SharePoint and Firefox 3 - sharepoint

I think most of the SharePoint developers and administrators know that with the change form Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 some functionality of SharePoint have became unavailable.
Especially adding Webparts to a site and using the PeoplePicker don't work anymore with Firefox 3. So I want to know how you deal with this problem when some of your users are complaining about having to use the IE to get the same functionality as with Firefox 2.
It's quite plain to me that it is not possible to get the full functionality with Firefox but it would be great to get at least the same with Firefox 3 as you got before with Firefox 2.
Or are there any workarounds to get Firefox 3 working with SharePoint properly?

I am using IE Tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

The main problem seems to be the fact that whenever a pop-up windows opens during a SharePoint action, like adding a webpart to a site, the information or data form the pop-up windows is not transmitted to the initial window which opened the pop-up window.

What underlying code is it trying to run that Firefox 3 won't support?
Is it just using a bad agent sniffer? that can't handle v3?
The only thing I've encountered in v3 that isn't handled as nice as v2, is the ability to call .focus() on non-form elements. It worked better in v2, v3 seems to have some issues.

The official announcement of Service Pack 2 for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 contains the following text:
Also with the new service pack,
Internet Explorer 8 will be added into
browser support matrix as level one,
and Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 as level two.
So maybe an upgrade to SharePoint SP2 will fix your problems? More details on SP2 are scheduled for release next week.

Related

Blue Prism applicaton modeler fails to identify authentication pop up window on firefox

I am trying to automate a web application using firefox on blue prism. When I use the application modeler to launch the web application, first it is asking for credentials to login on a pop up window. Application modeler cannot identify this pop up has appeared. So I cannot automate the login. However after login manually, I can spy other elements in the application as normal. Any idea on how to automate the pop up window asking for user name and password?
I assume that you specified your application as browser based in application modeler. It's hard to answer your question without knowing how this web application looks and works like. There are few options that you can try nevertheless:
In the latest version (6.4) Blue Prism introduced Firefox plug-in. If you would be able to upgrade your version to the latest one (if you are not using it already), then maybe you'll be able to spy the pop up.
If this web application does not necessarily need be launched via Firefox in particular, then you can test its behavior and spying possibilities on other browsers - Internet Explorer and Google Chrome (supported by BP since 6.3 version).
You can spy the whole browser's window using Region mode and use Surface Automation techniques to input credentials and log in. SA functionalities are greatly improved since version 6.
You can try using web services (if applicable with this website) to connect with the API of the web application, you'll be able to pass/validate your credentials via web services as well. Blue Prism natively supports SOAP based web services, you might need to come with some code stages to wrap it up. It's pretty advanced stuff though and I wouldn't recommend it as a 1st choice.
Hope this helps.

Sharepoint - Accessing PDF links via Chrome

Firstly let me state that I have zero experience with Sharepoint so this may be a pretty stupid question.
I started a new job yesterday and part of the induction is viewing the company literature via their Sharepoint portal. I've noticed that whenever I try to access an embedded PDF link via Chrome it seems like it's a broken link and appears to do a Google search instead. Yet when I try the exact same steps using IE all works as expected.
I don't want to raise this with my boss if it's going to make me look a little stupid! Is there some cross browser issue with PDF links?
Thanks.
Darren, try flushing the cache in Chrome, and if necessary, log off and log back into your computer. We've had the same problem with Chrome and Google doesn't seem to be fixing the problem (although they might point the finger back at Microsoft).
Yes I have the same issue with Chrome and Firefox
Sharepoint is optimized for IE and vice versa
You also can't open Files with the "Check in and Check out" functionality because only IE is able to do that from Sharepoint (Other Browsers will just Download the File)
You can try using AddOns like IE-Tab
(simply uses the IE algorithms within FF and Chrome for specific Sites)
But its better to use Sharepoint with IE

Data not showing up in sharepoint list as well as in drop downs

hi
i have a problem at my production site, client reported that he is not seeing data in lists of sharepoint, as well drop downs which have years in pages of site appear empty with one user A on machin X having with windows 7. but data and comes up and drop downs are now populated when accessed from machine Y with same user A.
i dont knw wht really the problem is. As to development site this issue is not produced,
plz help,
thnks in advance
From your question, I gather the data does exist and the same user can see the information from one computer but not another.
A couple things spring to mind. (I am presuming usage of Internet Explorer since SharePoint 2007 has some rather weird rendering issues with other browsers. Correct me if this is an incorrect assumption.)
First, Windows 7 has later versions of IE which can refuse to send network credentials to a server it doesn't think is part of the intranet (corporate network). What makes this especially frustrating is that IE will prompt for network credentials (a result of the challenge from the website) but will not transmit those credentials. Examine the IIS logs to see if this is the case. The requests will be void of credentials using IE but will be present using Firefox (and presumably any other web browser). The fix for this is usually as simple as adding the domain into the Local Intranet zone in Internet Options.
If this is not the case, can you confirm the user is using the same credentials? Is this integrated authentication using Active Directory or forms authentication?
Are there any differences between the two computers with regards to how they reach the SharePoint site? (Such as one is VPN, the other is directly connected)? Or are they essentially equal but with different browser/OS configurations?
Are the lists standard out-of-the-box lists or have they been customized with SharePoint Designer or any other means? Are you injecting JavaScript via a Content Editor Web Part which might not be executing correctly?
It would be very helpful to know browser versions used, OS versions used, differences in connectivity to the resource from each machine, type of authentication used, and any other thing you can think to list.
I wish you luck in tracking this down!
Windows 7 or xp has nothing to do over here probably it has to do with the browser which he is using to browse the site ask him to chk the internet explorer settings and verify that he has enabled execution of javascript and other related things

How can I test my webpage using different browsers?

I just found out about the Yahoo UI Reset CSS tool/file and I'm using it on my website.
On my machine I have Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.01 and my webpage looks the same on these two browsers. A friend is using Internet Explorer 6 and the page is completely a mess.
I have two questions:
Am I that poor/stupid in writing CSS?
How can I test my webpage using different browsers on my machine?
Just because your website looks terrible in Internet Explorer 6 does not mean you are terrible at CSS. There are several documented bugs in Internet Explorer's rendering engine in regards to CSS. Web designers and developers have been struggling with these bugs for years. Several well known websites like Digg and YouTube are no longer going to support IE6.
You have several options to test your website in multiple browsers. The easiest way is to install all the browsers you want to test against on a local machine. There are 5 major browsers, and they all require different methods to install multiple versions.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
If you are using Windows XP, you can use Multiple IEs to install Internet Explorer versions 3, 4.01, 5, 5.5 and 6.
If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 (or Windows XP for that matter) you can download virtual machine images from Microsoft that contain a fully licensed Windows operating system with Internet Explorer. These virtual machine images expire every 90 to 120 days. They offer the following images:
Windows XP SP3 with IE6
Windows XP SP3 with IE7
Windows XP SP3 with IE8
Windows Vista with IE7
Windows Vista with IE8
These images can all be used with the free Virtual PC 2007.
Mozilla Firefox
You can install multiple versions of Firefox on the same operating system, but it is highly advised that you create a new profile for each version you are going to install. You can use the steps outlined on Rob Cherny's blog to set this up (the article is referring to Firefox 2, but it works for Firefox 3 and 3.5 too). Alternatively, you can use MultiFirefox.
Google Chrome
There really isn't an easy way to run multiple versions of Google Chrome on the same machine. Chrome installations are user account-specific, and standalone versions of Chrome have been made available (see question 3785991), so you can create a new Windows/Mac user account for each old version of Chrome you want to test.
However, the fact that updates are applied automatically and silently means that you really shouldn't worry to much about designing your website for older versions of Chrome. If this is unacceptable, you will need to use multiple user accounts, or virtual images as advised for Internet Explorer previously.
Apple Safari
Safari is similar to Google Chrome in that there isn't an easy way to run multiple versions on the same machine. Michel Fortin has an article that details how to get multiple versions running on Mac OS X. You can refer to this Stack Overflow question for the lowdown on Windows. Virtual images, again, seem to be the only way to go.
Opera
You can install older versions of Opera without issue, so long as they are installed to different directories.
If you are not particular about testing in your machine, you could try https://browsershots.org or https://blisk.io. These are free and provide screenshots of your site in various browsers on Linux/Windows/Mac OS/BSD.
A reset CSS--of which YUI's is only one example--aim to remove browser differences in default CSS properties for HTML elements, like some browsers will have a default 8 pixel padding on the html element (it was a surprise to me to find the html element was even styled when I first found out).
Your IE6 issues are entirely separate to that. Without examples of the site itself it's impossible to say why this might be but the obvious guess is that you're relying on reasonably advanced CSS features (eg a > b selectors, :hover on non-anchors, certain positioning schemes and so on).
For IE you can use this tool (Multiple IE) to test your website in old versions.
For the Reset CSS i redirect you to this question.
For testing various IE versions I use ietester
It allows different ie versions in each browser tab and it's free.
The purpose of it is that HTML(edit: the browsers have predefined properties for the elements.ty Zack) has some predefined properties for its elements like the built-in padding/margin for the paragraph element. The point of using the reset cheat sheet is to start with default values that are equal for all elements : size, margin, padding etc.
I use the reset file in my project but not in its original form. You should decide which elements in the sheet to use and you can always assign other default values for the tags there.
edit: You can test your web-page by installing most of the browsers available. Here is the latest statistics representing the usage of browsers.
My advice is to use Mozilla as your 1st choice testing browser and every now and then test the page on other browsers: IE6, IE7, IE8, Opera, Chrome and Safari (at least).
Here is a reference to a discussion about multiple IEs on one PC.
Best of luck!

How do you test your web apps for IE 6?

I know, some people will say "IE 6 must die"; others will think this is a subjective/non-programming related question. But I'm desperate and did not know where else to ask.
I have an application and need to decide if i want to support IE 6 or not, so i wanted to test how it looks, what is failing or not failing. If the problems could be solved fast I would love to know its not a problem, if the problems are very big i would like to redirect the user to a page explaining that IE 6 is not supported.
So i need to be able to see the page in IE 6, I just installed a windows XP virtual machine and got IE 7 installed, can't find a way to downgrade to IE 6! So is there any "portable" version of IE 6 that i can run easily? An emulator? Something?
You could try IE Tester. It allows you to test using the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5
Depending on the Service Pack of XP you may not be able to rollback to IE6.
The best way to test would be to use the Microsoft VHD images here under Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en
Mac OS http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_VPC&fid=BB545A70-CC7F-4902-B7B1-8E9D4ED665D2
Windows OS http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en
This should all cost you nothing.
Whilst I've upvoted and commented on "Nissan Fan", I have found BrowserShots http://www.browsershots.org/ to be quite good for previewing in multiple browsers (not just IE) and http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/ quite good for remote testing.
We use a standalone IE6 but when you go into the About section it appears as IE7. So I'd avoid that route if I'm honest.
My advice would be set up another virtual pc (Its only going to be for a browser, nothing intensive) just for IE6.
I would attempt to find a XP Service Pack 1 CD, and install that in a VMWare instance. You can safely move up to SP2 or SP3 without upgrading IE.
I test it exactly the same way I test for Netscape 2.0 -- I don't.
There is no excuse for anyone to be running that outdate piece of crap.
What these companies need is a few support calls that end with "We are no longer able to support IE 6" and provide a list of companies that are also phasing out IE 6 support.
If Youtube can no longer support IE 6, with all of Google's resources behind it, then why should I?
The best thing that could happen would be for Google to put up an error page saying
"You appear to be using IE 6.
Unfortunately, we are unable to
provide search results to IE 6
clients"
On linux you can use ies4linux.
Have you heard of Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview ?
SuperPreview as a tool allows you to compare different rendering engines in a single unified interface. Simple clicks gives you comparisons between Internet Explorer 6, the native version of Internet Explorer installed, other browsers you may have installed locally – Firefox 3.5, Safari 3, Safari 4 – and even an bitmap images of website prototypes.
You can download the beta from here.
Docker's suggestion's great!
When I was testing in IE 6 I used another machine.
If you've installed IE7 and you want to test in IE6, you'll have to first uninstall IE7. When you unistal IE7 it will automatically roll you back to IE6.
There's no way to have both on the same machine (I found out the hard way) and that's why Docker's suggestion of setting up another virtual pc is so great.
-Frinny

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