Browsers and Operating Systems Supported by WebHelp

[Bibba1bro123]

I need to find out the definitive list of browsers (and browser versions) and operating systems that WebHelp supports (that is, can operate on). Can anyone provide this list or point me to a company document that details this?

Thank You,
Ray

[RamonS]

The Flare System Requirements in the knowledge base show this:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later; Mozilla FireFox 1.0 or later; Safari 1.3 or later on Mac OS X

That said, it should also work fine then with Firefox on Linux and Mac (same engine as on Windows), Safari on Windows (same engine as on OS X), Chrome (same engine as Safari), Konqueror (same engine as Safari, Konqueror works on Windows, Linux, BSD/OS X). My tests show that Opera 9.64 does not work, which is a bug in Flare's WebHelp. At least the knowledge base does not load properly, which shows that the Flare WebHelp is apparently not entirely standards compatible (most likely to make it work in IE)

That should cover plenty of options and the three popular platforms. I don't know about browser in OS/2 Warp and BeOS, but you'll be hard pressed to find those in large numbers (which is sad in both cases, because both are way better OS in general design than what we got today, but both are no longer under development for quite some time). The four major rendering engines are KHTML/WebKit (which seems to be the most popular right now) used by Konqueror, Safari, and Chrome, the IE engine used by IE (nobody would be stupid enough to use that even if they could), the Mozilla engine (which is used by Firefox, Firefox clones and many other browsers built upon Gecko), and Presto (used by Opera and together with WebKit probably the best rendering engine available right now).

I guess text based browsers are out of the question, because they usually do not support frames, but the individual topic files should be understood to some extent.

Also, keep in mind where your audience is located. For example, in Europe Firefox has about 40% to 50% of the browser market, with IE currently being second and soon to be third or entirely irrelevant. The days of the IE-only approach are finally over.

Hope this answered your question.

[Madcap Guru]

Safari on the PC and Chrome Work well with the Webhelp, but once in awhile it does some screwy stuff....

[DianeP5001]

Flare 5 might work with Firefox on Linux from a client machine, but it does not work when the WebHelp is delivered on a Linux server. Flare 4.2 DOES work. Flare 5 seems to inconsistently name and call files and folders, particulary the skin folder in the output Data directory, in the Navigation.htm file, in GETs to the skin, and other places I was not able to locate.

Needless to say, I've moved back to Flare 4.2 until this issue is resolved in Flare 5.0. I've submitted a defect.

[LTinker68]

I don't have Flare open at the moment to verify, but I think in v4.x they added an option to have filenames saved with lowercase names. If you enable that option, does it help?

[DianeP5001]

I do have the "Use lowercase filenames" option selected in the WebHelp target. I'm using the same source files and doing a build from Flare 4.2 and then from Flare 5.0. Flare 4.2 works. Flare 5.0 does not.

[LTinker68]

It's quite possible that in fixing something or adding a feature that something else was broken. Contact MadCap Support directly.

[Madcap Guru]

What kind of Webserver are you running on your linix box? You may want to contact support on this...

[KJohnsonDBTK]

Has anyone tested WebHelp on Konqueror? I can get the content files to open, but the navigation panes will not function.

I'm using Flare version 5 and Konqueror version 3.3.1 on CentOS.

[Madcap Guru]

I don't belive that Flare had been tested with that Browser

[Pamb10]

What is the updated list of supported browsers for Flare 6?

[RamonS]

My guess is that it would be the same browsers as before just in newer versions. I wasn't able to find a list on the MadCap site. Do you have a specific browser in mind?

[LTinker68]

The requirements are listed in the KB at http://kb.madcapsoftware.com under Flare > Installation - Activation - Registration > IAR1001 -Flare System Requirements. The page says it was updated on March 5, 2010, so it should include any changes for v6.

[Pamb10]

I did see that page, but was questioning its content, google chrome is not listed but I see that people are using it.

[LTinker68]

From what I understand, Chrome is still considered to be a "beta" product, and MadCap doesn't officially support beta products, only production releases. If Google ever gets around to officially releasing it, then MadCap will officially support it.

[RamonS]

Chrome is not beta, it is at version 4.0.249.89...although that appears to change by the hour.

[Andrew]

I did see that page, but was questioning its content, google chrome is not listed but I see that people are using it.

I'm pretty sure Chrome is now out of beta.

However, MadCap probably doesn't have to do anything to support Chrome if they support Safari; both use the Webkit rendering engine.

[help_dude]

I see we're coming up on a year since the last posing...Is anyone still having this issue? Because I am.

I'd like to know if there is any fix for it or does Flare and/or WebHelp simply not support Google Chrome?

Thanks!

[Paul Griffiths]

There's another thread on this issue (search for "Chrome") but WebHelp served from a web server is fine in Chrome. IIRC the problem is that Chrome does not display WebHelp from your local file system. This is a deliberate security policy which, AFAIK, is not MadCap's fault.