Browser support

[devangee]

This is going to be a dumb question, but I can't find any answer in the Help on on the forum.
Does the WebHelp output support all browsers?

We are designing for IE since the majority of our users use IE, but there is a small minority that uses other browsers.
What limitations, if any, will there be if the user opens the help in an alternate browser. I know formatting will likely be different, but is there anything else that should be of concern?

[Richard Ferrell]

Please the followign Knowledge base article on what Browsers Flare Supports.

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/Content/Fl ... ements.htm

[kevinmcl]

That KB page says that "Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or greater" is supported.

However, I understand that Firefox 3 does not work with Flare WebHelp that is accessed locally (i.e., not served) as is all my WebHelp.
Is that true?
Is it being investigated further?
Is the KB page about to be updated with a caveat?

Thanks,

Kevin

[RamonS]

FF3 is currently in beta so one would assume that this version is excluded for now.

[saanvik]

I'm running into a problem with Flare 2.5, WebHelp, and Safari, both on Windows and Mac. The content displays just fine, but none of the Index, Search, etc., tabs work.

Is anyone else seeing the same?

[kevinmcl]

FF3 is currently in beta so one would assume that this version is excluded for now.

Madcap got together with the Mozilla/Firefox people, and the GA version of FF3 has eliminated the problem with WebHelp that is browsed locally.

Special thanks to Neil P. for taking on the problem and escalating it until somebody fixed it.

- Kevin

[Richard Ferrell]

Well it looks like the FireFox people fixed it on thier own,

[RamonS]

And the final version of FF3 is available tomorrow on "D-Day" for download day. Mozilla needs everyones help to break a record with FF3 being the most downloaded piece of software within a day.

[KevinDAmery]

And the final version of FF3 is available tomorrow on "D-Day" for download day. Mozilla needs everyones help to break a record with FF3 being the most downloaded piece of software within a day.

Hope they've got some hefty servers....

[RamonS]

I'm sure they do, but this is an ideal showcase for the power of P2P distribution where the load of the file downloading is distributed among many and several servers only manage small pieces of information necessary to find the bits and pieces spread all over the world.

[KevinDAmery]

Ah, didn't realize they were doing it that way. Should be fine then...

[Centauri27]

We just released a new version of our product last week and it was equipped with a shiny new WebHelp help system from Flare for the first time. I thought Flare's WebHelp was a panacea after putting up with RoboHelp's WebHelp all these years. Boy were we in for a surprise.

RoboHelp's WebHelp was obviously aimed at IE, as it worked flawlessly there, while performance using other browsers could be described as sketchy at best. Flare on the other hand, seems to have tipped the boat wayyyy over in the other direction: troublefree under Firefox (except for v3 Beta) while it stumbles and chokes under IE!

To make a long story short, our app comes in two flavours: normal Java desktop client and a web version running the same Java code, but from a browser. As I authored the help, I tested the WebHelp output locally under both FF and IE--everything worked fine. "Life is GOOD!" I'd say to myself. Then the help gets added to our s/w and QA runs a test: the help runs fine under FF, but acts as if it just came from Mars when thrown into IE--some topics would not load, some graphics would not display. Sometimes wouldn't run at all. WTF??? we all cried. Fast forward a bit: we discovered that the "MOTW" feature, which should've saved us support and anguish, caused most of the anguish. We turn it off and recompile--broken topics and graphics now return. BUT--the help refuses to load when triggered from the web browser version of our app--the window opens, the triple pane appears, but no text shows and it just dies. No error message except for the useless "Error on the page" showing in the browser status bar. It does this under both IE 6 AND 7. But it loads fine when invoked using the standard desktop client of our app.

What we learned: the MOTW feature, though well intentioned, is useless and causes more grief than it prevents. Flare's WebHelp only likes Firefox. In the end, we had to do an ugly workaround and ship a separate CHM for our Windows users who cannot run Firefox. Yech. For a brief moment I considered spending the weekend reapplying all the changes back into RoboHelp 5 to recreate the WebHelp. Now that would have been ugly.

I'll start a separate thread to try to resolve this issue. But I'd like to hear if anyone else has run into a similar situation.

Carl

[saanvik]

We don't use MOTW, but we find Flare's WebHelp to work great in IE and FF, just not so good in Safari.

[doc_guy]

And the final version of FF3 is available tomorrow on "D-Day" for download day. Mozilla needs everyones help to break a record with FF3 being the most downloaded piece of software within a day.

My biggest concern is all my plugins that don't work in FF3, like FireFTP. The lack of that plugin alone is my biggest regret for upgrading to FF3.

-Paul

[doc_guy]

BTW, after this post, I googled "Fire FTP FF3" and came up with a solution. Fire FTP has a beta version you can use in Firefox 3. It seems to be working for me today, so that is cool.

[doc_guy]

And the final version of FF3 is available tomorrow on "D-Day" for download day. Mozilla needs everyones help to break a record with FF3 being the most downloaded piece of software within a day.

Too bad Mozilla's site was brought to its knees. Try loading http://spreadfirefox.com. All I can get is a page load error.

[LTinker68]

And the final version of FF3 is available tomorrow on "D-Day" for download day. Mozilla needs everyones help to break a record with FF3 being the most downloaded piece of software within a day.

Are you sure it's the final version? If it is, then their webmaster is a tad behind -- http://www.mozilla.com still lists Firefox 2 as the current version. That is, when you can get to the website.

[RamonS]

Well, you need to go to http://www.getfirefox.com and use the link there. The download is supposedly available since 10am PDT, but I only managed to get to it now.

[doc_guy]

ditto. It's updated to 3.0 final.

[KevinDAmery]

Seems zippy enough. I can't decide yet if I like the new look or not--but presumably the theme makers will start supporting it soon.

[doc_guy]

I've been using 3.0 RC1, and I've grown accustomed to the look. I quite like it now. All in all, I'm a big fan of 3.0. (And FireFTP has been updated to support it as well!!)

[RamonS]

I used it now for a few hours and it is really nice. The new address bar requires getting used to, but I guess that will take only a bit longer.

[Richard Ferrell]

Same here, the address bar is going to take some getting use to also..

[RamonS]

There is already a plugin available that brings the old bar back
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227

Sorry for totally derailing this thread.

[LTinker68]

Sorry for totally derailing this thread.

You mean this thread wasn't originally about Firefox v3? Dang, when did we leave the tracks?

(That was "Dang" the expression not "dang" the forum user. )