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Subject: Bungie.net website and Firefox
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(Originally posted in Underground; apparently the wrong place for this subject...)

As anyone who regularly reads Slashdot will be aware, the number of people using Firefox (and other Mozilla-based browsers) is continuing to rise, and is trending upwards (translated: more and more people are switching, faster and faster). I myself have used Mozilla since the pre-1.0, but I've finally decided to switch to Firefox now that the 1.0 Preview Release is available.

So where's the problem? As anyone who visits this site with a Mozilla-based browser will be aware, you simply can't scroll the page using a mouse scrollwheel. In fact, you can't even use the up or down arrows on your keyboard (or page up / page down). This means that these users have to use the scrollbar (a venerable and useful interface element, to be sure).

Thus, to get straight to the point; are Bungie going to look at improving the compatibility of the site with Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers? I think that as the features and reliability of Firefox improve, and the (numerous) security problems with IE continue to be identified, this trend of switching is set to continue. I'm sure Bungie wouldn't want a large percentage of their users getting an inferior experience on their website...

Addendum:

goweb commented on the previous thread that "This is a problem with FireFox's rendering engine. Fixing it on b.net would break a whole lot of other things." I can't comment on Firefox's rendering engine being to blame (although I personally find this unlikely; Bungie.net is the only website I've ever seen in which this problem is manifest), but this is really quite irrelevent. My point was, that if a substantial proportion of visitors use Browser X, then the website really ought to work well in Browser X. If the situation was reversed and Internet Explorer was the browser with the problem, I'm sure that people wouldn't just blithely remark that it was an IE bug.

Without knowing exactly what is causing the scrolling functionality to stop working, it'd be a bit premature to suggest fixing it would break other stuff, but in any case I'd not want that any more than Bungie does. It's quite a simple question really; are Bungie looking at Firefox with a less cynical eye now it is gaining popularity, with a view to considering its users when they visit Bungie.net ?

  • 09.17.2004 3:16 AM PDT

Our very own bungie.net Overlord stated this. Therefore they have obviously looked into the problem, and this is how they know that fixing said problem would break other things.

  • 09.17.2004 3:18 AM PDT
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If they've commented on the scrolling bug before, I'd be interested in reading what was written. I suppose I could disassemble the page myself and find out where the bug starts (the Mozilla dev team would at least find that useful).

  • 09.17.2004 4:00 AM PDT

Only Becausae I'm Awesome

Forum Tutorials --- WATCH THEM AND LEARN

I've got opera, which i don't think is associated with mozilla, and it's handling fine. Except for some unknown reason, I am unable to see text in color =/. Not that i'm complaining or anything, but why not just simply switch back to mozilla? For the time being that is until they get around to fixing the problem.

[Edited on 9/17/2004 4:11:36 AM]

  • 09.17.2004 4:11 AM PDT
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I'm guessing you mean switch back to IE since the problem affects both Mozilla (Seamonkey) and Firefox. That said, I'm glad to hear the problem doesn't affect Opera. But no, I won't be doing that. I like Firefox for specific reasons, and I have a particular disdain towards any site which forces me to use a given browser.

As it happens I don't visit bungie.net very often, so it doesn't affect me too much. Before it was redesigned I used to visit it regularly, however; I guess the decrease in usability and increase in eye-candy has somewhat nullified my interest in the site. I get all my Bungie news from HBO nowadays.

  • 09.17.2004 4:52 AM PDT

bah

This is why monopolies are nice. They standardize everything into one nice easy to use system. And IE has no more security loop-holes than any other system. Hackers just like to find the bugs in IE. And you can turn off some of the features that have these loop-holes, like remote access.

  • 09.17.2004 6:49 AM PDT
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You can't scroll with a wheel because there's another scroll bar on the site. However, it's hidden. Unfortunately most all browsers default to that one. Notice that you can scroll on most computers after you click on the scroll bar you see.

  • 09.17.2004 7:03 AM PDT
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Or, if you click on someone's reply and immediately start using the scroll key, the scroll key will actually work. Then there was another accidental combination that I used that allowed me to grab the scroll bar and hold it down without holding down the mouse clicker itself, thus allowing me to scroll up and down with the mouse without pushing down on anything. Don't ask me how it happened, all I know is that it involved pushing down on both mouse clickers while holding the scroll bar at the same time, and then releasing.

  • 09.17.2004 7:32 AM PDT
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  • still hates toast

Actually all you have to is mouse down on any link, then drag your mouse off the link and finally mouse up. Then you can scroll just fine.

  • 09.17.2004 8:46 AM PDT
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This is why monopolies are nice. They standardize everything into one nice easy to use system. And IE has no more security loop-holes than any other system. Hackers just like to find the bugs in IE. And you can turn off some of the features that have these loop-holes, like remote access.

What utter poppycock. Were the web a proprietary technology that Microsoft had invented, then they could quite rightly assume everyone using it was using their client. But it isn't, and they can't. Neither can web developers. There was a period about 6 months ago when Internet Explorer accounted for around 85% of the browsers on the web, but it's dropping every month - Mozilla-based browser support has risen from just over 8% to nearly 17% in the course of this year.

