IE settings vs eBook defaults
»What IE settings carry over to AEC?
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| jaxz
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Dear all (and Sunil!!), it seems that selected IE settings are not always used in the eBook. This is of course very good - it gives more control over the appearance of the ebook! For instance, it seems Java is allowed in my eBooks regardless of any IE settings saying no Java. Likewise the use of cookies seems to be OK. Also, if I set up preferences on font-size in IE, then run an eBook - the IE settings don't seem to effect the eBook rendering. Is this how it is supposed to work? Or is my system "special"? I hope to be able to predict what users will actually see when they run my books. Please advice and elaborate a little on how IE settings and eBooks created using AEC are related! Cheers,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 3:38 pm on May 21, 2006
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| Storyman
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Do you run into many users who do not have Java installed on their systems? I've thought about Java but the low percentage of users who have it installed has prevented me from learning it. This is somewhat OT. This is a great brain storming program written in Java. And it's free. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
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Posted on: 9:32 pm on May 21, 2006
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| jaxz
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Hi Storyman,
great link on the mindmapping!I "dont know Java", but I'm learning by example. Having been at it for a few weeks, I can now modify and even write up rather (in my own humble opinion) complex code! The "low percentage" you mention made me look it up. See this site:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp According to them, about 90% of surfers have Java turned on. Not that bad. And that stat seems stable over time. Likewise at:http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/February/java.php they find Java about 95% enabled, and same for JavaScript 1.2+. However, I have still NOT published any eBooks - so I don't know for sure that most customers will be able to use eBooks loaded with Java. I'm still slowly getting a grip on AEC and layout (Java, CSS) and payment solutions (probably APS with Paypal - seems most convenient for me). Perhaps Alaska or other Java gurus can shed more light on the usefulness of Java (and cookies) in eBooks? All for now,
Jaxz
(Edited by jaxz at 2:02 pm on May 22, 2006)
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Posted on: 10:45 am on May 22, 2006
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| Storyman
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Hi Jaxz, It would be great if it does turn out that 95% of the machines do have Java installed. That seems high to me; especially when they report javascript has the same percentage. Also note the percentage of users with IE6 and FireFox reported for Jan. of this year on the two sites. W3Schools are more in line with what I've found.
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Posted on: 6:06 pm on May 22, 2006
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| jaxz
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Well, I have no own experience of monitoring any stats.
It seems IE7 is up and coming - hope it'll work well with AEC. I'll start a thread on that!Clearly there's a great flux towards Firefox. But like you mentioned eons ago, it's probably few who actually uninstall IE when switching to FF.
Cheers,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 7:34 pm on May 22, 2006
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| jaxz
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bump I feel this is an important question. What IE settings do carry over to the AEC eBooks? Is there any detailed info available on this issue? thanx,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 9:28 am on May 30, 2006
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| Storyman
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Are you using a DOC TYPE? If so, which one?
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Posted on: 5:51 pm on May 30, 2006
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| jaxz
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Yes, the following goes at the top of my pages: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> Does this have to do with what IE settings carry over to the eBooks?
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Posted on: 9:49 am on May 31, 2006
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| Storyman
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Remove the DOCTYPE and see if it changes things.
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Posted on: 3:40 pm on May 31, 2006
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| jaxz
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Hi Storyman! Please note that I do not have a problem here. The issue is wheter things will work the same way on other systems. Or did you reply to some other of my recent questions? (Like the flickering issue in IE?) I use Javascript in my ebooks. They seem to run very well regardless of how I choose to set up IE. So, at least on my system, it seems that AEC does NOT inherit user settings regarding Javascript in Internet Explorer. This is obviously a GREAT thing. It allows me and every other author to use Javascript without having to worry about user settings. I'm just hoping to clarify this issue. Likewise, it seems that cookies from my eBooks are accepted regadless of how I configure IE. And this is also a GREAT thing because of the reason above. (I use cookies as part of my navigation structure) If using that doctype I posted is the magic bullet to override IE settings, well then that is good to know! All for now,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 7:24 pm on May 31, 2006
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| Storyman
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Can't say for certain what impact the DOCTYPE has on performance. A long time ago I posted a query about DOCTYPEs and what impact they had on the performance of ebooks. Never received a definitive answer, but found on one occasion removing the DT did resolve an issue--so try it as needed. From trial and error, I've come to the same conclusions as you. It doesn't seem to matter if Javascript is turned off in IE's preferences. As for font size setting in IE not effecting ebooks appears to be true. However, I've found the opposite not true. That is when font size is changed with Activ's controls and closed the new size carries over to IE.
