As I read more on the use of webdriver/firefox, I am getting the impression that there serious issues regarding different versions - specifically that when a new version of FF comes out, a new version of WD is needed as well...
Am I reading this correctly?
If so, does the same problem exist with other browsers?
This is a worry for me because my clients may have different versions of FF, and because the app they get from me is compiled - which means I would need to send them an updated app every time FF is upgraded...
WebDriver is updated on a consistent basis to stay current with the new browser versions that are coming out. Firefox has a very fast release schedule. For your application to support the very latest Firefox version, then you'll have to keep it updated with the latest WebDriver version that supports that version.
My advice is to tell your users which Firefox versions are supported by your application, and then setup a regular release cycle with them, in which you update WebDriver to work with the latest Firefox versions. Then as new Firefox versions are released, you can update your application and send them the newest version.
Chrome is in a similar position, but for WebDriver, the Chromium team maintains the ChromeDriver, which doesn't always need update for each Chrome version.
Internet Explorer has a very slow release cycle, so you won't need to update the WebDriver assemblies as often for IE.
However, staying on the latest WebDriver version does have advantages, regardless of the browsers you need to support in your application, such as the latest bug fixes.
Related
I am using the Outlook API (https://dev.office.com/reference/add-ins/requirement-sets/word-api-requirement-sets). At the moment it is on 1.6 and I see some changes towards a 1.7 (I think).
What versions of Outlook support the current 1.6 version? (What is the oldest version supporting it). I saw some versioning for Excel and Word, not Outlook though.
And is it clear when the new update will become available?
The requirement set 1.6 APIs are supported starting with build number 16.0.9020.2000. We don't have preset timeline for the requirement set 1.7 APIs, it will be released when all supported platforms implement all the APIs from that set. That work is currently in progress, that's why you may see some APIs from 1.7 in preview.
I'm using sap gui in macbook os x. Whenever I execute the web dynpro programs, the browser will be opened and is keep on loading and it never ends. How can I fix this issue?
Though your Safari version seems actual, I assume your MacOS version is not supported by SAP, as PAM lists only versions from 10.11.
SAP issues PAM (Product Availability Matrix) sheets where you can match your Browser, Platform and Product versions and check for inconsistencies. Netweaver 7.4 PAM can be found here.
Probably, your MacOS version is too old for SAP and you should try to update. However, personally I feel that problem lies elsewhere and you should ask for help of experienced BASIS. Maybe your WDA uses certain feature that is not supported by Safari or WDA in general.
Additionally you can check:
Note 1634749 concerning Safari support for Web Dynpro ABAP (version for non-S-users).
Note 1098009 for general Web Dynpro ABAP browser limitations
Browser supporting page from SAP.
Many times, while running automated Selenium tests on Firefox, people come across following error:
Selenium::WebDriver::Error::InvalidElementStateError: Cannot perform native interaction: Could not load native events component.`
Could someone help me to understand technically:
What causes this error to occur?
How is it solved with releasing new Selenium Webdriver version?
Why it manifests only on Firefox, not with Chrome, IE?
By default on Windows, the Firefox driver uses so-called "native events" for interacting with elements. That is to say, mouse and keyboard interactions are simulated using OS-level mechanisms, rather than the more common, but potentially limited and less accurate use of JavaScript to simulate the interaction. In the case of Firefox, this requires loading an OS-specific binary library (.so on Linux, .dll on Windows) compiled from C++ sources. These binary libraries must be linked to a specific version of the Gecko SDK, which means that they can only be loaded and used by specific versions of Firefox.
Since supporting every version of Firefox would bloat the driver significantly, the WebDriver team limits the number of versions any Selenium release will support. The current support policy for Firefox is to support the current Firefox release, the immediately prior Firefox release, the current Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), and the immediately prior ESR release. Note that all versions are calculated at the date of release of the Selenium project.
Since a new Firefox release involves a new SDK, the Selenium project has to compile new native event components to support it, and release a new Selenium version with those components. The project tries to push a new release as closely as possible to the release of a new Firefox version, but since it's an all-volunteer project, and since Mozilla can (and does!) change the Gecko SDK from version to version without warning, the Selenium update is sometimes delayed.
