browsers we support

Tue Jan 8 04:24:43 UTC 2013

Hi Arash,

I think it's an interesting idea. As you say, there are some benefits and some drawbacks to the approach. My sense is that there are probably certain features of UI Options that are more appropriate for this sort of a design, and others that are more effective when they're directly integrated into a site's content and design approach.

For example, I can imagine that features such as self-voicing, text highlighting, page simplification, and some alternative navigations schemes might work really nicely when integrated directly into the browser in some way. Other features, like really good high-contrast themes, etc., need to be considered as part of the design of the site in order to be as effective as we'd want.

Have you guys thought at all about what sorts of preferences are most effective when they're built into the browser?

Overall, I think it's an interesting approach. To me, it's not as critical as making UI Options really useful and easy to embed in any website or application, but I think the in-browser approach can be very powerful and complimentary if done right. My biggest concerns involve the effort to build extensions for each of the major browser platforms and the likelihood that many people will never be technical enough to install these extensions in their browser in the first place.

My two cents,

Colin

---
Colin Clark
http://fluidproject.org

On 2013-01-07, at 7:56 AM, "Sadr, Arash" <asadr at ocadu.ca> wrote:

> Hi Colin,
> 
> Yes, you're right, we are planning on browser extensions or modules for the browser, not standard web development. The idea is to have the UIO integrated in the browser’s toolbar, and unite the options with the options that the toolbar already has. (Image below is an example of the customize toolbar window of Safari with UI Options)
> 
> 
> <Screen Shot 2013-01-02 at 2.18.48 PM.png>
> 
> Benefits of this design:
> 
> 1.    1.It would be easier for the user to access UIO within the browser’s toolbar menu.
> 
> 2.    2.Users can combine browser’s options with UI options.
> 
> 3.    3.Having the UIO icons noticeable in the toolbar can display the available options in each page.
> 
> 4.    4.Users can see an indication if an option is in use or not, and can easily change settings for each option.
> 
> This idea has its benefits, but we might have some issues with this idea. I had a conversation with Michelle and realized that we might be restricted from adding options to the browser's toolbar menu. The other restriction we have is that each browser needs an individual design and development, and we cannot use the same code for all of them. So I started looking at it as an add-on for the browser's toolbar that would have it's own menu page. In this link you can see the idea in use:
> 
> (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/download/attachments/31195446/uio-browsertoolbar-development-1.pdf).
> 
> This idea is still in the development stage and needs a lot more thinking, but at this stage we need to know how to approach the different browsers with this design and if it meets our Economy of scale. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think about this idea and your thoughts on this issue. 
> 
> Arash 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2013-01-04, at 3:09 PM, Colin Clark <colinbdclark at gmail.com>
>  wrote:
> 
>> I think, at risk of over-simplifying a potentially interesting and complex discussion, that there is a general heuristic we can use when determining which browsers we will support:
>> 
>> 1. We're done with IE 6 and 7. Infusion 1.4 was the last official release that supported those browsers, and any new development won't necessarily be compatible with them.
>> 
>> 2. We actively support the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, along with IE 9 and 10, and intend to support them for the foreseeable future.
>> 
>> 3. IE 8 support is something we should discuss and consider on a case-by-case basis. Infusion and Video Player will likely support it for some time. But IE 8 is rapidly becoming the "new IE6," which is a bit of a terrifying prospect. For some new and ambitious projects, the cost of supporting IE8 may be prohibitive. As I say, it's the sort of thing we need to discuss as a community, on list.
>> 
>> Now, that said, it sounds like the idea of a "browser UIO solution" might actually be quite different, technically-speaking. Can someone describe the idea briefly, just so I'm sure I understand it correctly? I'm imagining it might involve creating extensions or modules for the browser, rather than standard web content?
>> 
>> Colin
>> 
>> On 2013-01-04, at 2:53 PM, "Mitchell, Jessica" <jmitchell at ocadu.ca> wrote:
>> 
>>> ah ha. I knew this wasn't a quick answer. 
>>> 
>>> So, I was having a conversation with Arash earlier about the browser UIO solution. We were wondering which browsers we might support with it. We were wondering because it seemed it might influence some design decisions (e.g. uio as toolbar versus other options).
>>> 
>>> I suspect in this case we wouldn't decide which browsers to support independent of design and development conversations about what we want to create with a browser-based UIO.
>>> 
>>> So, perhaps what started as a question about browser support is actually a call for a conversation about UIO in a browser that needs to happen.
>>> 
>>> Jess
>>> 
>>> On Jan 4, 2013, at 2:39 PM, Colin Clark <colinbdclark at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Jess,
>>>> 
>>>> Our browser support has always been tied to a particular project release. So, for example, the chart you link to is actually the "Infusion 1.4 Browser Support Chart" (this status is better reflected on this page: http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Browser+Support).
>>>> 
>>>> So I guess the first question we'd need to tackle is, what context are we talking about here? For the next release of Infusion? For the Video Player? For other components? Component that already exist or that we're planning to start work on?
>>>> 
>>>> Colin
>>>> 
>>>> On 2013-01-04, at 11:22 AM, "Mitchell, Jessica" <jmitchell at ocadu.ca> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hey everyone, 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I know this is always a moving target, but I know so many people find it helpful to know which browsers we support. I'm wondering if we can update the following at some point and if there are things to chat through before updating we do that too...:
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Browser+Support+Chart