On Nov 15, 2007, at 6:55 AM, Thomas Bruederli wrote:

> You are right, the specification isn't very precise. I've just added a
> "tested browsers" section.

I took a look at it, I think the change makes what to use more clear .

> It's a wiki and registered users are able to add the browsers they
> successfully tested with.

I added a "Browsers Reported to work" section, then added a browser  
known to work here.

On Nov 15, 2007, at 8:05 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I was using Firefox 2.x (Windows, Linux), Opera 9.x (Windows,  
> Linux), Internet Explorer.

You might want to add the version of Opera you use to the "Browsers  
Reported to work" section.

> I don't think that browser names should be displayed in the  
> requirements, because there are a lot of differences in the  
> browsers engine realization (even in the same family).

Exactly my point. Since the implementation details of HTML, CSS, and  
ECMAScript are different between browsers and browser versions, the  
existing requirements indicated that many browsers should work when  
in reality they might not.

> The key here is to specify generic functionality that is used in  
> the Roundcube that at least must be supported in order to work.

Yes, requirement specification is a very difficult task for _any_  
piece of software. You don't want to be too detailed and scare people  
away, or make the requirements difficult to read or understand. On  
the other hand, there is a limited amount of testing done. It would  
be a very large task to find and test all browsers that fit the  
generic requirements. It is my opinion that those that encounter  
problems with RoundCube and use a browser not listed under "tested"  
are savvy enough to look for a requirements page, see their browser  
of choice is not listed, and figure out that their problem is likely  
a browser related issue. That can help the developers with better or  
more specific bug reports. The people that use any of the browsers  
listed likely won't read the requirements page ;)

> If we’ll add some browser’s names to the list it would mean that  
> we’ll give support obligations to the community to 100% support for  
> these browsers and it wouldn’t be right.

If the developers test their work using the browsers they list, isn't  
that true ? Would a developer test in a popular browser and not fix  
an issue discovered ?

> My advice is to keep things like they are now – if your browser is  
> supporting specified functions in the requirement it should work,  
> if it’s supporting and not working – create ticket and we’ll try to  
> investigate the problem.

The specification of "Javascript" is very general. There are several  
versions of JavaScript, and technically the latest versions are  
correctly called ECMAScript. Although the CSS2 requirement excludes  
older browsers. For example Netscape 3.0 supported "Javascript" and  
yet that browser isn't likely to work ( nor is it worth my time to  
dig out an installer to check ). A browser may claim to support  
"CSS2" but not support the specific features used by RoundCube.

When browsers support ECMAScript 4, there may be features RoundCube  
would like to take advantage of. If that happens, only specific  
browsers and browser versions will work.

Many people don't know what any of those things listed under "Browser  
Requirements" are, but _do_ know the name of the browser they use.  
Some however don't even know the name of the browser, but that is a  
different topic ;)


Charles Dostale
System Admin - Silver Oaks Communications
http://www.silveroaks.com/
824 17th Street, Moline  IL  61265

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