Two further points: First, the Firefox driver architecture is unique in this respect, so you won't see this behavior in other browsers. It is important to note though that other browsers do require updated drivers to handle updated browser versions (cf. chromedriver.exe). Second, this architecture changes entirely when FirefoxDriver2, also called Marionette, is completed and released by Mozilla. The timetable for the release of Marionette is up to Mozilla, so one would have to contact them for any information about that.
I just built a very simple add-on for Firefox, but it's only compatible with FF 8+. I'd like to make a version that's compatible with FF 3.6 and FF 4+. Is there an SDK for those versions I can use to create/compile a version that'll work with those versions?
No, even Add-on SDK 1.0 marked the add-ons as only compatible with Firefox 4.0b7 and higher. The main reason is that Firefox 3.6 didn't support installing add-ons without a restart and developing an add-on that will use the "conventional" approach in Firefox 3.6 and install without a restart in Firefox 4 and higher is pretty complicated. There are other issues with Firefox 3.6 as well. So your options are:
Just ignore Firefox 3.6. This should be the best course of action given that this Firefox branch will become unsupported soon - its already low user count will be significantly reduced again.
Create a classic extension, without using the SDK. This might be non-trivial depending on what your extension does, and you will most likely lose the ability to install without restart (as I said above, keeping it while being compatible with Firefox 3.6 is very non-trivial).
Use a pre-release Add-on SDK version, e.g. Add-on SDK 0.9. The differences to current SDK versions might be insignificant enough for your extension to work but you should expect bugs and issues due to browser changes since this SDK was released (it lists Firefox 4.0b6 as maximal supported version).
As a long time time Flex developer I've thought about building my next application - which should run on the iPad as well - with OpenLaszlo. OpenLaszlo offer a Flash and DHTML runtime, but besides the demos on the website I don't see any real world application built with OpenLaszlo:
http://openlaszlo.org/showcase
Has anyone built a large application with the DHTML runtime, and what was your experience doing that.
Thanks!
I've tested our complicated video editing application under HTML5 mode of OpenLaszlo (formerly known as DHTML mode) and everything works aside from the text mis-aligning a bit. Audio and Video playback is not available in the latest official release (4.9.0) but the latest nightly builds ( http://download.openlaszlo.org/nightly/trunk/ ) contain the html5video and html5audio classes which work fine for media types that play in the new HTML5 and tags (different browsers support different ones). My test results of what works can be viewed here:
http://jira.openlaszlo.org/jira/browse/LPP-10058
In regards to iPad, everything seemed to work fine except that it was not possible to programmatically play more than 1 video/audio item at a time without user interaction. However, this seems to be a limitation of iPad and not OpenLaszlo since a test HTML5 application suffered the same limitation.
http://www.pandora.com and http://www.gliffy.com are large applications built on OpenLaszlo Framework.
The DHTML runtime (or the ability to generate an HTML5 application, as we'd probably phrase that feature today) has been added to OpenLaszlo with 4.0 release in March 2007. The first time I saw a version of Laszlo Webtop running using the DHTML runtime was in mid 2009, although Laszlo Calendar wasn't working at that moment. In March 2011 I witnessed a much improved version of Webtop running in DHTML mode, the system looked very stable.
In July 2012 Gliffy announced the Gliffy HTML5 Editor Preview. Gliffy is an online diagram editor, which has been around for a number of years - but in the past it was only running as a Flash application. Gliffy is a very complex application with a large code base, and it's a good sign that Gliffy is able to run on the DHTML runtime. I haven't found any information on the Gliffy website to which browsers are supported by the HTML5 preview.
Based on this information I would say that the DHTML runtime is production ready. The only question is if Laszlo or Critical Path (the company which acquired Laszlo) is going to keep funding the project in the future, since the number of developers working on the platform at the moment is very low.
Laszlo has not upgraded the HTML5/DHTML runtime to support the newer version of IE (IE9+), although it seems that the company is working on improving the DHTML support for IE at the moment (as of summer 2012). If you are planning to use the DHTML runtime for only some browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari), everything should work relatively well.
If you plant to develop an OpenLaszlo application using the DHTML runtime, I'd recommend that you use the Trunk version (upcoming 5.0 release) of OpenLaszlo, since a lot of bugs have been fixed in Trunk for DHTML.Despite the fact that it hasn't been released, a number of developers are using that version already for production purposes.