Does Browser widget make a good browser?

[deadparrotsoftware]

Thanks Richard

And I can say, this is not about the UI as much as that access be controllable and consistent.
ALL the work and the UI is actually on the web / server side - and it expects a web browser.
(the reasons I can't say, but trust me, that is how they designed it - that part, was not us Lol)

The mobile Apps (Phone, tablet, desktop) are there mostly to provide remote access.
So those things that LC, and Native UI, can do, are not as critical as a consistent and "standard" browser.
At some point down the line, that may change, and LC may well be interacting the guts of the
on-web system, and not it's browser based UI.

But not now.

My disappointment is that these sorts of issues make it harder to get away from
the other platforms we have used, and to LC.

But any help on such things is GREATLY appreciated.

Sid B.

[PBH]

Again, I'm speaking from ignorance here, so forgive me PBH, but couldn't you just use built in commands to do that? uploading to ftp has been around forever, and I remember recently reading something about using dropbox libraries as well (not from the browser widget, or maybe it was ?) elsewhere on the forum.

Unfortunately, no, I couldn't use any built in commands or library. Dropbox was only mentioned because it was used for testing, basically the problem arises if you give your user a web browser experience in your app and they navigate to a page that has a button which allows a file to be uploaded, using that button within a browser widget will cause LC or your app to crash, you can even test it on the LC bug reporting page...
...It will crash!

It's a basic browser function, so it shouldn't cause a crash in my opinion, it is a bug within the browser widget and LC know about it, so that's why I pointed it out to the OP. I'm no longer looking for a solution to the bug as I lost the opportunity to go ahead with the project for many different reasons. However, at the time I was a little surprised at the reaction from the LC team as they normally jump all over anything else that causes a crash, but they call the shots.

Anyway, I'll continue testing it now and again in the vague hope that it will get fixed one day.

Paul

[deadparrotsoftware]

That is even worse than I understood before - it is one thing to not work, but quite another to CRASH!

That issue would not only mean you could not use the browser with dropbox, but NOT with 80 MILLION odd WordPress sites, FACEBOOK!
and God knows how many others. Buttons for uploading images, files etc. are ALL OVER the web!

You can not risk using an embedded browser even on the off chance the user would end up on these sites, click the button,
and CRASH your App.

I am sorry, but IMHO, that is not just disappointing, it is ridiculous.

Sid B.

[jacque]

What LC was focused on a year ago isn't what they're focusing on now. The widget was brand new back then and has had a number of fixes and improvements since. During that time, javascript interaction has been added, and since that's what an upload button requires, it may be more workable now. I don't know enough about javascript to say for sure.

Crashes are always top priority, and adding a comment to the bug report will bring it back to the attention of the team. It's likely that what wasn't feasible a year ago is fixable, now that the widget has matured a bit.

The team's response seems entirely reasonable to me and isn't quite as dire as represented in this thread.

Recently, the language team's focus for stability improvements has been on the core LiveCode engine, rather than on peripheral components like the browser widget. The team have fixed many crashes recently, and the changes they've made in LiveCode 8.1.2 are making it faster and more efficient to deal with crash issues related to LiveCode controls and scripts. Everyone is very keen to stop _all_ crashes in LiveCode. I'm sure your disappointed that this bug's turn hasn't come yet, but we're working as fast as we can!

This sounds like "right now we're working on the engine but we do want to fix everything. Peripherals are next."

[PBH]

Bug 17928 http://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=17928 reported by me on June 30th 2016.
Bug 18955 http://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=18955 reported by hh on Dec 2nd 2016.
The Browser Widget was introduced in LC8 (dp8) in Nov 2015.

The crash is caused by a simple HTML command, it has nothing to do with JavaScript. hh narrowed the cause down a little more than I did. I tried bumping the bug report, but that was met by some resistance from LC. Now the original report has been marked as a duplicate of the newer report, even that seems odd!

I got the impression that LC don't consider this to be very important, and yes they do know it causes a crash, but that wasn't enough to put any pressure on for a fix. This one does seem a little inconsistent to me, that's just my opinion.

Paul

[deadparrotsoftware]

I agree with PBH - it is ridiculous and even odd to ignore for OVER a YEAR
A bug that causes a simple HTML command/function to CRASH the web browser.
That makes it an inviable widget - only the very foolish would deploy an App
With a component that can crash the App when the user attempts to use a very
Simple and very prevelant (i.e., on MILLIONS of web sites) command.

To treat it as a low priority I find . . . Disturbing. And NOT what I expected
When I posed this question.

I will have to confer with LC support about all this, because the Web Widget was,
For us, THE most needed widget in the entire widget collection!

Sid

[jacque]

I will have to confer with LC support about all this

That would be your best step forward, it's likely the bug has fallen off the radar, just as my request for a native Android control did a while back.

[deadparrotsoftware]

I complained to LC support. I explained the importance to us (and others).
I got this response his morning:

Dear Sid,

After a chat with the dev team, I am happy to inform you that this fix is
scheduled for the next release of LiveCode, 9.0 dp 9 and 8.1.7 rc 1. The status
of the bug report should update shortly.

Regards,
Heather

Good news. Hopefully, that will all take place soon.

Sid

[PBH]

That is good news, well done.

Thank you for posting support's response.

Paul

[[-hh]]

You are comparing a widget of LC with apps that teams produce that are at least twice as large as the whole LC team (incl. the cat).

Still they use all essentially the same base for building: WebKit or Chromium.

So, of course you could add the missing components by yourself ...