In any event, there is already a nice convenient way of ensuring your content is standardised; a nice little organisation called the 'Worldwide Web Consortium' (or W3C) has a bunch of specifications for virtually every non-proprietary technology used on the web, from HTML to CSS; this is what web content authors should be adhering to, not some faux 'if it works in IE then that's okay with me' ideology.

  • 09.20.2004 7:35 AM PDT
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It does indeed appear to be a bug with focus selection in Firefox. I'll try and get it down to a testcase.

  • 09.20.2004 7:41 AM PDT

bah

Posted by: kapowaz
What utter poppycock. Were the web a proprietary technology that Microsoft had invented, then they could quite rightly assume everyone using it was using their client. But it isn't, and they can't. Neither can web developers. There was a period about 6 months ago when Internet Explorer accounted for around 85% of the browsers on the web, but it's dropping every month - Mozilla-based browser support has risen from just over 8% to nearly 17% in the course of this year.
Bah, I should have said standardization. The problem is, people make programs that aren't compatible. It's just fine to use something else, but if it's not 100% compatible, problems arise. Such as your problem. So when a problem comes up, don't start blaming anyone but your browser. I see you've decided to rectify the situation yourself, and I applaud you for that.

Without the big Windows monopoly, PC gaming would be virtually non-existant compared to what it is now. There would be so many OSs that there would be far fewer games on the market. Maybe with the newest emulation technology, the whole compatibility problem will go away. Micro$oft better watch out. Get rid of the need for standardization, and I'll drop Windows.

Totally randomly found this while looking for another post. I didn't read it, but he had the same problem I recall.

[Edited on 9/20/2004 8:55:07 AM]

  • 09.20.2004 8:50 AM PDT

Tom Achronos
Bungie.net Overlord
twitter: http://twitter.com/Achronos

"I have no words that would do justice to the atrocities you commit to the English language, as well as your continued assaults on the concepts of basic literacy and logical reasoning."

Posted by: kapowaz
(goweb commented on the previous thread that "This is a problem with FireFox's rendering engine. Fixing it on b.net would break a whole lot of other things." I can't comment on Firefox's rendering engine being to blame (although I personally find this unlikely; Bungie.net is the only website I've ever seen in which this problem is manifest), but this is really quite irrelevent. My point was, that if a substantial proportion of visitors use Browser X, then the website really ought to work well in Browser X. If the situation was reversed and Internet Explorer was the browser with the problem, I'm sure that people wouldn't just blithely remark that it was an IE bug.


No, it isn't some grand conspiracy. Our site "buckets" your browser into three code paths - IE5+, Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape 7/Safari/Opera, and "Downlevel" (Downlevel is all the stuff we don't really support - IE4, text browsers, old versions of netscape, etc). The problem is that Firefox (and other versions of Mozilla, but not all) have a problem where they pick they wrong scrollbar as the "default". Our site has two, although one you can't see and doesn't work. Mozilla picks the inner one, and hence you can't scroll. I believe there is an open bug in Bugzilla about this. Anyway, we have investigated fixing it, and even had it working. Unfortunately, it broke many other things in that bucket, including Safari and Opera support. Since Safari and Opera were working, and IE6 is still by FAR the user agent of choice, you guys who use Firefox get no scrolling. I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but remember that many sites (like the one in that Slashdot story) are specialist sites dealing with technology. We're a bit more mainstream, and hence our browser stats reflect that.

As for the browser compatibility question, we don't include any specific functionality geared toward any single browser. But the fact of the matter is that our users generally use IE6. Even Safari gets more hits than Firefox at last check. But we never view any browser with a "cynical eye", whatever the hell that means. We even support Opera, and hardly anyone uses that.

[Edited on 9/20/2004 11:25:58 AM]

  • 09.20.2004 11:20 AM PDT
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I wouldn't have thought it was a conspiracy, but regardless, it's good to hear some insight into the thought processes going on behind the scenes. I didn't realise that code-pathing still went on in this day and age though, I must be honest! Nowadays all I do to serve content to different browsers is either let them have a stylesheet or not. But that's just me.

If there's already an open bug in bugzilla regarding the scrolling issue I shan't go creating a testcase; it tends to be pretty time consuming, and I'm sure that'll be the case with bungie.net too.

It's true that the statistics any given site will get will vary an awful lot dependent upon the audience sampled, but the raw figures of just how many people are downloading Firefox should suggest that a lot of people are using it now (over 1,000,000 people downloaded Firefox 1.0 PR in the first 100 hours of it being available). That traditional media such as The New York Times and Time magazine start hailing it as the next best thing since sliced bread is only likely to be the beginning; IE isn't being updated and is getting lots of bad press, Firefox is being constantly updated and is getting lots of good press - it's only a matter of time before its userbase represents a serious percentage of people on the web. This is more what I was drumming at.

