JavaScript and CGI: General questions

[Joel Hammer]

Just to add to the list of browsers that don't work with my
javascript:

Redhat  7.0 supplied mozilla.
Redhat 7.0 supplied opera (5.0, no javascript option I can find)
Redhat 7.0 supplied Netscape 4.77 (Can't find any javascript option).
Opera 6.01 on windows XP (Partially incompatible.)

Internet Explorer works both in windows 98 and windows XP perfectly 
and opera 6.0 on linux works perfectly (Not surprising, since I wrote it
with opera, mainly.)

So, I would say there is a need for browsers to be compatible. MS is doing
the best job so far. 

I'll try out netscape 4.75 on windows later on today. If netscape on windows
doesn't work, then it looks like I'll have to post a little sign on my web
page: Internet Explorer only.

I am especially disappointed in opera. It worked fine in linux but had
at least two problems in the windows version. One was configuration. The
javascript needs to be able to open a window to display output, and opera
can be configured to prevent popup windows. Disabling popup windows sounds
good until you realize a lot of stuff on the internet depends on opening
new windows for useful purposes. After I enabled pop up windows, buried
somewhere in one of those menu's, the code worked. But, information on
the alert popups didn't display the second line of information. Hmm... Well,
don't have time for that now.

Anyway, don't let this rant distract you from the questions I originally
posted about using CGI to get around javascript's problems.

Joel

On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 09:08:51AM -0400, Joel Hammer wrote:
> I would like to get some advice on javascript and CGI. My ignorance here
> is large.
> 
> I am thinking of putting up some documents on a web site for general
> access.  I have some general questions about javascript and CGI related
> to this.
> 
> What level of javascript (1.0, 1.2, 1.3, who knows) would it be
> reasonable at this point in time to expect my visitors to have? I
> am not a professional and can't write javascript for every possible
> OS/browser/java script version/javascript implementation combination.
> I am aiming at the mass market.  I would think accommodating Netscape
> 4.75 (windows) would be reasonable, but I will have to concentrate on
> supporting Internet Explorer, of course. (I have already hit a stonewall
> trying to accommodate netscape 6.2 for linux. I hope I can get around that
> but I don't have time for it now, and very few of my potential visitors
> will be using that!)
> 
> The bane of javascripters seems to be the diversity of javascript. Anyone
> who likes freedom of choice will love writing javascripts.  Is there a way
> to find out what versions of javascript a particular browser supports,
> without sniffing around for hours looking for documentation somewhere,
> which might be wrong or misleading in any case? The ideal thing would be
> to find some clever javascript code which would take a browser through
> its paces and look for what it can and cannot support.  An example of
> a problem I never anticipated is as follows:
>       Browsers vary in their fault tolerance, Opera and
>       netscape  overlooked a missing quotation mark around
>       a button definition but Explorer would not.  So,
>       it looks like every single script has to be tested
>       against every single browser before you can be sure
>       it will run.
> 
> A second related question is this: Does using CGI scripts in preference
> to client side javascript make web pages more accessible to diverse
> browsers? My web pages will be essentially a bunch of forms, which need a
> lot of javascript like processing to be useful to the user (simple math,
> reformatting, etc.)  Would CGI avoid client browser incompatibility? Also,
> and perhaps very important, since CGI can use anything for scripting
> (like PERL and even sed and bash), could I avoid having to hassle so
> much with javascript (maybe avoid javascript entirely) and just spend
> most of my effort writing PERL scripts?
> 
> A third question relates to prevention of piracy. I will be spending a
> lot of time preparing these forms. I intend to charge for their use. If
> I use client side javascript only, then anyone could just download the
> form off my web site and use it, without compensating me for my effort.
> Is there a way to prevent this if you are just using client side javascript?
> Would using CGI scripting prevent such piracy?
> 
> Although I tend to commercialize this effort, the cash flow may be
> miniscule, so I can't afford at this point to hire professional help.
> 
> Any input appreciated,
> 
> Joel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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