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Retired blog about web development, scripting,
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FireWow
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[web 2.0]
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I had been eagerly anticipating the announced developer feature list for Firefox 1.5 for a while now.
I had just read that the beta 2 just had maybe 20 bugs in it and most of them not really serious ones. So I got one at work and installed it. It works like a charm. Nice feel, very stable and I got it to spin some of the canvas demos linked at Simon's page.
The SVG and <canvas> support is cool enough. What is getting me really excited in a more and more AJAX-ish world are the E4X extensions for JavaScript. Having native XML support is just what we need to harness the real power on the client.
Big Problem: We cross platform web developers are now faced with something of a problem. Firefox is now very much there in advanced feature support and I expect Safari and Opera to catch up some time soon.
Problem is that I do not know where our sick old man IE stands with this. It seems like they have a difficult enough time implementing security features, tabbed browsing and CSS with their 7.0 release. Hoping they implement stuff like canvas may just be a pipe dream.
Now the question is: for the really cool web applications. Do we just drop support for IE and tell them there are better and free alternatives?
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Made by alper at 2005-10-26 21:48
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Re: FireWow
No sane company is going to try to market a product that doesn't work on IE; its marketshare is still some 80% if not more.
You can try browser-specific modes (use some alternate, less useful interface if you detect IE, and use all features when a real browser is detected) but given development costs as they are, fat chance. Especially considering that the real cool stuff is being enjoyed by only 20%, at best, of your client base.
You're really better off employing flash, java applets, or java web start, because at least people can install a plugin.
There's a thought. A plugin for IE that boosts its AJAX capabilities right up to firefox levels. Now -that- would be, ironically, a golden move by the firefox team to get more marketshare. It puts -THEM- in control of the web standards, and then it's just a matter of playing microsoft's game.
You know the drill; first keep the IE plugin just as cool and as up to date as firefox itself, but then, when your plugin is solidly entrenched, start being slow fixing bugs and such on the plugin, and make the features less convenient without breaking compatibility altogether. It's much easier now anyway - at this point in time you have half the web world hooked on your fun new features. At some point you make the plugin display: 'This plugin does not support this feature. Click here to fix this problem', and then one-click install firefox.
Morally corrupt? Possibly. I'm fairly sure it would work, unless microsoft commits a big bag of cash to web browsing again. A really big bag, because firefox is much better competition than netscape of yore.
Made by:
Reinier Zwitserloot
on October 27,2005 02:54
Re: FireWow
IE market share on general public PCs is one issue. A different one is the installed browser base of a certain company. Some companies (for instance those running Linux desktops) may very well have standardized on Firefox.
If you are developing a web application for them, there is no reason for you not to adhere to standards. Neither is there a reason to provide compatibility for IE bugs.
The idea of writing IE plugins to emulate Firefox specific plugins is not new. Given a good knowledge of Windows programming you can make IE do pretty much everything you want.
I believe this is even envisioned by the WHATWG to create cross platform compliance to the next generation of web standards.
Made by:
Alper
on October 27,2005 13:49
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No sane company is going to try to market a product that doesn't work on IE; its marketshare is still some 80% if not more.
You can try browser-specific modes (use some alternate, less useful interface if you detect IE, and use all features when a real browser is detected) but given development costs as they are, fat chance. Especially considering that the real cool stuff is being enjoyed by only 20%, at best, of your client base.
You're really better off employing flash, java applets, or java web start, because at least people can install a plugin.
There's a thought. A plugin for IE that boosts its AJAX capabilities right up to firefox levels. Now -that- would be, ironically, a golden move by the firefox team to get more marketshare. It puts -THEM- in control of the web standards, and then it's just a matter of playing microsoft's game.
You know the drill; first keep the IE plugin just as cool and as up to date as firefox itself, but then, when your plugin is solidly entrenched, start being slow fixing bugs and such on the plugin, and make the features less convenient without breaking compatibility altogether. It's much easier now anyway - at this point in time you have half the web world hooked on your fun new features. At some point you make the plugin display: 'This plugin does not support this feature. Click here to fix this problem', and then one-click install firefox.
Morally corrupt? Possibly. I'm fairly sure it would work, unless microsoft commits a big bag of cash to web browsing again. A really big bag, because firefox is much better competition than netscape of yore.