Tamiyaclub.com not firefox compatable?

[r6stu]

Im running firefox 1.5 and WXPSP2 and I seem to be having some issues with the whole site!!

When Im posting in the forums I find that the Claret (Flashing cursor) dosent appear straight away until im typing.

Also I cant insert links as it just goes back without anything after clicking ok.

Also on the main site the text for the show rooms and some others are very light grey and barely visible.

I also found out that when trying to leave a comment all I get is the comment box and not name/email etc and it leaves a blank comment!

Any ideas?

I dont want to use IE all the time!

[RETRO R/C]

I am using firefox and am not having these issues - only a couple of very minor display ones on other sites.

Cheers

Darryn

[Hillman666]

  Im using Firefox too and i dont get any highlighting on the Bold and Italic options when I choose them. Also the text cursor does not appear in the box. I have to click in the subject line and use tab to get to the text box for the cursor to come up!

I also cant insert links as like r6stu it just goes back without anything after clicking ok. Strange! 

[netsmithUK]

Mmmm not really sure on all the points. I'm afraid this site is built to be at its optimum and also mainly tested against IE. I keep my eye on the stats and at present firefox accounts for less than 5% of our visitors, which hasn't really changed for the year. I know this could be a chicken and egg thing, "if its compatible they will come" but at the same time I have no real proof.

In the sort term I suggest Firefox users get together and help each other out and discuss work around and bugs they find. This thread would be a good place to list them, although it does sound like there are other things involved as not all firefox users are seeing the same thing. Its those differences we need to pin down and to go forward.

On the link pop up thing - not just on firefox - I don't really see why people use it anyway. I've never used it since the forum went live. If i want a url I type a url and the forum makes it into a link automatically, i dont even type the http:// bit, just the url www.tamiyaclub.com (i see this as link do you?) so the pop up seems to be the same thing but needing more actions to complete? or am i missing something?

Chris

 

[netsmithUK]

Another idea that would help the club out is for the firefox users amongst you to try and work out which bit of code is not firefox compatible.

What I mean is, what is delivered to your browser is just html and javascript. Where it comes from or how its produced doesn't matter. From your browser you can 'view source' and see all this html/javascript.

What you are looking for and investigating is what bit of that html firefox doesn't like. If you can identify it and suggest an alternative that would work then I can look at integrating it into the club code, so firefox users then get either a bit of bespoke html just for them or better still we find something which suits all browsers.

I'm obviously missing the relevent firefox knowledge and time to investigate these issues, but I'd certainly look at building in solutions if people can supply them. I'm looking for actual html, and explanations of why the problems happen - not so much the problems themselve.

Cheers

Chris

[MonkeyFooty11]

Firefox 1.07 Win Xp Home SP2

I can't insert links, either using the tool or by typing www.tamiyaclub.com

The only area of the main site that has difficult to read greyt text is "Tamiya club is a community

site for collectors of vintage and contemporary Tamiya models. Tamiya

club is independently owned and operated and is not affiliated to or

endorsed by Tamiya Inc or any of it's subsidiaries. All trademarks are

copyright their respective owners." This is the same using either Firefox or IE.

I too found that the name and email boxes in the showrooms were visible

in IE but not Firefox, then I realised that I was not logged in in IE.

Once I logged in all that was visible was the comments box.

Pete

[terry.sc]

I use Firefox 1.0.7 as well. Using the 'create link' button does the

same thing for me (creates a drop down box that does nothing when you

fill the details in) and reported in the main forum bugs thread.

The simple and easy fix is just to ignore the 'create link' button

entirely and type the link in yourself. I tried just typing in the url

www.tamiyaclub.com and that doesn't work in Firefox, must be coded for

IE only.

Reverting to the same method used in the old forums typing in

{url}www.tamiyaclub.com{/url} (using square brackets instead) gives

www.tamiyaclub.com which works as a link. Adding the http://

part to the link gives http://www.tamiyaclub.com but both links will

work the same way.

Strangely enough Firefox is the only Mac browser that is compatible with the new forums.

[ChrisB]

I am using Firefox 1.5 on WinXP SP2 and as others have noted the create link button in the rich text editor window doesn't seem to work. I don't think this helps Chris much though as he is after the cause!

I would say this though - I have recently been doing some development at work integrating a new Rich Text editor into an open source content management system, and have come accross similar problems with browser compatibility - its a real minefield.

I am not sure if I am right on this but I suspect the rich text editor used in this forum is a Javascript based application? This seems to be the case with most of the ones I looked at:

- FCKEditor

- TinyMCE

- HTMLArea

These are just some of the open source ones, but they all have their quirks, especially in the Javascript department. Maybe its a javascript feature in the rich text editor being used in the forum that is somehow incompatible with Firefox's scripting engine?

Does anyone see any scripting warnings or errors in Firefox when using the forum editor to insert links?

I'll try and have a play with some of the developer tools turned on in Firefox and see if I can see anything that might give a clue.

Terry - RE: your comment on Mac browsers. I think its also the case that MS have said they will no longer be developing / supporting IE on the Mac platform anymore. I think as you have Firefox and Safari though this is no big loss .

