Supported Browsers with Sakai

98 views
Skip to first unread message

Laura Gekeler

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 10:50:59 AM4/10/18
to sakai-user
We seem to be running into vague and usually unresolvable issues where IE11 is involved. Rarely do we get to the bottom of them as users disengage as soon as they find something that works.

Do any of you issue "supported browser" statements for Sakai? If so, would you mind sharing what you've come up with?


Thanks,

Laura
Laura Gekeler
LMS Administrator
Learning Platforms
Apereo Foundation Board '14-2020
University of Notre Dame

Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a)

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 11:31:08 AM4/10/18
to Laura Gekeler, sakai-user

Hi Laura,

 

We tend to follow our central IT browser support guidelines (although for some reason unknown to me, Google Chrome isn’t on the list, which we do support for our instance of Sakai): http://its.virginia.edu/support/home.html#browsers

 

Trisha

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+...@apereo.org.
To post to this group, send email to sakai...@apereo.org.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/a/apereo.org/group/sakai-user/.

Benjamin Rappleyea

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:16:55 PM4/10/18
to Gordon, Patricia (psg3a), Laura Gekeler, sakai-user
We tend to recommend Chrome which makes up almost 50% of what our users are actually using.


Screenshot_20180410-111420~2.png

Jennifer Loudiana

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:26:55 PM4/10/18
to Benjamin Rappleyea, Gordon, Patricia (psg3a), Laura Gekeler, sakai-user

The only browser we don’t recommend is MicroSoft Edge it has done some odd things.

 

Otherwise we use them all as long as they are the most recent version we haven’t seen any issues.  Sometimes we’ll have a user change browsers if they have a consistent problem.

 

Jennifer Loudiana

Information Technology

Walsh University

330-490-7430

jlou...@walsh.edu

Matthew Jones

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:40:48 PM4/10/18
to Laura Gekeler, sakai-user
This question comes up often, and depends on the definition of supported. jQuery states this really good [1]

The Meaning of “Support”

Defining what “support” means is trickier than you might think. Under the premise that “untested code is broken code,” the jQuery core team prefers to say we fully support a browser if the project regularly runs unit tests against that browser. The unit tests ensure that every API returns a consistent set of results in all browsers.


Sakai doesn't have browser based unit tests, we only have QA testers that test in actual browsers. From what I've seen in the QA reports, typically testing is done on Chrome/Safari and Edge. So supported in the Sakai world is typically defined based on which browsers the QA testers are using to test the release. 

Supported could also be defined as which browsers will get priority for bug fixes. Generally Chrome gets top priority. We like to at least have it "functional" in IE 11. For instance Gradebook NG didn't work at all in IE 11 in an early Sakai 12 release and that was fixed. But there are known issues with IE 11, I believe around some edge features like audio recording.

Support can also depend on our libraries and what minimum versions they allow. Currently the 2 big ones jQuery and Bootstrap claim to support the "latest" Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Edge as well as back to IE11.

Sakai's 12 statement is the same as Sakai 11's [2] in that various versions of IE "should work", but as Ben said are generally really low in usage and not often reported about as far as issues.

Sakai 12 is designed to work with modern browsers. Recommended browsers (those with the most QA testing effort against them) are Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft Edge and IE 11 should work fine. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Sakai (pre-Sakai 11), please make sure that you don't have the property X-UA-Compatible:IE set, or it may make Microsoft IE 11 behave as though it is an earlier browser version and therefore not work. Sakai should work on most modern tablet and mobile devices.  

[1] https://blog.jquery.com/2014/04/02/browser-support-in-jquery-1-12-and-beyond/

[2] https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+12+Browser+Support

Tiffany Stull

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:46:20 PM4/10/18
to Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a), Laura Gekeler, sakai-user

Hi Laura,

In testing Sakai 11, I found issues recording responses to Tests & Quizzes Audio Recording questions in IE and Safari, so I recommend students use either Firefox or Chrome when taking a test with one of these types of questions in it.

Tiffany

sbal...@csc.edu

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:52:26 PM4/10/18
to Sakai Users Group
We provide the following statement as part of our Guide to Online Learning:

"Recommended web browsers to use for CSC Online (Sakai) are the latest versions of  Google Chrome,  Mozilla Firefox, and  Internet Explorer 11+. 
It is also recommended that any popup and ad blocking extensions are disabled for the CSC Online domain (online.csc.edu)."

We have found that many issues are related to extensions and weird browser settings (disabled Javascript, etc). Our 24/7 helpdesk partner provides a browser checker which helps student uncover some of these issues.

Sam Ballard
Teaching & Learning Technologies
Chadron State College

Neal Caidin

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 12:56:02 PM4/10/18
to Samuel Ballard, Sakai Users Group
We include recommended browsers with our release notes [1].

Currently it says this:
"Sakai 12 is designed to work with modern browsers. Recommended browsers (those with the most QA testing effort against them) are Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft Edge and IE 11 should work fine. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Sakai (pre-Sakai 11), please make sure that you don't have the property X-UA-Compatible:IE set, or it may make Microsoft IE 11 behave as though it is an earlier browser version and therefore not work. Sakai should work on most modern tablet and mobile devices. "

We similarly have recommended browsers for Sakai 11 under Sakai 11 release notes. Similar to the above statement.


