Website Technology Issues Forum

Also, Mozilla is used by less than 1% of the internet users. Firefox has a small percentage too, although it is gaining popularity but I assume this popup issue will be fixed in their browser in future releases.

lol, my response to the above may not have been what they wanted to hear and/or see. :)

So, is this what programmers are doing these days? Developing applications that don't work in Firefox and require the latest version of IE?

Runs for cover...

Not to worry. Eventually enough business will be lost over this that the vendor will be forced to take his/her head out of the sand and transition to a more evolved format.

I'd run away from that scenario.

I notice that the client apparently upgraded without thought of potential problems ... which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does the client need this "upgrade" at all to the new version? I think I would dial up the pressure on the supplier to fix their application. Using frames is enough of a headache (but just about manageable): pop-ups is quite another.

I'd run away from that scenario.

Nope, I rarely run from anything. ;) And, this is one of my top clients that has been with me for years. We've been implementing solutions that work around the framesets in regards to generating user friendly content that can be printed, bookmarked and easily emailed to a friend. The developers have at least been providing us with a web service that allows us to pull data and format using the sites core design.

But no one bothered to do a problems analysis or a clients usage analysis.

Oh, I can concur with that! The client is left dealing with users who are sending in contact requests asking why they can't do this, or that? We figure for each request that comes in, there are 9 others that just went elsewhere. Ouch!

The developers are taking care of the issues after the fact but they are adamant about remaining in framesets. It would be cost prohibitive for them to do so. Yea right. I'm going to send them a link to this topic a year from now after showing them the decline in repeat visitors to the site.

I notice that the client apparently upgraded without thought of potential problems... which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Unfortunately they didn't have much of a choice. They were bulging at the seams in Version 2 and had to dump data every other day to allow new content additions. They have no major problems with their internal Version 3 of the software. It is the web services that are a problem.

Support for Firefox is something you can argue over.

No arguments there. As soon as I received the above email from them, I ran a quick report (last 90 days) for the sites based on browser version. The statistics showed that at least 8-10% of their visitors were using a Mozilla based browser (Firefox).

So I would consider any web application which requires pop-ups to be broken to the extent that you could claim before a court of law that the supplied goods are faulty.

lol! I wonder how that would stand up in a real court of law. Never mind, don't want to go there just yet. ;)

Does the client need this "upgrade" at all to the new version?

Yes, see above.

I think I would dial up the pressure on the supplier to fix their application. Using frames is enough of a headache (but just about manageable): pop-ups is quite another.

I've been applying pressure to the vendor. So much so that I've been blacklisted. ;)

The client is investigating further options at the moment. This topic will help bring to light the issues they are faced with and hopefully sway them to make the right choice.