I'm glad you support Opera, but really as far as different named brands of browser go, it's really the standards that matter. I generally find that when I'm developing content, it works 100% as intended in three browsers; Mozilla(/Firefox), Safari and Opera. The one I have trouble with is IE.

As for the cynical eye comment... well, I guess that was just me feeling a bit ...cynical ;)

  • 09.23.2004 12:55 PM PDT

Tom Achronos
Bungie.net Overlord
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"I have no words that would do justice to the atrocities you commit to the English language, as well as your continued assaults on the concepts of basic literacy and logical reasoning."

Feel free to look through bugzilla if you can find it. The fact that it hasn't been fixed in six months worries me that it may have been lost in the shuffle. Then again, most sites aren't as complex as ours in terms of CSS structure.

As for the Firefox comments - despite our parent company, I frankly do not care for what browser you use, just as long as it isn't IE for the Mac. Piece of crap, that browser. The others, we'll do our best, but we only have so much time, and the simple fact of the matter is that IE 6 covers >90% of our user base. Safari gets about 6 or 7%, and Mozilla gets whatever's left (aside from the occassional Opera hit). You can guess where we focus our efforts most of the time.

Considering who our parent company is, I think we do a lot to support a broad range of browsers, more than most people would expect a studio owned by a company who makes its own browser to do.

  • 09.23.2004 1:26 PM PDT
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Yo Halo53, I'm real happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best bungie.net profiles of all time. OF ALL TIME!

You guys are complaining because you have to move the mouse all the way over to the right side and click the down arrow? Wow you guys are lazy. I've got a mac so I had the 1 button mouse forever. I only got the 2 button with the wheel for Halo for the PC. Get used to it. It's not that big of a problem.

  • 09.23.2004 1:55 PM PDT
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Posted by: Achronos
The problem is that Firefox (and other versions of Mozilla, but not all) have a problem where they pick they wrong scrollbar as the "default". Our site has two, although one you can't see and doesn't work. Mozilla picks the inner one, and hence you can't scroll.


But, why are there two?

  • 09.23.2004 8:36 PM PDT
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Posted by: Jason_4_04
Posted by: Achronos
The problem is that Firefox (and other versions of Mozilla, but not all) have a problem where they pick they wrong scrollbar as the "default". Our site has two, although one you can't see and doesn't work. Mozilla picks the inner one, and hence you can't scroll.


But, why are there two?


they are using a CSS trick to keep the top header static and the navigation widget static while allowing you to scroll the content section. thus overlaying the two static sections on top of the content as it scrolls. there are actually two scrollbars. one that is the normal scrollbar for the browser window and a scrollbar for the content area. they hide one of the scrollbars to achieve the cool affect of b.net.

it requires some specific code for different types of browsers because IE, Mozilla, Opera, etc all handle CSS a little differently. So fixing one thing in firefox might break it majorly for IE. kind of got to pick and choose your battles.

clear as mud?

[Edited on 9/23/2004 8:47:08 PM]

  • 09.23.2004 8:44 PM PDT
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  • still hates toast

I can use my scrollwheel in firefox after the update...did you fix something achronos?

  • 09.23.2004 8:49 PM PDT
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Posted by: focused7
Posted by: Jason_4_04
Posted by: Achronos
The problem is that Firefox (and other versions of Mozilla, but not all) have a problem where they pick they wrong scrollbar as the "default". Our site has two, although one you can't see and doesn't work. Mozilla picks the inner one, and hence you can't scroll.


But, why are there two?


they are using a CSS trick to keep the top header static and the navigation widget static while allowing you to scroll the content section. thus overlaying the two static sections on top of the content as it scrolls. there are actually two scrollbars. one that is the normal scrollbar for the browser window and a scrollbar for the content area. they hide one of the scrollbars to achieve the cool affect of b.net.

it requires some specific code for different types of browsers because IE, Mozilla, Opera, etc all handle CSS a little differently. So fixing one thing in firefox might break it majorly for IE. kind of got to pick and choose your battles.

clear as mud?


Ah, now I see.

  • 09.23.2004 8:50 PM PDT
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Posted by: stosh
I can use my scrollwheel in firefox after the update...did you fix something achronos?


yeah but it is hosed in IE right now. the widget doesn't stay at the bottom of the screen on the main page. the forums work fine though.

  • 09.23.2004 8:51 PM PDT
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I'm not having that problem with ie.

  • 09.23.2004 8:59 PM PDT
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Posted by: stosh
I'm not having that problem with ie.


hmmm... the widget doesn't stay at the bottom for me on the main page. but it works in the forums. in firefox the menus over to the left are messed up. i see little glitches everywhere. before you ask no it isn't my computer.

  • 09.23.2004 9:01 PM PDT
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I can scroll now without clicking on the scrollbar! :D

  • 09.23.2004 9:01 PM PDT
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things seem to be settling down now.

  • 09.23.2004 9:04 PM PDT

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