-- Neal


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+unsubscribe@apereo.org.

Laura Gekeler

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 4:33:48 PM4/10/18
to Benjamin Rappleyea, Gordon, Patricia (psg3a), sakai-user
Google analytics on our Sakai server reports 58% of our users are on Chrome (!)

~LauraG

Laura Gekeler
LMS Administrator
Learning Platforms
Apereo Foundation Board '14-2020
University of Notre Dame


On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 12:16 PM, Benjamin Rappleyea <benra...@gmail.com> wrote:
We tend to recommend Chrome which makes up almost 50% of what our users are actually using.



On Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 10:31 AM Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a) <ps...@virginia.edu> wrote:

Hi Laura,

 

We tend to follow our central IT browser support guidelines (although for some reason unknown to me, Google Chrome isn’t on the list, which we do support for our instance of Sakai): http://its.virginia.edu/support/home.html#browsers

 

Trisha

 

From: "sakai...@apereo.org" <sakai...@apereo.org> on behalf of Laura Gekeler <lgek...@nd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 10:50 AM
To: "sakai...@apereo.org" <sakai...@apereo.org>
Subject: [sakai-user] Supported Browsers with Sakai

 

We seem to be running into vague and usually unresolvable issues where IE11 is involved. Rarely do we get to the bottom of them as users disengage as soon as they find something that works.

 

Do any of you issue "supported browser" statements for Sakai? If so, would you mind sharing what you've come up with?

 

 

Thanks,

 

Laura

Laura Gekeler
LMS Administrator

Learning Platforms

Apereo Foundation Board '14-2020

University of Notre Dame

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+unsubscribe@apereo.org.


To post to this group, send email to sakai...@apereo.org.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/a/apereo.org/group/sakai-user/.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+unsubscribe@apereo.org.

Laura Gekeler

unread,
Apr 10, 2018, 4:38:43 PM4/10/18
to Tiffany Stull, Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a), sakai-user
This is really helpful. I think we're going to issue a "supported browser" statement/KB article and base our list on what we as QA users most often test with!

~LauraG

Laura Gekeler
LMS Administrator
Learning Platforms
Apereo Foundation Board '14-2020
University of Notre Dame


On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 12:46 PM, Tiffany Stull <tl...@virginia.edu> wrote:

Hi Laura,

In testing Sakai 11, I found issues recording responses to Tests & Quizzes Audio Recording questions in IE and Safari, so I recommend students use either Firefox or Chrome when taking a test with one of these types of questions in it.

Tiffany


On 4/10/2018 11:31 AM, Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a) wrote:

Hi Laura,

 

We tend to follow our central IT browser support guidelines (although for some reason unknown to me, Google Chrome isn’t on the list, which we do support for our instance of Sakai): http://its.virginia.edu/support/home.html#browsers

 

Trisha

 

From: "sakai...@apereo.org" <sakai...@apereo.org> on behalf of Laura Gekeler <lgek...@nd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 10:50 AM
To: "sakai...@apereo.org" <sakai...@apereo.org>
Subject: [sakai-user] Supported Browsers with Sakai

 

We seem to be running into vague and usually unresolvable issues where IE11 is involved. Rarely do we get to the bottom of them as users disengage as soon as they find something that works.

 

Do any of you issue "supported browser" statements for Sakai? If so, would you mind sharing what you've come up with?

 

 

Thanks,

 

Laura

Laura Gekeler
LMS Administrator

Learning Platforms

Apereo Foundation Board '14-2020

University of Notre Dame

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+unsubscribe@apereo.org.


To post to this group, send email to sakai...@apereo.org.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/a/apereo.org/group/sakai-user/.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sakai Users Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sakai-user+unsubscribe@apereo.org.

Sanghyun Jeon

unread,
Apr 11, 2018, 4:19:32 PM4/11/18
to Laura Gekeler, Tiffany Stull, Gordon, Patricia S. (Trisha) (psg3a), sakai-user
Before our annual version upgrade, we requested our testers to test IE, FF, Chrome and Safari (it did not mean they tested Sakai all required browsers, though). However, often they found issues. Below is our supported Browsers for Sakai 11 based on our testing results.

For the best experience with Courses (powered by Sakai), please choose a supported Web browser from the list below. They are listed in order from most-to-least preferred.

  • Mozilla Firefox 47 or higher
  • Google Chrome 57 or higher
  • Apple Safari 11
    Notes:
    • Although we have tested Safari against Claremont Sakai 11, and it works in general, Safari is not fully supported at this time. If you need to use Safari, version 11 works best based on preliminary testing results.
  • Internet Explorer 11 and Edge
    Notes:
    • In general when using a web-served software such as Sakai, using the browser's back button can be problematic. This is particularly true when using Internet Explorer.
    • IE is mostly working with Sakai 11. However, during testing IE tends to render slightly differently, depending on which version of IE you are using (10, 11, Edge). There is a known issue that IE (10, 11) will not allow a user to "Star" a site in the Sites tab due to a bug specific to these versions of IE.
    • Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 seems to work with this functionality, but only in specific versions.
    • Because of these various quirks, we highly recommend using Firefox or Chrome to access Sakai.



Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages