Embed soundcloud widget and IE8 - internet-explorer-8

I'm trying to get embedded widgets to work on IE8.
I've read that the embed widget now only is the html5 widget but that it will fallback to a flash widget. I've set up an environment with ie8 and flash installed but all I get is a grey soundcloud logo and some js errors. No flash from what I can tell. It's hard to find any more infromation about this so I hope that maybe someone here knows!?
Thanks

from soundcloud support:
Thanks for writing in about this and sorry you're having trouble getting your embeds to work on IE8. Unfortunately we no longer support the flash widget and this means we're unable to troubleshoot any errors that may be occurring.
Also, as it stands, the new SoundCloud has minimum system requirements. These system requirements correspond with what browser and OS versions are still being supported by Apple and Microsoft. By doing this, we can invest our resources and manpower into creating the best user experience possible -- while still ensuring that our updates are also compatible with what hardware and software partners can support us with. This means that we can speak to browser and OS developers and have them be able to help assist us with any needs we may have with future updates. As they do not support some OS and browsers anymore, we also are unable to as we move forward with the platform.
I hope that helps to clarify things further, but please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Related

Desktop application using Firefox WebExtensions

I am working on a XUL desktop application, where I use the browser tag and load a URL in that tag within the desktop application.
However, some websites display as old format and according to Mozilla, XUL is deprecated and will not be useable at the end of 2017. I want to build the application with the latest technology: WebExtensions.
I have searched many examples on the usage of WebExtensions, but all are working within the browser. Can I make a standalone desktop application just like XUL, but using WebExtensions?
If yes, then please give me some hints on how to get started.
If no, is any alternative for the same requirement available?
Webextensions are fairly limited in their scope. Even if there was an application runtime utilising them, you probably wouldn't get much use out of them due to the restrictive isolation from the host system.
Strictly speaking not webextensions, albeit very similar:
The Electron framework/runtime*
Someone at Mozilla is also working on an alternative dubbed "Positron"** though that software's future is uncertain and there is a chance he might abandon it for an entirely new, highly simplified project (at least that's what I gathered from my conversation with him on Github).
*http://electron.atom.io/
**https://github.com/mozilla/positron

Watir-webdriver: Safari

I've recently started using watir-webdriver and so far am a big fan. However I need to be able to test Safari too, and I don't have access to a mac to be able to use Safari-Watir.
Does anyone know a good alternative to use for testing Safari on a windows machine? (In Ruby of course)
Thanks
(important, see UPDATE below)
the Selenium Webdriver folks are apparently waiting for something from Apple in order to support safari. I would not hold your breath.
Apple does have a version of Safari for the PC, I'm not sure how good the current version is, the initial releases were.. um, well, lets just say they had issues (lots of issues)
Personally (mostly for security reasons) I would not run it nor recommend anyone use it for any purpose other than downloading Chrome or Firefox. But unfortunately a lot of apple users use it because it's what came with their systems, which means to the extent apple users are part of your target market, you have to test on it.
For the moment that means you'll need to use Safariwatir, which has not as far as I can tell had an update for a year or more.
the current state of support on both the Selenium/Webdriver side and the Safariwatir side was discussed recently in this thread in the watir general group on google
UPDATE
Webdriver now has Safari support, which makes direct support of safari (I think on a mac only at this point) possible. See http://watirmelon.com/2012/04/17/using-watir-webdriver-with-safari-at-last/ for more info.. still a bit DYI but I'm sure it will get more accessable soon.
Mike, seems this is available now. Alister Scott wrote up some instructions on his blog Using Watir-Webdriver with Safari At Last
Unfortunately this still a bit DYI because you have to build your own safari extension, which requires getting certificates and such from apple, and I'm not sure if you can create the right environment to build that stuff on anything other than a mac.

Is it possible to support WebGL in "old" browsers via plugin or addon?

Regarding to the immature situation and the somewhat bright feature of WebGL, I decide to use it to build an online application. For those users who have Firefox 4 or Chrome, there is no problem. But what should I do for the users of Firefox 3.* or even IE 6, 7, etc.?
So I'd like to ask that if there is any possible to write a plugin/addon. And when my codes detect the incompatibility, it can alert the user to download/install this extra component to enable them using the WebGL contents.
I noticed that nearly all instructions of WebGL only ask you to install the new, modern browsers to access WebGL contents, but none of them tell you how to handle the old browsers. Will there be a way for the survival of old school browsers?
Thanks very much.
As far as IE goes you should be able to use google chrome frame when webgl hits chrome(you can already hack it to get it working). And since you don't need admin rights to install it anymore it shouldn't be that much of a hurdle. As far as FF3 goes, I don't think that's much
of a long term issue, FF users are sensible and upgrade ;-)
To the best of my knowledge there is no easy answer to this.
If you want to write WebGL code that - without change - will also run on old browsers, then I can only think of Google's O3D project. Here you won't be directly writing WebGL code though. O3D is being implemented on top of WebGL, but its previous implementation was plugin based. So you can write your game or 3D app in O3D and prompt your users with old browser to install the plugin.
A much harder solution that I implement in my project 3DTin, is when WebGL is not available I do some 3D math in software and render it on Canvas 2D. It works if your 3D app is not very complicated. My app runs on all major browsers, including IE 7,8 with the help of excanvas. However this approach is not an option if your 3D scenes are complicated. You may want to look at following 3D javascript libraries that render on top of Canvas 2D:
pre3d
three.js

Themes for jQTouch

I've been using jQTouch to make an iphone-like website. But, I don't want it to look like a native iPhone app (Since people will be using it on other phones), but I don't really like the included JQT theme. Anyone know any other themes? I've searched long and hard, but can't find any. If worst comes to worse, I guess I could always make my own, but I'm not too good at graphics. Just wondering if anybody knows about any others, including those in demos?
Thanks in advance!
-Leticia Meyer
I've created one, available for download here
It's easily customizable, has Retina support and uses lots of CSS3 and a minimum amount of images.
2018-08-02: link to download from webarchive
as per my point of view you don't need to have graphics knowledge, coz in jqtouch you can use css3 and using that you can develop a kick ass theme.

How to add a plugin to safari with cocoa?

I want to develop Safari plugin using xCode, What API should I use? Someone can give me some documents or sample codes ,Thanks very much!
The answer is rather complicated i'm afraid.
Unfortunately, Safari the web browser does not have a plugin API. That means you technically cannot extend Safari's user interface or features using plugins.
However, WebKit the web rendering engine (which powers Safari and many other browsers/apps) does have a plugin API (actually it has 2) which allows you to create plugins for rendering web content inside webkit webviews.
You can find documentation on developing WebKit plugins in Apple's docs here. (PDF Link!)
Also note: Safari's lack of a true plugin API has not stopped lots of developers from developing various pieces of software which they call "Safari plugins" even tho they are technically not Safari plugins. They are usually something called an "Input Manager" which are widely viewed as rather questionable pieces of software. Input Managers always seem to be on the cusp of becoming unsupported or broken by Apple. It's not really clear whether Input Managers are kosher with Apple or not.
Then again, several "Safari plugin" Input Managers are quite popular, so....
Input Managers are a whole other topic. I'm sure if you google it you can find a lot of information on them. However, personally I would advise against developing an Input Manager due to their questionable status in the Mac software world and their constant danger of becoming unsupported or badly broken.
Update: A few years after I originally answered this question, Apple did provide a sort of plug-in API for the Safari browser itself. However, they are called "Extensions", not plug-ins.
See the Apple Safari Extension Programming Guide for details.
Check out Rentzsch's ClickToFlash, it's a plug-in that is fairly well documented, along with neat source code.

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