web page problem - mozilla bug or java-script error?

Henry Hartley henryhartley at westat.com
Thu Dec 4 16:55:54 UTC 2003


>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Elton Woo [mailto:elwoo at videotron.ca] 
>> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 2:33 AM
>> On Wed, 2003-12-03 at 17:07, Henry Hartley wrote:
>> > 
>> > The actual issue here is that the size of the Email address
>> > and password fields are different in different browsers.
>> > Since they are a tad wider in Mozilla or Firebird than they
>> > are in IE, they get put on two lines in those browsers
>> > instead of the one in IE.  This pushes both the "Forgot your
>> 
>> So are you saying that the field *is* visible in IE? I'm not
>> the web designer for Guinness, and I'm not running Windows,
>> either.

Yes, the fields are both visible in IE.  Looking at the source for the page
showed me that they are designed to appear side by side.  In Internet
Explorer (and in Opera 5) they appear that way.  I have experienced this
where IE and Mozilla/Firebird and Opera all display form field at slightly
(or sometimes not so slightly) different sizes and it can cause problems if
you are trying to pack a lot onto a page.  Oddly, they are using "browser
JavaScript sniffer" code from here:

http://www.webreference.com/tools/browser/javascript.html

but they don't seem to have actually tested their site in many of the
browsers to see how it looks.  If you hit <ctrl><-> (i.e. Control minus) in
Mozilla or Firebird you will see that in addition to making all the text
smaller, the fields move to the side-by-side configuration.  

Unfortunately, they also seem to have an error in their JavaScript which is
what keeps the form from being submitted when you click on the [GO] button.
The button runs the JavaScript command login.submit() which should work but
according to Mozilla, login is not defined.  The form does seem to be named
login so I'm not sure why that fails and I'm too lazy to look into it.  In
IE it seems to work but that doesn't surprise me too much.

There is another error in their JavaScript that may be related.  The browser
detection code sets variables for the type of browser, using is_nav2 through
is_nav7 for the various navigator browsers.  Then, in code that checks
those, they use is_ns4 and is_ns6 instead of is_nav4 and is_nav6.  Stupid.

I suppose if you really wanted to log in, you could build a local web page
with the same form action and fields and replace their [GO] button with a
regular form submit button and then submit it.  Unless they check where you
are coming from, it will probably work and you could always fake that, too,
if you really care.  It's sites like this that give me an urge to stuff
their ballot box.

-- 
Henry Hartley





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