they're probably not really up for the task of building a MIDIBox.

[stryd_one]

Tabbed browsing is pretty new to browsers and that's why it's available in IE7 but not IE6 (which is fast approaching EOL). You're comparing different vintages, like comparing a 2006 Ford with a 81 Chevy and saying that the chevy is crap cause it doesnt have fuel injection. It's not crap, it's old. You might want to try the IE7 beta if you have to use Microsoft products and really want tabbed browsing....

The printing problems are page design and/or user error, not IE, sorry dude.

Seriously, Microsoft has totally driven the browser boat. Until FireFox came along, the only browser that came close was Netscape Navigator 3 and even then it was only during the time of IE3, which sucked. If IE3 hadn't been possibly the most crappy browser ever, you wouldn't have even heard of Netscape. And unfortunately FF is too far from being a finished product. It doesn't work with the vast majority of enterprise level web-based systems management applications, and it integrates poorly with windows. Most major non-unix vendors (Microsoft, Novell, HP, IBM) require the use of IE for their management products. Some vendors like Novell for example will require IE for one job, and FF for another.

All of the problems experienced with IE or FF or nutscrape or any other browser just come down to site design really. If IE didn't exist, we'd be having this same discussion about how it works with Opera but doesn't work with FF. It's not a problem with any one particular browser, just that all the different browsers have different implementations based on different interpretations of the w3c specs.

I say that people should not jump on the "bash MS" bandwagon until they're fully educated. I'm not saying IE is perfect, far from it! But all the things that IE can be accused of doing wrong, can also be said about any other browser. Until the developers get off their lazy butts and get together and sort this out, there will always be a requirement for more than one browser installed on a PC, in order to ensure full web functionality. The problem is not any one browser's differences from other browsers - the problem is that there are differences between them at all. HTML does not change, neither should the way it is rendered.

[audiocommander]

The printing problems are page design and/or user error, not IE, sorry dude.

hrm, hhh  :-\

sorry having to stab you in the back, mate;

if you ever printed a page from safari, you know how wonderful this can be from a well-thought and planned browser (nearly the same applies for ff). I don't think it should be in the programmer's field to think about printability on a screen-optimized media (although I don't like frames, but Safari f.ex. has the option to print "the biggest frame only")...

I've been calm 'cause I know my addiction to M$ flame wars (;D), but I've seen friends of mine catching a worm from the internet 20 minutes after a fresh install, just by searching a virus protection software with IE  ;D ;D

But the worst thing, that pis*es me really, is the behaviour of M$: Billy and his crew are fully aware of the W3C defined standards but they ignore them willingly and add proprietary visible features just to push out competitors, because 50% of all webdesigners will then optimize their code for M$IE and 75% of all webusers will then say: 'bah! this won't work with FF', because they don't know that all (okay: most) browsers work with standards, just IE is ignoring them.

This is not about 'this software is better than that', it's about defining standards for effective informational intercommunication (it's the same with openDoc or rtf and MS.doc-format). That's why I'm getting really angry about that, because it's nothing than a purblind dumb behavior about gaining maximum money against visions of free informational flow >:(

So IMHradicalO: if it doesn't work in IE, switch ya browser

(at least if it's no critical section such as a menu or something...)

cheers, ;)

Michael

(and stryd_, I like you even if you're browsing with IE  :-*)

[stryd_one]

hrm, hhh  :-\

sorry having to stab you in the back, mate;

LOL it's all good man, I might be wrong! You shouldn't apologise for discussing stuff and educating each other, we're all friendly :)

if you ever printed a page from safari, you know how wonderful this can be from a well-thought and planned browser (nearly the same applies for ff). I don't think it should be in the programmer's field to think about printability on a screen-optimized media (although I don't like frames, but Safari f.ex. has the option to print "the biggest frame only")...

