HTML5 TOC Does Not Show in IE8

[WhyUNoWork]

I opened a ticket on this issue already, but I was wondering if anyone else came across the problem in IE8. The TOC is coming up completely blank in IE8. This only happens when it's served via web server, not locally. IT claims that it's not blocking anything and is serving all files, and it works just fine in other browsers (Firefox, Chrome)

IE_HTML5_Issue.png

Anyone run into this issue?

[LTinker68]

I ran into something similar but it blocked all content, so I only saw some of the support structure (toolbar background, etc.). It turned out that while "hardening" the system, the sys admin disabled some functionality in IE itself. We don't have any other browsers on that system to verify that they were ok, but it's possible something was implemented on your workstation that disabled some of IE's functionality, which prevented something from showing from the web server.

Did you try accessing the web server from a different computer? If it was a company-wide policy setting change then they'd have the same problem, but if it's something just on your computer then that would narrow things down. If possible, check other versions of IE, too.

One other thing to test... I had this problem with normal WebHelp output built by IE8, but I didn't test with HTML5 output. You could try creating a test WebHelp output in IE8 and upload that to the web server and see if that's blocked, too. If it is, then you know it's not just a problem with HTML5 output. (For a further test, you could try building WebHelp output from v7 and see if that has an issue.)

[WhyUNoWork]

Thanks Lisa. WebHelp output is fine, it's just HTML5. Double-checked our server to make sure that they weren't blocking certain extensions or placing any system-wide security on IE in particular (i.e., "hardening"). They aren't, but it looks like our code is calling the help files using a window.open JavaScript call which might be causing IE to treat the help window like a popup, as opposed to a new window/tab. Gunna change that code and see what happens!

[i-tietz]

http://html5test.com/results.html
On that website you'll find out that IE8 is not really the browser to display HTML 5 output ...

[LTinker68]

http://html5test.com/results.html
On that website you'll find out that IE8 is not really the browser to display HTML 5 output ...

IE8 may not display all the CSS3 styles and effects but it should display the rest of the content, and I've confirmed that here. I'm using IE8 to view HTML5 output hosted on a web server and I can see the output fine, it's just that things like the curved borders on a paragraph don't display as curved borders but a standard square border. So whatever his issue is it's something else than the fact that he's using IE8, unless his specific instance of IE8 is set up with some extra security policies that screw up what he's seeing.

[WhyUNoWork]

http://html5test.com/results.html
On that website you'll find out that IE8 is not really the browser to display HTML 5 output ...

IE8 may not display all the CSS3 styles and effects but it should display the rest of the content, and I've confirmed that here. I'm using IE8 to view HTML5 output hosted on a web server and I can see the output fine, it's just that things like the curved borders on a paragraph don't display as curved borders but a standard square border. So whatever his issue is it's something else than the fact that he's using IE8, unless his specific instance of IE8 is set up with some extra security policies that screw up what he's seeing.

Yep. IE 8 definitely displays the rest of the content for HTML 5 targets. I can go on and on about "browser wars" and the annoyances of that, but if MadCap claims support for a certain version (and they do), then I expect it to work "out of the box" as advertised.

For the curious, the problem was actually two-fold:

1. The UI was calling the help window in IE using window.open() JavaScript. IE was therefore treating the window like a standard browser pop-up window and blocking certain functionality.
2. IE also had "Protected Mode" turn on by default. If you turn Protected Mode off (or placed our domain as a Trusted Site) the issue goes away.

[RamonS]

And both these settings are client side settings, which means MadCap has no chance to do anything about that.

[i-tietz]

And both these settings are client side settings, which means MadCap has no chance to do anything about that.

True.
That's why there's no working "out of the box" ... that's what I keep telling everybody ...
It depends on
- what special functions you are using,
- your own scripting,
- the user's browser/OS/anti-virus software/company firewall settings ...
and probably also the positions of the planets in the solar system or sth like that ...

Happy Easter holidays everybody!