Hi Dmitri,

I just installed IE 8 for some testing on another application. It destroyed my PHPDock application I am feverishly working on.

I was under the impression that PHPDock was it's own custom browser and not just an COM+ OLE kludge of what ever was installed on the machine as the current IE browser.

Other than backing down IE to version 7, what can I do?

Thanks for your help,

Randy

Like _any_ other application running embedded IE browser, it runs the browser installed on the machine because:
a) IE is quite big. Bringing full package would require ~19MB (packed)
b) distributing IE with PhpDock would violate MS license.



Make your application compatible with IE8. Sooner or later you won't find IE7 on your customer's machines anymore...

Yes, that is the logical solution as Spock would say (and immediately Scotty would yell "but I need more time Captain!").

OK. Forgive my "the world just came to an end" post. As always I appreciate your direct, no nonsense approach.

For those of you facing this dillema, here is the short term solution while you need more time for your Scotty to figure things out... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288325(VS.85).aspx (url doesn't work correctly in BBCode, you need the entire thing including the (VS.85))

You can set a compatibility mode header in your page to force IE7 modes (strict, loose, etc).

===== \/ \/ \/ \/ IMPORTANT \/ \/ \/ \/ =====

Now -- it would be very nice to have a different embedded browser that was say [cross platform ] !!! (hint hint)

That way, I and others, could continue to encourage you to build cross platform versions of PHPDock for Windows and BSD (MAC OS) (I personally could care less about Linux because there is just not enough market share in business software).

We know you can embed Firefox, you do it in the editor <grin>.

Thanks for listening,

All is good,

Randy

Its "weight" is roughly 21MB...
I'm not sure that such heavy add-on to light-weight php-dock will be highly appreciated...

Ah my friend...you are way too smart for your own good. You come up with some very,very good solutions for all of us...but then your mind goes blank when we ask for a little favor <grin>

At least offer the choice. Here is one potential solution that does not required the 22 meg download (although it does require FireFox 3+ to already be installed on the local machine).

How about browser detection...then use a Mozilla GRE stub (XULRunner) to load the Mozilla browser already installed on the machine (rather than bloating PHPDock with your own version)?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/GRE
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XULRunner

I've given you a more flexible solution and opened the door to more product sales. Here's how...

Compile PHPDock for both Windows and BSD (MAC OS) (and Linux 2 if you prefer) and you have an instant cross platform PHPDock! Sweet!

Seem reasonable?

Randy

To add to the previous post (to be more precise), the XULRunner application is a stub that would open what appears to be a custom browser. This is precisely what you do with IE. Now you and more importantly, we would have complete control over the capabilities of this browser through it's various application settings since they could be exposed in the form of xml files. OR, you could choose to compile them into the application if you wanted to do so. You can see an example of this in the sample XULRunner minimal browser implementation called MyBrowser (I sent you via e-mail with instructions).

This is from the Mozilla XULRunner Docs:



So the XULRunner app doesn't have to include the entire runtime. It only has to include the proper settings (primarily "branding"). The settings are much like you already provide us with borders, menus, status bar, etc. All these things are fully controllable.

It's less than 30k I think, and certainly less than 100k,

Randy

Oh, I think I potentially just made PHPEd a much small install too didn't I?

< wink >

Randy