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BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #927807]

Sun, 30 September 2012 02:55

David Good

Messages: 41
Registered: September 2012

Member

Viewer build in use: 4.0.2

I am providing a BIRT POC which includes use of the sample viewer and frameset mapping. I am having some issues because I need to add a specific date picker (javascriptcalendar.org/javascript-date-picker.php) already in use by the business to the date type parameter boxes. Having added the picker it works great in Chrome and Firefox. It is with IE that I ran into problems. In IE8 the picker did not work at all and in IE7 it displays behind subsequent parameters on the param pop up page.

I found that BIRT viewer forces IE7 mode at line 47 of FramesetFragment.jsp file using the following code:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="X-UA-Compatible" CONTENT="IE=EmulateIE7">

I have tested the removal of the IE7 code in FramesetFragment.jsp and updating AbstractBaseReportDocument.js as suggested by Emmanuel (http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/mv/msg/243393/740215/). Apart from a small styling issue on the picker it seems to work now, in all browsers. I can 'fix' the IE8 picker issue by removing the line above and by modifying a date picker condition to assign CSS classes based on IE version, so now they are assigned the same way no matter what. My picker works fine in Chrome and Firefox, now works in IE8 ... but in IE7 I still have issues - it displays behind other elements (parameter boxes). IE7 has a well known bug related to positioned elements and a faulty reset of their z-index. (Details are at brenelz.com/blog/squish-the-internet-explorer-z-index-bug/).

I have decided that I will only release the picker for IE8+ and Chrome etc. What I am most concerned about is any knock on effect of removing this IE7 coding from the viewer. I can test this extensively but if I miss something obscure it may cause severe issues for end users in future, no matter their browser type/edition. There is no point breaking some part of the viewer just for this date picker.

Advice from anyone with knowledge on the topic of this 'forced IE7 mode' removal would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
David

[Updated on: Sun, 30 September 2012 08:49]

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Re: BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #929621 is a reply to message #927807]

Mon, 01 October 2012 16:09

Jason Weathersby

Messages: 9167
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

If I were you I would first search bugzilla to see what errors were reported for IE 8 and 9. I believe that may be why the Emulate was added:

here are a couple
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=360068
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=350736

Jason

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Re: BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #930015 is a reply to message #929621]

Tue, 02 October 2012 00:36

David Good

Messages: 41
Registered: September 2012

Member

Hi Jason,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I had read one of those as part of my own research before posting. The hits I get searching for relevant posts all relate to issues running iFrames, but I will not be using them in my case; just the stand alone viewer via tomcat(7).

When the viewer was being developed the decision must have been made to add the emulate code because of 'x', 'y' and 'z' reasons. Are you aware of any project documentation that I can obtain to ascertain when it was added and the reason?

David.

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Re: BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #930086 is a reply to message #930015]

Tue, 02 October 2012 02:24

David Good

Messages: 41
Registered: September 2012

Member

In an effort to get this going and start testing I performed the following changes to the viewer code. If anything stands out as incorrect or missing, please let me know. I will update any relevant test results as I go but will not be using iFrames.

Initially, I searched the viewer for any files including the string 'isIE'. Files listed were BrowserUtility.js, AbstractBaseReportDocument.js, AbstractReportComponent.js, AbstractBaseDialog.js, BirtExceptionDialog.js, BirtParameterDialog.js, BirtPrintReportDialog.js and AbstractBaseToc.js

Looking through each of the files I could only see that 4 of them would need to be updated to enable me to remove the IE7 emulation code in FramesetFragment.js:

BrowserUtility.js, AbstractBaseReportDocument.js, BirtExceptionDialog.js and AbstractBaseToc.js

I modified each of them as follows:

BrowserUtility.js
-----------------

at line 26 I added a browser detection condition and assigned true to boolen isIE8 if IE version >=8

else if ( window.XMLHttpRequest )
{
if (/MSIE (\d+\.\d+);/.test(navigator.userAgent)){
var ieversion=new Number(RegExp.$1);
if (ieversion >= 8) this.isIE8 = true;
else this.isIE7 = true;
}
}
else
{
this.isIE6 = true;
}

AbstractBaseReportDocument.js
-----------------------------

at lines 95 and 121 added || BrowserUtility.isIE8

to the condition: if ( BrowserUtility.isIE6 || BrowserUtility.isIE7 || BrowserUtility.isIE8)

BirtExceptionDialog.js
----------------------

at lines 47 and 58 added && !BrowserUtility.isIE8

to the condition: if ( BrowserUtility.isIE && !BrowserUtility.isIE7 && !BrowserUtility.isIE8)

AbstractBaseTOC.js
------------------

at line 396 added BrowserUtility.isIE8 ||

to the condition if ( rtl &&
( BrowserUtility.isIE6 || BrowserUtility.isIE7 || BrowserUtility.isIE8 ||
BrowserUtility.isOpera || BrowserUtility.isKHTML ||
BrowserUtility.isSafari
) )

[Updated on: Tue, 02 October 2012 02:25]

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Re: BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #930788 is a reply to message #930086]

Tue, 02 October 2012 16:44

Jason Weathersby

Messages: 9167
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

I will check with the viewer dev team.

Jason

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Re: BIRT Viewer - upgrade for IE8 + [message #932278 is a reply to message #930788]

Thu, 04 October 2012 01:23

David Good

Messages: 41
Registered: September 2012

Member

Thanks Jason, that is excellent.

I have loaded a couple of basic reports into the modified viewer and they view well in Chrome, FF and IE8. I will do some more testing over the next couple of days to include some charts, drill downs, drill throughs and exports etc and post any findings.

David

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