[racket] IE blocks Help Desk search

[Stephen De Gabrielle]

Hi,

 

The javascript required message should ask user to use compatible default browser:

'Sorry, you must have JavaScript to use this page.'

does not explain that to use the 'help desk' search under windows you should change your default browser.

Suggested text:

'Sorry, you must have JavaScript to use this page.

Javascript is disabled for local files in Internet Explorer. Please change your default browser to one that supports javascript in local files. Suggestions: Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome.'

 

We should probably also mention this on the documentation home page, in the 'getting started' document and in 'DrRacket: Programming Environment'.

 

Kind regards,

 

Stephen

 

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 9:22 PM, YC <yinso...@gmail.com> wrote:

If I recall correctly there were suggestions to serve the help pages through a local web server - was that tried and rejected? 

 

Thanks,

yc

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Eli Barzilay <e...@barzilay.org> wrote:

Four minutes ago, Jordan Schatz wrote:
> This is the only way I am aware of to get IE to automatically run JS
> in local files:
>
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749149(WS.10).aspx
> (keep reading, it starts there but the important bit is a couple
> paragraphs down)

There are two things there, which both don't work: one is to disable
the whole thing, which means that you give up all proection making it
a non-solution.  The other (the "Mark of the Web" ridiculousness)
seemed like a promising direction, but I remember that there were some
bad issues with that too.

[IMO, they could have made things much better by making all local
pages behave as if they had that mark thing (which makes it impossible
to lead to security issues like reading local files), and only pages
that need more access would lead to asking the user for permission.
It seems like that would have been easier, since it makes the whole
local machine zone lockdown unnecessary...]

_________________________________________________
 For list-related administrative tasks:
 http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users

--

--
Stephen De Gabrielle
stephen.d...@acm.org
Telephone +44 (0)20 85670911
Mobile        +44 (0)79 85189045
http://www.degabrielle.name/stephen

[Eli Barzilay]

Three hours ago, Stephen De Gabrielle wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The javascript required message should ask user to use compatible
> default browser:
>
> > 'Sorry, you must have JavaScript to use this page.'
>
> does not explain that to use the 'help desk' search under windows
> you should change your default browser.
>
> Suggested text:

There's no way to do this -- the text needs to be different for
different situations (like a text browser, or an intentionally
disabled JS, or IE), and there's no way to tell the difference
(... without JS).

> > 'Sorry, you must have JavaScript to use this page. Javascript is
> > disabled for local files in Internet Explorer.

Another problems: it's not *disabled*, it's just very inconvenient.
(And, as pointed out, can be disabled at the cost of giving up
security.)

> > Please change your default browser to one that supports javascript
> > in local files. Suggestions: Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome.'
>
> We should probably also mention this on the documentation home page,
> in the 'getting started' document and in 'DrRacket: Programming

> Environment<http://docs.racket-lang.org/drracket/index.html?q=F1> '.

That's unlikely to make a difference, since you have to be reading the
documentation -- but even if it was, I *really* want to avoid such
browser recommendations. I'm sure that there are some people who
really like IE, and this will be offending to them. (It'd be similar
to recommending a change to your OS, or editor.)

--
((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay:
http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life!