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Posted on: 9:35 pm on May 31, 2006
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| jaxz
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Thanx! That font-size carries over back to IE I had no idea. Hopefully, it may not be a big issue though. I've emailed Sunil/support to get some official word on how things are supposed to work re: Javascript/cookies. Trial and error is risky, like you mentioned a while ago. all for now,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 10:09 am on June 1, 2006
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| Storyman
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Let us know what he says.
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Posted on: 5:29 pm on June 1, 2006
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| EBookCompiler
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I seem to remember a bug with the font settings in IE. This is like several years ago, so it is possible the bug may be fixed in newer versions
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Posted on: 1:26 pm on June 6, 2006
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| jaxz
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Sunil emailed me. He says this (roughly from memory): "The question is complex, but I am looking into it and will reply in this thread. The issues deal with different implementations of various windows versions and IE versions regarding what settings carry over to applications like AEC-compiled eBooks." **
This is clearly very important stuff, and Sunil and Co are the ones best positioned to clarify the question. I look forward to more info on these matters! /Jaxz
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Posted on: 12:02 pm on June 15, 2006
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| Storyman
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Jaxz, The clean solution is to use CSS stylesheets for resizing font size. The user is given an option of changing the font size and a javascript program reloads the stylesheet with the different font setting.
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Posted on: 3:37 pm on June 15, 2006
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| Alaska
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Don't have much to add to this thread, as I try not to dwell on the issues I can't control; if any user settings limit the ebook behavior, it will also limit the browser befhavior as well, and that's the choice of the user. If they change the text size because their vision is poor, so be it. Java and Javascript, on the other hand, are two very different animals; the only things they have in common is four letters, and the fact that both can work on the Web. Your settings for Java and Java Applets won't affect your Javascript behavior, and vice versa. Be sure that, when testing, you are testing for the right things...
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Posted on: 6:52 pm on July 13, 2006
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| Storyman
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Roger, Do you have any idea on the percentage of Win/IE users who have Java installed?
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Posted on: 10:04 pm on July 13, 2006
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| Alaska
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Not off the top of my head, so I googled, and found this page: http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_design.htm according to these folks, Users Java support:
8% none/unknown, 92% enabled Users JavaScript Support
6½% none/disabled, 93½% enabled On one of my sites that tracks those sorts of things, I've noticed about 9% have JavaScript disabled. I don't have any statistics there on Java, sorry.
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Posted on: 11:09 pm on July 13, 2006
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| jaxz
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Bump. Sunil has yet to chime in on this. The main thrust of this thread is NOT about font size. It is about the functioning of Javascript in AEC-created ebooks under various IE settings. I think it is important to know if scripts will be disabled in the ebook if they are disabled in IE. On the systems I have tested (win-XP and IE50/55/60), it seems user settings in IE make NO difference. But then perhaps my system is "special" - surely there is some hard-core knowledge around that could be shared! Please Sunil - chime in if you have more to say on this! cheers,
jaxz
Quote: from jaxz on 1:02 pm on June 15, 2006[br]Sunil emailed me.He says this (roughly from memory): "The question is complex, but I am looking into it and will reply in this thread. The issues deal with different implementations of various windows versions and IE versions regarding what settings carry over to applications like AEC-compiled eBooks." **
This is clearly very important stuff, and Sunil and Co are the ones best positioned to clarify the question. I look forward to more info on these matters! /Jaxz
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Posted on: 8:15 pm on August 18, 2006
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| jmiguy
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Just to add my two cents... I use Internet Explorer 6 and have in the past disabled scripts for testing. The javascript ran fine. Java on the other hand.... I don't have any java applets or servlets (or whatever) to run in my eBooks. I think if you're planning on going this high tech (using Java) you should just include a link to Sun's website so the reader can download and install the latest version of Java if not installed already. Jeff
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Posted on: 8:53 pm on August 18, 2006
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| Storyman
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Hi Jeff, Had same results as you running an Activ ebook, that included javascript, on a Win2K box with javascript disabled in IE. The javascript in the ebook worked fine.
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Posted on: 9:15 pm on August 18, 2006
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| jaxz
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OK - so we seem to have the same result for a few different setups. It seems JAVASCRIPTs work in eBooks under winXP and win2000 with IE6 when scripts are disabled. Perhaps that is good enough. Though I really want to hear a fuller story from Sunil on his matter. It is a little risky to just rely on what seems to work on a few systems. But I really want to use javascript in my ebooks. Cheers,
Jaxz
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Posted on: 5:44 pm on September 10, 2006
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| Storyman
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Hi Jaxz, Do you have any friends who are running Win98 or ME? Any of them using IE 5.0 or 5.5? It would be nice to verify what does and doesn't work in ways of javascript. Also, have you searched the forum because this issue came up some time before and I believe Sunil weighed in on it.
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Posted on: 6:13 pm on September 10, 2006
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