Discussion on:

Make XML data islands work in Mozilla

Hi,

Thanks for the example of making XML data islands work with Mozilla, this could open up all sorts of options! Thats some serious dom scripting you've done there, to the extent I can't quite get my head around it all!

I've saved the zip file and opened up the listing e html (after renaming to .html) and it works beautifully in Netscape. However I have noticed a problem with the script and IE - if you open the same page in IE, then if you don't update any fields, click Show Data Items, then the output is correct, but if you update any form fields, then the reported output from IE is not updated - it just contains the original XML.

Mozilla displays the updated values. Should IE display the updated values or would this require more scripting?

Many thanks

Laurie
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It appears that this is one of those flaky things with Microsoft Internet Explorer, sometimes the binding works in both directions and sometimes it only works in one direction. The really strange thing is there are some instances where it always works, I have an XML data island based shopping cart that always works for both IE and Mozilla. This is one of those frustrating glitches that is going to require some research on my part, browser versions, plugins and service packs appear to play a big part in this.

This article is only the beginning of the possibilities of Mozilla XML data island, there are two follow-ups. The next is how to display tabular information by a select number of lines by paging through a data island on the client-side. After that is the XML data island shopping cart which allows customers to delete items and change quantities. Thank you.

With over 90% of internet users browsing with some version of Internet Explorer, why go to the trouble of making something work in a lame browser with only 4-5% of the market?

Without wanting to start a "My browser is better than yours" debate, I can tell you why *I* would go to the trouble.
You say Mozilla is lame. You're entitled to your opinion. Here's mine..
* IE doesn't obey standards. (Market share means MS can [and does!] corrupt any standard and get away with it).
* IE is the only browser that trashed my hard drive, and consistently caused OE errors. (The "user agreement" said 'tough', so I stop using IE).
* IE has more security holes in it than any otherbrowser.
* Different versions of IE will show different versions of the same page. (But how can you tell when that's happening? Hint: crashes/freezes?)
* IE is vendor-specific. (If MS did kill off the other 5% of browsers, then decided to charge you $5000 for IE, what the heck could you do about it?)

Mozilla is fast, flexible, open and standards-compliant. So thanks for the article ED. I look forward to the next instalment.

Samiz,

I agree that the JavaScript hurdles are quite large to Mozilla-enable the application.

I think the question of whether or not to "go to the trouble" is mainly a business question. (With the freedom to ignore a market segment of under 5%, you needn't worry about screen readers either ? a very fortunate position to be in.)

Some potential reasons to worry about non-IE browsers:
1. Company or government mandate. (e.g. State government agencies are often required to make accessible sites.)
2. Finance and Marketing might be really hip to increasing online sales by 4-5%.
3. Bad word of mouth. If your site doesn't work (or looks really bad) in someone's browser, it's the site that'll be blamed (correctly or incorrectly). This has the potential to create bad word of mouth about your site and perhaps your company as well. You could claim that people can easily download a recent version of IE for free (and even provide a link). However, people are lazy and would much rather go to your competitor's site that "does work" than have to download and install something.

Is frustrating 1 in 25 visitors a big problem? Is it worth the coding and maintenance effort to remedy? Would a simpler approach be better? Only you can answer.

Hi,
Can you provide an alternative link for downloading the code snippet? The "downloadable code snippet" did not work for me.
Thank you.

Hi
your article is very good
and I have 2 question.

1. A stupid question: Your code run if you stop your IIS in your PC?
http://127.0.0.1/.. --->> file://c://

2. Yours articles is a drug.

I'm interesting the
a) Implement a flexible shopping cart with XML and ASP
b) Create your own collection objects in JavaScript
c) XML data islands offer a useful mechanism to display Web form data
d) Make XML data islands work in Mozilla
e) Build cross-browser XML paging code

It's possible to connect a local mdb MSAccess with XMLHttpRequest who open a ASP file with Mozilla?

in the article a) in the picture you open a ASP file xmlcart.asp with Mozilla, I think

thanks
Massimo Cozzi

I don't want to "rant", but the example code doesn't appear to work. I replied with a similar message regarding another XML data island article you published here.

The topics of your articles are of great interest for me, but example code never seems to work and I don't have enough time to make it work. As a reader, I need examples to get me going fast.

Thank you for the articles, but please take to the time to enhance example code with how to use docs, etc.

Right, Mozilla must add in all the funny odds and sods from a unsafe, non-complient browser because... some people would like XML data islands to be implemented without Javascript or plug-in?

Hmmm... do you know if Mozilla team is planning MS compatible data islands as a core feature?