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badtz · Dec 30, 2004, 03:55 AM

www.dpreview.com

when I put my cursor over the "forums" link on the left column, firefox renders this differently on the mac version and the windows version.

Windows Version = it pops up a hovering menu

Mac version = it doesn't not (safari doesn't either)

is this a limitation with OS X? or is there a particular reason why it doesn't pop up the hovering menu?

wataru · Dec 30, 2004, 04:35 AM

Maybe they're OS- or browser-sniffing, and serving up a different page altogether. I looked at the code briefly, and I didn't see any such menu. Have you tried setting the user-agent to WinIE or Firefox for Windows?

Chuckit · Dec 30, 2004, 04:48 AM

Yep. I switched my user agent to Windows MSIE 6.0 in Safari and got a different page. How evil.

badtz · Dec 30, 2004, 05:57 AM

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Yep. I switched my user agent to Windows MSIE 6.0 in Safari and got a different page. How evil.

when you did this, did the floating menu pop up?

why would they do that?

Angus_D · Dec 30, 2004, 07:42 AM

Originally posted by badtz:
why would they do that?

Because they're idiots.

Millennium · Dec 30, 2004, 02:24 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Because they're idiots.

That's about it, actually. This isn't simply not caring about Macs; if it were, then they wouldn't even bother writing a Mac-exclusion sniffer. This is actual anti-Mac bias. There is no reason to exclude Macs from using this script, as a simple user-agent change proves.

Chuckit · Dec 30, 2004, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by badtz:
when you did this, did the floating menu pop up?

Yep.

As for why, they probably have a fallback to the simpler page if it's accessed with a setup they don't have to test with. That's my guess.

Cadaver · Dec 30, 2004, 10:25 PM

I hate "browser bias."

Here's a kicker - where I work, to access certain secure records, the system we have *only* allows you to log in with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6.0. Everything else is locked out. IE... secure records... something isn't right here. Of course, its got nothing to do with use of ActiveX, IE-specific code or anything else I can see, since if I spoof IE with Safari or OmniWeb, the 'secure site' works just fine. Lazy asses...!

The Oracle · Dec 31, 2004, 12:55 AM

Originally posted by Cadaver:
I hate "browser bias."

Here's a kicker - where I work, to access certain secure records, the system we have *only* allows you to log in with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6.0. Everything else is locked out. IE... secure records... something isn't right here. Of course, its got nothing to do with use of ActiveX, IE-specific code or anything else I can see, since if I spoof IE with Safari or OmniWeb, the 'secure site' works just fine. Lazy asses...!

my cable provider is the same way. It sniffs for IE, and denies access to the account and bill payment sections if you're not using IE. However, a user agent spoof fixes that problem and one can navigate and pay bills with no problems.

Morons.

hldan · Dec 31, 2004, 01:48 AM

Originally posted by badtz:
www.dpreview.com

when I put my cursor over the "forums" link on the left column, firefox renders this differently on the mac version and the windows version.

Windows Version = it pops up a hovering menu

Mac version = it doesn't not (safari doesn't either)

is this a limitation with OS X? or is there a particular reason why it doesn't pop up the hovering menu?

I tried it too and U R right. Macs will surf the web slightly different at select web sights from Microsoft Windows I.E. Don't sweat it, look at it this way, U R damned if you do use a Mac on the internet, U R damned if you don't.
Using a Mac on the web means you can surf and download at almost any place safely and comfortably but some sights don't welcome Macs very well or at all. On Windows it's not safe anywhere on the web to surf or download or even receive email. Even if the sight promises to be secure and safe it's generally not to Windows Users.
U can be certain that the Windows forums are posting about how nice it would be if they could enjoy the internet without worries like the Mac Users.

badtz · Dec 31, 2004, 02:27 AM

I just posted on the dpr forum, and this is the response I received from the owner of the site regarding my question about the roll over menus ...

Correct, because of bugs on Mac implementations we can't run the roll-over menus.

?

Chuckit · Dec 31, 2004, 06:41 AM

Can you link me to the thread? I just used a user-agent-spoofed "Mac implementation" and got around just fine.

Judge_Fire · Dec 31, 2004, 06:41 AM

My guess is they serve up a different stylesheet/script/template for the Mac because of Mac IE - there are a large number of people using it as their primary browser.

Safari and FF work nicely with most hover menus etc. so they should be isolating Mac IE, not Mac.

J

Thinine · Dec 31, 2004, 06:44 AM

In fact, Safari is one of the few browsers that supports CSS hover menus. Which is damn cool.

Millennium · Dec 31, 2004, 09:57 AM

Originally posted by Thinine:
In fact, Safari is one of the few browsers that supports CSS hover menus. Which is damn cool.

