More Community Server weirdness

i normally use Firefox and have my profile here configured to use the "enhanced" editor. Recently I've been trying out Chrome and noticed a difference when posting a message (either a new post or reply to an existing post).

With Firefox:

With Chrome:

So I just assumed it was a problem with Chrome. But, while playing around with the User Agent string in Firefox I discovered that changing the Firefox UA to Chrome makes Community Server display the editor window with no toolbar, like it does when I'm using the real Chrome. I wonder why Community Server hates Chrome?

PJH

@El_Heffe said:

I wonder why Community Server hates Chrome?

Community Server doesn't know about Chrome.

ekolis

@PJH said:

@El_Heffe said:
I wonder why Community Server hates Chrome?
Community Server doesn't know about Chrome.

Ah, the infamous (or at least, SHOULD be infamous) Reverse Adapter Pattern...

The_Quiet_One

You'll also notice that in Chrome, CS ignores line breaks. I just find it so annoying that on a site that's about WTFs their own blogging and forum software is the biggest WTF. Is it deliberate irony? Like how in MST3K you can see the strings hanging Joel/Mike's satelite up and the set design is generally cheesy and as banal as the very movies they make fun of?

blakeyrat

@RHuckster said:

Like how in MST3K you can see the strings hanging Joel/Mike's satelite up and the set design is generally cheesy and as banal as the very movies they make fun of?

It's just a show, I should really just relax. It's just a show, I should really just relax. It's just a show I should really just relax.

Zemm

@RHuckster said:

You'll also notice that in Chrome, CS ignores line breaks.

HTML, do you know it? It's worse on iPad due to pointy brackets being four touches away and back. But then even the newest tinymce can't support iPad due to no contentEditable.

@RHuckster said:

You'll also notice that in Chrome, CS ignores line breaks.

Another nice feature@Zemm said:

HTML, do you know it?

Yes, I know HTML. But having to manually edit HTML in order to insert line breaks is pretty stupid.

The_Quiet_One

@El_Heffe said:

But having to manually edit HTML in order to insert line breaks is pretty stupid.

Especially when they don't validate or clean it up, as Signature Guy demonstrated.

blakeyrat

@Zemm said:

@RHuckster said:
You'll also notice that in Chrome, CS ignores line breaks.

HTML, do you know it? It's worse on iPad due to pointy brackets being four touches away and back. But then even the newest tinymce can't support iPad due to no contentEditable.

Pointy brackets are just as bad in Android. Drives me fucking batty whenever I'm using this forum from a phone.

@blakeyrat said:

whenever I'm using this forum from a phone.

Community Server + phone = TRWTF

Re: More Chrome--Community Server weirdness

@PJH said:

@El_Heffe said:
I wonder why Community Server hates Chrome?
Community Server doesn't know about Chrome.

After some experimentation:

Since Community Server sniffs the UA and barfs if it finds something it doesn't recognize, I wondered if I could get around this by changing the UA string. So I Gooooogled "change user agent in Chrome" and discovered that is quite easy and really obvious -- use a command line switch.

WTF #0.9 -- The link I clicked on from my Goooogle search took me to a page with a YouTube video showing how to change the UA in Chrome. WTF is up with these people who have to shoot a video for something rather than just typing a couple of lines of instructions?

WTF #1 -- The Chrome developers can't be arsed to document these command line switches anywhere. They are only known because of a few people who have searched through the source code to discover them.

WTF #1.1 -- Chrome has very few configuation settings in its "Options" menu and instead uses a lot of command line switches. What is this -- DOS from 1982?

WTF #2a -- Chrome installs all of its files in a weird non-standard location that is not used by any other program I've ever seen (see Rant #1 below). But that's OK. Unlike that primitive Firefox with its sissy GUI, you can change the location of these files with a command line switch!!

WTF #2b -- So now my Chrome shortcut look like: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google Chrome\chrome.exe" --disk-cache-dir="D:\Temp\Chrome" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Google\Chrome\User Data" --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0"

WTF #2.9 -- Not that it does me any good. Using Chrome here is still a major pain in the ass, and overall I find it too bare-bones and lacking too many features. Speed is nice, but it isn't everything.

