OpenBiblio

Is there any objections if I put a browser detection on the logon page? Most people who would use the system with us would be quite computer illiterate. Therefore I can tell them not to use IE, but that is probably not going to register (or be remembered). Therefore, I would just like to put a simple warning message when they logon (the page they land) to warn them if they use IE.

I understand the problem, we have it here at our library too. I can say 'no IE' daily, but it is what they use at home so that is what they look for. Only solution I found was to have FF start when the PC does and set the home page to OpenBiblio. Then they are presented with the library system and dont even have to think about, or look for, browsers. But if you must do it there is a jQuery function $.browser that will report the browser in use. $.browser.msie will be true if that is what is the browser reports itself as. There are similar flags for other browsers as well. Fred

I'm fine with a notice for IE6. We should do our best to support 7 and 8, but I imagine that's what you mean. Micah

Actually I am referring to IE in general. So far IE still does not do as good a job at following W3C standards as the other browsers. I have FF, IE, Safari, Opera & Chrome. All but IE will work on OpenBiblio with no special treatment. I tell those who use any code of mine that uses javascript to any extent like jQuery, Prototype, etc to use any browser they like so long as it isn't IE. And if they want my help with Internet problems of any kind they have to have one of those on their PC (preferable FF so I can use firebug). Some of us are just stuborn :-) jQuery makes a serious effort to test for IE oddities and make them invisable, but they do not catch eveything. Fred

I agree that IE is a pain, but it's still the most common web browser by far. Even dropping IE 6 is a pretty radical move. Wikipedia says IE 6 still has almost twice as many users as Safari, Opera, and Chrome combined, and nearly as many as Firefox. By dropping support for IE6, we're dropping support for 1 in 5 users -- I'm OK with that only because 6 takes so much extra work to support. But dropping support for IE entirely cuts out 3 users out of 5. Not OK. I'd sooner drop all the JS niceties and go back to table-based layouts than decide that 60% of the Internet can't use OpenBiblio. Micah

I understand where you are comming from. Various versions of IE will be with us forever. Nontheless, I remove it from the desktop of all PC's I work on and replace it with FF usually. On the local Library, I have set FF to start up when PC does with home page set to OpenBiblio. Only place they can find IE is to dig it out of the all progams list. Few ever bother. All they want is OpenBiblio anyway. As to IE6, even MS is actively trying to make it go away(goo luck there). I understand they have formaly dropped all support for it. And they admit that even 8 has to be shortlived - it just hastn't kept up with with the others. I have heard that even MS is having trouble getting its current web page designs to work with IE6. Incidently, MS adopted jQuery as part of its .net structures for web pages some time in the fall. But none of the stuff we are talking about relates to table based displays. The new code uses them extensively. The only instances I am aware of where tables have been removed is with the 'desk top' positioning, and that is all .CSS which IE7&8, at least, is supporting pretty well. I cant say about IE6, as I haven't had a copy around for a year or so. Fred