Actually, most browsers support CSS hover menus nowadays, if you're only counting browser versions. Only IE/Win does not.

Even IE/Win can be made to support them, though, if you throw in Dean Edwards' "IE7" JavaScript routines. Great stuff, that is.

badtz · Dec 31, 2004, 10:01 AM

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Can you link me to the thread? I just used a user-agent-spoofed "Mac implementation" and got around just fine.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=11628461

that's the link to the DPreview thread ......

click on the post by Phil Askey

macmad · Dec 31, 2004, 02:20 PM

Phil Askey doesn't even accept posts from my ISP, apparently its banned due to abuse! Maybe it works only if you're using MSN?

badtz · Dec 31, 2004, 08:26 PM

Originally posted by macmad:
Phil Askey doesn't even accept posts from my ISP, apparently its banned due to abuse! Maybe it works only if you're using MSN?

that's odd. it should work regardless of ISP? do you have a DPR account?

Wevah · Dec 31, 2004, 08:53 PM

Originally posted by badtz:
I just posted on the dpr forum, and this is the response I received from the owner of the site regarding my question about the roll over menus ...

Correct, because of bugs on Mac implementations we can't run the roll-over menus.

?

Oh, man.

ghporter · Dec 31, 2004, 11:11 PM

Browser bias is mostly because of page authors' inability to throw in all the bells and whistles they want to without using proprietary, browser-specific code. Which, by the way, is laziness in the extreme and the halmark of hack coding.

I should also point out that the Windows version of Firefox renders the page in question just fine-popup menus and all. This shows that the page writer is biased against Macs because of something he heard but did not validate. Bad "coder." No pizza, no coffe, no cola!

(That's first semester coding stuff, by the way. I guess some people really do sleep through their Freshman year!)

DeathMan · Jan 1, 2005, 12:25 PM

Sad sad sad. I wonder if they get more mac users over there. It seems like maybe they would. Creative market/Mac?

Those guys need a standards compliance makeover, with the traffic they get, it'd probably save them some money.

tooki · Jan 1, 2005, 07:46 PM

To top it off, those fools won't let you use any non-ISP email address to register for their forums. (I have not used ISP or school email since 1997 or so.) They're not even smart enough to recognize that my email service isn't a free one where you can register address after address: it costs money!

tooki

macmad · Jan 2, 2005, 06:40 AM

That's odd. it should work regardless of ISP? do you have a DPR account?

Sure I have a DPR account, and with my old ISP it worked fine. I've emailed them a couple of times about this, but no response. Simply banning users on their email address and/or ISP and/or browser and/or OS is a bit lame.

elmer · Jun 26, 2005, 11:23 AM

I have an account on DPR.

Recent versions of Safari and Firefox will popup the menu on the side. But I still can't use the forums - when I click on Pentax SLR in the menu, Firefox 1.0.4 seems to freeze for a few minutes going to the forums and then gives you an empty forum page. Safari 1.3 never seems to make it that far - similar freeze-like behaviour.

iCab works fine for the forums - no popup menu, but other than that ok. If you have debugging enabled it reports like 400 errors on every page. DPreview is the only site I use iCab for.

BTW I am on Panther with Airport Extreme, 867 MHz G4.

sevendhappy · Jun 26, 2005, 02:16 PM

I keep seeing everyone mention to switch user agents, but no one mentions how to do it on Firefox.

I tried searching this forum:
-firefox user agent switching
-user agent switching
-user agent
-browser user agent

All searches come up with people just saying "switch user agents"

Google searches for:
OS X firefox user agent switch

It comes up empty handed because the only extension I find is for XP's Firefox.

So can someone please describe how one goes about "switching user agents" in the Firefox browser???

Thanks.

chabig · Jun 26, 2005, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by badtz

is this a limitation with OS X? or is there a particular reason why it doesn't pop up the hovering menu?

I'm surfing with Safari (normal settings, default user agent) and I get the hover menu just fine. This must be fixed in Safari 2.0.

Chris

wataru · Jun 26, 2005, 03:13 PM

This is a super old thread that got bumped for some reason. We already determined that the problem was the website sniffing browsers and throwing up a different, menu-less page for Macs. It has nothing to do with which version of Safari you're running. Clearly the website has changed its behavior since then.

Chuckit · Jun 26, 2005, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by sevendhappy

So can someone please describe how one goes about "switching user agents" in the Firefox browser???

Go to the Firefox extensions site. Type in "user agent switcher." It works for me.

chabig · Jun 26, 2005, 03:19 PM

Yeah. I'm not sure why it got bumped. But I'm glad the website changed their behavior.

Chuckit · Jun 26, 2005, 03:22 PM

Presumably, it was bumped because Elmer was having similar problems and came across this thread in a search.