I know most people use I.E. but to be honest I think Firefox and Opera are great alternatives and you save yourself a shed of security hassles as they are at the smaller end of the market so hackers tend not to target them so intensively. I'd be lost without the tabbed browsing feature in Firefox!

Cheers,

Chris

[DJTheo]

Also don't forget that many non IE browsers present themselves as IE to be able to work on some sites, in some sources the estimated usage of non IE browsers is much higher then the 5% that appear on your stats. Since I first used FF 2 yars ago? I simply can't revert to IE, not even for our beloved TC, its like recerting to B&W TV LOL

Cheers

[netsmithUK]

I my book if they 'pretend' to be something else then I just can't cater for them. Its hard enough trying to debug when you know what a browser is, but trying to debug one impersonating another is all but impossible. All I can go by is the stats that get reported in our logs.

Chris

[TWINSET]

On the link pop up thing - not just on firefox - I don't really see why people use it anyway. I've never used it since the forum went live. If i want a url I type a url and the forum makes it into a link automatically, i dont even type the http:// bit, just the url www.tamiyaclub.com (i see this as link do you?) so the pop up seems to be the same thing but needing more actions to complete? or am i missing something?

 

That link opens in the same window - All links should open in a new window, it should be the law!!!! []

 

[ChrisB]

That link opens in the same window - All links should open in a new window, it should be the law!!!! []

 

Ah, but nothing is straightforward -if someone then sets, or has set by default to block popup windows, then voila they don't see the new link and wonder whats going on [].

I am not a great fan of popup windows myself unless absolutely necessary - they tend to lead to confusion amongst less internet savvy end users in my experience [], but thats just based on my own experience....

The problem with websites is its often a trade off between features and accessibility / compatibility. That great gizmo that your browser X users want added onto the site often breaks the browsing experience for users with browser Y or an older version of browser X even []

Life would be so much easier if browsers all used the same standards, but they don't, and probably never will, so I guess compromise will always be the name of the game.

Chris

[netsmithUK]

Funny enough I was saying a similar thing all new links into new windows and then actually had the HTML rule book thrown at me as not being the internet standard. Aparently new windows should be a user choice (ie right click select new window from menu)

Personally I thinks thats a bit rubbish in practice.

1) as a site owner the last thing you want to do is throw people out of your site, more often than not to pages with no obvious/easy way back. You spend years designing you site to do just the opposite.

2) as a user it makes it real hard to follow threads when right from under your feet you can have that thread taken away and be sent to who knows where.

Re popup windows most of the ones I've come across do not stop new windows driven by links. ie if you click on a link opening a new window is allowed. What they seem to target is those sites where you open a page and then that page automatically tries to open more windows - typically adverts -with no user action (eg on page load etc)

Chris is right though its all a game.

[scoobs]

Aparently new windows should be a user choice (ie right click select new window from menu)

Yes. I always want the choice, as typically I place external links into a new tab (same as a new window, but with tabbed browers it appears behind the main one, but still within it, to save space.

Tabbed browsing is essential in my world. I option-click most things to bring the link up ina new tab.

There's different schools of thought for different sites and points of view. The most followed is: links to other areas of the same site should be in same window, links to external sites or follow-content not directly associated with the main content should go to a new window.

In my view it should always be the users choice, but as of many computer related things, often the end user doesn't really know how to "drive" their systems properly, and the bottom line is they need to be helped out a little.

So: in site, same window. External site: new window. That's the convention I mostly use.

[terry.sc]

Terry - RE: your comment on Mac browsers.

I think its also the case that MS have said they will no longer be

developing / supporting IE on the Mac platform anymore. I think as you

have Firefox and Safari though this is no big loss .

Microsoft stopped supporting IE on Mac 2 years ago, even before Apple

came up with Safari. It's only recently MS stopped having it available

for download. Still useful to have though for the odd IE only website.

Re: Mac browser compatibility. Did a check of the popular Mac browsers.

Firefox, Camino and Mozilla (they use the same gecko engine) all seem to work fine.

Safari 1.0.3 has some small display issues and no editing toolbar when

replying to messages so there is no easy way to format the posts but it

does work. Newer versions might work better but to run them I would

need to upgrade my version of OSX

ICab just has the missing editing toolbar.

Opera has missing favorites and contact buttons and missing editing toolbar.

IE  has some display issues (reply/quote/favorites/contact buttons

takeup 4 lines across the page) but when you try and reply to a message

the page has nothing below the compose/options tabs so you cannot reply

to the forums.

Omniweb is the worst - signing in just redirects you to the advanced search page and will not let me sign in.

Basically for Mac users as long as you don't use IE or Omniweb you should be able to use the site.

Windows Firefox users are in the same position. You can reply to

messages with images and links, you just have to use the manual methods

we all used to use in the old forums.

[DJTheo]

Funny enough I was saying a similar thing all new links into new windows and then actually had the HTML rule book thrown at me as not being the internet standard. Aparently new windows should be a user choice (ie right click select new window from menu)

Thats why we love Firefox, you just click links with middle mouse button and they open in a new tab, when you have done it for a day you never want to right click and then click "open link in a window" again, same goes for closing all the windows.

Cheers