You can select which frame(s) to print in IE too though  :-\ Honestly I've not had any problems printing frames, aside from not setting up the page correctly (like not selecting the right frames) - Although on MANY occasions I have quickly printed a page and not really payed attention, I have had things like mentioned before where frames are chopped off, but it has always been easily corrected. For example in IE if you only want to print the largest frame, then when you print, you can right-click the frame and select print, and that frame will be automatically selected and the others will not, or you can go to the menu file... print and select the frames you want from the display. If the page is setup with absolute values then IE will respect them, but if it is setup with dynamic resizing then the page will resize to the paper. If you need to fit the page to the paper regardless of it's rendered size, you should be able to scale it within the setup for your printer driver. Often I find out that people have had a problem with windows because they didn't know about some buried feature though...

I've been calm 'cause I know my addiction to M$ flame wars (;D), but I've seen friends of mine catching a worm from the internet 20 minutes after a fresh install, just by searching a virus protection software with IE  ;D ;D

I don't want this to become a flame war of any kind :(

LOL I'm surprised that it took as long as that! Sorry but that's an install procedural fault. These days you need to have a firewall and antivirus software on CD or other removable media, ready for installation prior to networking a Windows machine. Microsoft can hardly be blamed for this, it is just that the viruses are targeted at the most popular platform in order to achieve maximum penetration. In fact there were far more vulnerabilities recorded for non-windows systems last year than for Windows. (Actually very interesting, that list - it has all the recorded vulnerabilities for the year for all software and hardware...I'll find the link and post it. I was surprised that M$ did so well!)

But the worst thing, that pis*es me really, is the behaviour of M$: Billy and his crew are fully aware of the W3C defined standards but they ignore them willingly and add proprietary visible features just to push out competitors, because 50% of all webdesigners will then optimize their code for M$IE and 75% of all webusers will then say: 'bah! this won't work with FF', because they don't know that all (okay: most) browsers work with standards, just IE is ignoring them.

This is not about 'this software is better than that', it's about defining standards for effective informational intercommunication (it's the same with openDoc or rtf and MS.doc-format). That's why I'm getting really angry about that, because it's nothing than a purblind dumb behavior about gaining maximum money against visions of free informational flow >:(

I absolutely agree with this, but the problem is, supply and demand. Microsoft's answer to this is something along the lines of "we have compatibility mode that can be invoked with just one line of code to make IE W3C compliant" Which is mostly true, but not entirely IMO... and "If people don't want these features then why do web developers use them?" And that last argument is hard to beat :( We live in a supply and demand society, so when people demand the features, M$ will supply. The technically inclined and competent such as ourselves understand the necessity for standards, and standards compliant browsers, but the vast majority of computer users just get a PC with Windoze and IE installed and want it to just work. They don't know or care about the W3C :( It's a capitalist way of doing things but hey that's why I don't vote  ;)

So IMHradicalO: if it doesn't work in IE, switch ya browser

Totally! I have been ignoring these two problems (and many others) and switching browser for a few years now :) But it caused a problem for a newbie who couldn't see the 3D on smash's page, so I thought it was time to mention it. And it turns out that the fixes are fairly straightforward, so it's not a big deal. If it took major code changes, IMO it wouldn't be worth the effort. Better to use a "Get FireFox" button :)

(and stryd_, I like you even if you're browsing with IE  :-*)

Hehehehheeheh  ;D IE is my default, because I have to use it for work, but as I mentioned I do have both IE and FF on here because I have to use FF for some sites/systems. I think everyone has to have more than one browser these days (I'm sure there are some sites that you have to use IE on, just as there are some I have to use FF on some). It's a bummer!!

[audiocommander]

Hey stryd,

it's no fun arguing with you, we're definitely too polite for this :(

;D ;)

(If I'll ever come to Australia, we have to meet for an australian beer, okay?) :)

Cheers,

Michael

[nebula]

^^^^ Pussy.

How's this?  When I use MSIE I feel as though I'm sucking Bill Gates off.

The notion that FireFox "integrates poorly with windows" is a good thing.  It keeps the browser separate from the operating system.  In fact, the whole browser integration concept was nothing more than a deceptive ploy on the part of MS to "cut off Netscape's oxygen supply" by bundling their browser with Windows98.  When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that they were not allowed to do this, they insisted that Internet Explorer is part of the OS!  Has been since the dawn of time!

