With the crushage of the last remaining serious bug (in Konqueror on Linux) we can now announce that
we support the current (and known future) releases of all significant desktop browsers on all major platforms.
The complete browser support chart is below, along with lists of known bugs (all apparently in the browsers or on the server), and an opportunity to report any further troubles you are having on Daily Kos.
Some of the browsers have scaling problems. Specifically, Konqueror starts rendering poorly with over 250 expanded comments, and on weaker machines, Opera does too. Safari and Konqueror both buckle and collapse over 650 expanded comments or so, depending only somewhat on the strength of the machine. Clearly, webpages that huge aren't something the browser vendors were stress testing for; but we will let them know. In the meantime, if you have an affected browser, try Shrink Always mode in huge threads and open only the comments and subthreads you would like to read.
Support for older browser releases is reasonably comprehensive as well, but there are of course limits. This Ajax implementation is only supported in IE 5.5 and later; Netscape 7.2 and later (though NS 7.0 on Windows works OK), Firefox 1.07 and later, and Safari 1.3 and later. Older than that and you will start to uncover stuff they fixed in the browsers since then. Aim your ire at them, please, if they cut you off from being able to upgrade your browser on your existing hardware.
KNOWN BUGS REMAINING:
- Duplicate posts are possible: The client has been given code to prevent double-postings; we are still waiting on the server to be updated to block such redundancies.
- People are losing and regaining Trusted User status randomly. It has happened to me even.
- Sometimes in small threads one user is left without ratings controls
- [new] markers can come back on a manual reload.
- Foreign characters and curly quotes in subject lines appear something like &x2018;
ISSUES WE'LL JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH
Some things are out of our control and depend on the browser. It would be costly or impossible to try to compensate for them.
- Navigating to another page, then pressing the Back button will display the page from the last time you manually loaded/reloaded it.
- Doing so with the comment editor open may wipe your comment text.
- If a page takes a long time to load, you might be able to beat the script from rewiring the links. You will be in legacy mode until the script runs...be patient.
- Safari on Mac OS 10.2 Jaguar is not supported (see below).
REPORTING BUGS
Please let us know of additional problems. When you do so, it is important we are able to duplicate them on our test machines. Please provide with each report:
- Browser and version
- OS and version
- Bandwidth (56K dialup, 1.5MB Cable, etc)
- Processor GHz and RAM
This should be the last client code update before the next big step in Ajaxifying Daily Kos, but if you find other problems, please let me know here in a comment or track me down in an Open Thread or something. I read your emails but regret I can't respond to them, though I often can followup here on the site.
Cheers,
peeder
DAILY KOS AJAX COMPATIBILITY
Common Considerations:
The site will look and work much like the old site does with JavaScript disabled, or with browsers that don't support Ajax (old ones, mobile phones like the treo, etc.). This is called "legacy mode". The technology that makes that support so smooth, by the way, has the lovely name "progressive enhancement."
WINDOWS
Recommended Browser: Firefox 1.5
Firefox 1.5/1.07/Netscape 7.2 and later:
- No known issues, but staying up-to-date is recommended
- Firefox extensions may work but are not supported: if you load them into your browser, disable them (Tools/Extensions and right click them to Disable, then close _all_ Firefox windows and re-launch Firefox) and reproduce your problems before reporting them to us.
- Netscape 7.1 and earlier are not supported on any platform.
Internet Explorer 6 (Including AOL Explorer and Netscape 8 in IE mode when IE 6 installed):
- Links created with link editor are pasted in at the end of comments. They can of course be moved from there with a cut and paste.
- Find (on this page) will bring up an error message when done during a refresh. These can be safely dismissed and tried again in a few seconds. Turning off Autorefresh will help avoid this problem.
- Autorefresh may cause periodic "clicking" sounds as it loads (the same sounds as if you were pressing the reload button manually); these can be turned off in the Sounds tab of the Sounds Control Panel: Set the "Start Navigation" sound to "(None)".
- Renders faster than Firefox, but JavaScript is slower
- IE7 beta 2 works much like IE6
Internet Explorer 5.5:
- All IE6 problems. Even so, upgrading is recommended.
-
Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape 4 and earlier are all stuck in legacy mode (no Ajax).
Opera 8.5:
- Parent links on comments in /story mode open an ugly page instead of scrolling up (fixed in Opera 9)
MACINTOSH
Recommended Browser: Safari
Safari 2.x (on 10.4 Tiger) / 1.3x (on 10.3 Panther):
- May buckle and collapse under the weight of 600+ expanded comments, use Shrink Always mode in large threads.
- No other known issues provided Safari is updated via Software Update
Safari 0.x/1.x (Early versions on 10.2 Jaguar):
- These browsers are not supported.
- The site will render, but some links will not be clickable
Firefox 1.5.0.1/1.07/Netscape 7.2:
- Should now work fine.
- Not as fast as Safari, or as pretty.
Camino 1.0:
- Will support Ajax usage on 10.2 Jaguar
- Similar to Firefox but doesn't allow extensions; you may prefer it though.
Opera 8.5:
- Same problems as Windows Opera 8.5
Internet Explorer 5.2:
- Uses legacy mode...no Ajax support
- May be best browser for 10.1 and earlier
- IE is the only working option for MacOS 9.
LINUX
Recommended Browser: Firefox 1.5.0.1
Firefox 1.5.0.1:
Mozilla 1.7.12:
Opera 8.5.2:
- May have rendering problems on weaker machines, in addition to the problems on Windows.
Konqueror 3.4:
- Has some problems with scalability with large threads in Expand mode; sometimes it brings up the Script Continue dialog and other times gray lines are drawn over the comments. Use Shrink Always mode, and turn off autorefresh in large threads to avoid this.
- Bold and Italic buttons don't apply to selected text (fixed in Konqueror 3.5)