WTF #3 -- Changing Chrome's UA to Firefox 4 and attempting to reply to a post now gives me the toolbar that was missing before. But, the "Quote" button doesn't work and after typing a message I clicked on "Preview" and got an empyt box, although the real Firefox 4 works just fine (using it right now). Same result if I change Chrome's UA to Internet Explorer 6/Windows XP.

WTF #3.1 -- Why does Community Server care what browser I'm using? In the last few years I don't think I've ever seen a browser that couldn't handle just about anything. Well, until Chrome right now. But now I'm not entirely sure if this is a Chrome problem or a CS problem. (Not that CS has any problems )

Rant #1 -- Installing Chrome into a weird non-standard location is justified as a way for people to install Chrome if they don't have the proper access rights to install it in C:\Program Files. Sorry, but if you can't install something into the standard location that has been used since Windows 95, it usually means that you are using someone else's computer (i.e., work) and so YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE INSTALLING STUFF NOW GET BACK TO WORK.

Flamebait #1 -- Bloat? What bloat? All of my Chrome files (program folder and User Data folder) total 106 MB. All of my Firefox files (program folder and Profile folder) total 89 MB. Both have one extension installed (AdBlock). How can Chrome be bigger but have fewer features?

Weng

@El_Heffe said:

Rant #1 -- Installing Chrome into a weird non-standard location is justified as a way for people to install Chrome if they don't have the proper access rights to install it in C:\Program Files. Sorry, but if you can't install something into the standard location that has been used since Windows 95, it usually means that you are using someone else's computer (i.e., work) and so YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE INSTALLING STUFF NOW GET BACK TO WORK.

@El_Heffe said:

WTF #2b -- So now my Chrome shortcut look like: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google Chrome\chrome.exe" --disk-cache-dir="D:\Temp\Chrome" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Google\Chrome\User Data" --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0"

Chrome doesn't appear to be installed in a non-standard location - if you're running AMD64, the "Program Files (x86)" directory is the default for installers running in 32bit mode.

Of course, this is a WTF and rantworthy if you're running a 32bit OS. And that act by itself is ALSO a WTF.

The_Quiet_One

@El_Heffe said:

WTF #0.9 -- The link I clicked on from my Goooogle search took me to a page with a YouTube video showing how to change the UA in Chrome. WTF is up with these people who have to shoot a video for something rather than just typing a couple of lines of instructions?

Was it a screen reshoot? If so, then I think someone here has found something better than the software he made.

@El_Heffe said:

WTF #3 -- Changing Chrome's UA to Firefox 4 and attempting to reply to a post now gives me the toolbar that was missing before. But, the "Quote" button doesn't work and after typing a message I clicked on "Preview" and got an empyt box, although the real Firefox 4 works just fine (using it right now). Same result if I change Chrome's UA to Internet Explorer 6/Windows XP.

Note about the quoting: Chrome seems to select text in a very odd way that breaks the quoting functionality in CS. The way around it is to make sure you're selecting the text such that the highlight is wrapped tightly around the text itself and isn't "rectangular". I'll upload a YouTube video in the spirit of WTF #0.9 if I didn't describe it well enough.

@El_Heffe said:

WTF #3.1 -- Why does Community Server care what browser I'm using? In the last few years I don't think I've ever seen a browser that couldn't handle just about anything. Well, until Chrome right now. But now I'm not entirely sure if this is a Chrome problem or a CS problem. (Not that CS has any problems )

The biggest thing that annoys me is, generally, the only thing you should be looking for in the UA is the engine, not the browser itself. Chrome uses webkit, just like Safari, therefore CS should detect that it uses webkit and thus supports everything Safari does.

@El_Heffe said:

Flamebait #1 -- Bloat? What bloat? All of my Chrome files (program folder and User Data folder) total 106 MB. All of my Firefox files (program folder and Profile folder) total 89 MB. Both have one extension installed (AdBlock). How can Chrome be bigger but have fewer features?

(taking the bait) Open Firefox, make sure you use YouTube and other various plugin-intensive websites, leave it open overnight, and see how much memory it accumulates over time. Repeat for Chrome. Maybe it's because I have some other addons like Firebug that might add even more mem usage, but I definitely see a huge difference in the bloat between Firefox and Chrome.