Microsoft has "driven the browser boat"?  By doing what, exactly?  Luring lazy developers who want to create enterprise-based web apps?  Um ... that's a no-brainer, because every Windows-equipped enterprise machine has MSIE on it already!  Why would I, as an in-house developer, ever test my apps on other browsers when I know everybody will already have IE?

>"If people don't want these features then why do web developers use them?"

Because they're easier, in the short term, even though they break consistency of syntax and structure.  Example:  if you were working on coding MIDIBox SID, and TK put a function right in MIOS called something like "play_sid_piano_note(x)" where you stick in a value from 1 to 127 and that uploads a cheesy piano sound to a SID connected directly to that core, then plays the specified note about a quarter of a second later -- would you ever use it?  Probably not, because it doesn't work all that well - but at least it's consistent.  You're a musician, after all, and you need better.  There are functions already in MIOS that will make this possible, but it's going to require a lot more work than that.

Enterprise application designers don't give a rat's ass about web standards.  They want their job done quickly at the end of the day.  The reality is you could use that SID Piano function to make a little tune.  It would sound like garbage, but you could push a tune out the door. 

If IE3 hadn't been possibly the most crappy browser ever, you wouldn't have even heard of Netscape.

Where do you get this from?  I used Netscape for over a year (since version 0.7), before MSIE even existed.  In fact, MSIE used the NCSA Mosaic engine when it was first introduced.  MS bought it.  And MSIE was a separate download from Windows 3.1 and Windows95.

In fact, if memory serves, I don't even think there was an Internet Explorer version 2, because Netscape was already up to version 3 by that point, and Microsoft didn't want it to sound as though they were "1 behind" to people trying to pick a browser.  So they skipped right to version 3.

And unfortunately FF is too far from being a finished product.

OK, do you work for Microsoft?  Can you elaborate on this?  Too far ... for what?

As far as the printing stuff:  my workplace is fast-paced.  Our enterprise machines have MSIE only on them, and users are locked out from installing any software.  I am issued a personal laptop however which I can customize as I please.  Frequently over the course of a day I am required to find a product or tidbit of information on the web, print it, and give it to somebody.  MSIE almost never works on the first try.  For this reason alone, when I know I might have to print a web page, I move to FireFox on my laptop, even if I'm already sitting in front of a corporate desktop.  And to suggest that this is due to laziness on the part of web developers is a copout, when "alternative" browsers such as FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc are developed based on standards-compliance.  I would contend that the lazy developers here are the ones who make MSIE.

I maintain my position, but elaborate: Internet Explorer is not a modern web browser.  Perhaps as you state, IE7 will be better, but right now almost all other browsers run circles around it.  Is it from a different vintage?  I don't care.  Everything else is better right now.  And I don't understand why you apologize for it.  As for tabbed browsing, I've been doing it for the past 3 years or so, long before MSIE was nearing EOL.

This might seem like an off-topic rant, but it's not completely:

This is a community of open-source developers, information sharers, hobbyists, and tinkerers.  We are the people who stand to lose the most when companies arbitrarily put their proprietary meat-hooks all over everything and mess it up for the rest of us.  Look at the Mackie Control C4, a simple yet beautiful goddamn box of knobs and displays, yet Mackie made its protocol proprietary to prevent people like us from ever making anything that can work as well - it is big business (Mackie) dealing with big business (Apple/Steinberg/Digidesign/etc), and they genuinely do NOT have our best interests in mind.  There is no reason in the world why that protocol ought to be closed, other than to protect their bottom line.

What would happen if a synth manufacturer were to make their own proprietary messages over MIDI?  You know, so that when it's talking about notes and mod wheel, other synths think it's talking about program changes and active sensing.  Then they made their synth really inexpensive, but really capable?  Ignorant newbies would buy it as their "first synth", and then software developers would have to make their stuff able to talk to it.  Guess what?  That synth manufacturer just hijacked MIDI!  Suddenly our MIDIboxes cause havoc when they're connected on the same chain as a 72-MIDI-channel polyphonic humidity sensing Rolahorg DX2000!

Is my point of view extreme?  Probably... but I'm glad to not run MSIE, and frankly I care more about what I just flushed down the toilet than I do about making pages work well in it.  I'd much rather boycott that company and all the evil things they do.

I say that people should not jump on the "bash MS" bandwagon until they're fully educated.

I leave this comment until the end.  Stryd, I'm going to be honest with you:  I appreciate all of the contributions you make around here, but this comment offends me.  I bash MS and I'm fully educated.  And I'm not alone.  In fact I would contend the opposite ... that people should not jump on the "defend MS" bandwagon until they've had a chance to fully think through the ramifications of MS's actions.

[nebula]

LOL I'm surprised that it took as long as that! Sorry but that's an install procedural fault. These days you need to have a firewall and antivirus software on CD or other removable media, ready for installation prior to networking a Windows machine. Microsoft can hardly be blamed for this, it is just that the viruses are targeted at the most popular platform in order to achieve maximum penetration. In fact there were far more vulnerabilities recorded for non-windows systems last year than for Windows. (Actually very interesting, that list - it has all the recorded vulnerabilities for the year for all software and hardware...I'll find the link and post it. I was surprised that M$ did so well!)

AIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Do you hear yourself???  How do you know why viruses get targeted to one platform or another?  Do you write them?  More vulnerabilities all year for non-windows systems?  Are you on crack?  Yes, please back that up with a link or something.

This is not a flame - it's a challenge.

[stryd_one]

I know it's not flameage :) You two especially are too nice for that :)

I know about this stuff because it's my job to fix busted IT systems... Unfortunately. hehehehe Oh and yeh, I did used to write them, but that was maaany years ago (Back when payloads were nasty and trashed your motherboard permanently or nailed your hard drive. I grew out of such things).

LOL @ 'am I on crack'. I know what you mean, I didn't believe it at first myself.... Took me a while to find this link cause it's old as dirt, but here 'tis. http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB2005.html

Information in the US-CERT Cyber Security Bulletin is a compilation and includes information published by outside sources, so the information should not be considered the result of US-CERT analysis. Software vulnerabilities are categorized in the appropriate section reflecting the operating system on which the vulnerability was reported; however, this does not mean that the vulnerability only affects the operating system reported since this information is obtained from open-source information.

This bulletin provides a year-end summary of software vulnerabilities that were identified between January 2005 and December 2005. The information is presented only as a index with links to the US-CERT Cyber Security Bulletin the information was published in. There were 5198 reported vulnerabilities: 812 Windows operating system vulnerabilities; 2328 Unix/Linux operating vulnerabilities; and 2058 Multiple operating system vulnerabilities.

Scary huh.

What's really scary about this is the number of people, myself being one, who before reading this, are convinced that Windoze is by far the buggiest thing around. Shows the power of propaganda to fool the masses, and what large fools we make of ourselves by believing it.

I'll get to that other post in a bit :)

[stryd_one]

heheheheh

2 months till oktoberfest, AC ;)

[audiocommander]

What's really scary about this is the number of people, myself being one, who before reading this, are convinced that Windoze is by far the buggiest thing around.

Call me sceptical, but I don't think you can measure this with blank numbers.

I don't know anyone running his/her window$ not as administrator, just because a lot of dumb software developers force the users to be logged in as admin.

Most people even don't know about user rights if you ask them!

For example, there were reported some "vulnerabilites" with Mac OS X and great announcements, but in both cases, you had to click "OK" on two dialogues and enter your root-password to get something nasty... so, if that's counted as "vulnerability" and treated equally to some "innocent-browsing-and-unknowingly-sending-worms-to-all-your-beloved-friends-and-working-colleagues-as-well-as-all-your-newsletter-recipients-"... well... ;D

...there's a german saying: "don't trust any statistic that you haven't faked by yourself"

Is my point of view extreme?  Probably... but I'm glad to not run MSIE, and frankly I care more about what I just flushed down the toilet than I do about making pages work well in it.

:)

and stryd_ you will come to the oktoberfest? ;D ;D  ...or just joking?