Technology requirements in browsers

[Luis Villa]

On 3/1/06, Benton, Kevin <kevin.benton at amd.com> wrote:
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> I'm wondering what others are feeling about this:
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> At what point do we decide to stop supporting browsers that don't have
> JavaScript/CSS2 support available?  I know that for some, this might sound
> like a radical idea.  From my perspective, I've begun shifting my focus
> somewhat from trying to support every browser out there to recognizing that
> we don't necessarily have to support the oldest technology in our newest
> versions.  While I think it's fair to say we ought to be able to support at
> least 98% of the users (not 98% of the browsers) out there; I think that we
> could do a lot better by not allowing ourselves to get tied to very old
> technology as we move forward.  I think that at some point, it makes sense
> to say that we won't support "advanced" Bugzilla features in very old
> technology (VOT) browsers that don't support JavaScript and CSS2.  That is
> not to say that we should allow VOT browsers to file and update bugs, but I
> think it's fair to say that we could do a lot more to make Bugzilla 1) look
> prettier, and 2) work more intuitively for users if we can say bye-bye to
> some of the self-imposed limitations.  NeoOffice Bugzilla
> (http://bugzilla.neooffice.org) is a perfect example from their main page.
> Some of those menu items at the top would be perfect for JavaScript
> drop-downs.  News that automatically rotates every n seconds would also be
> something that would require advanced browser features.  Quick stats could
> easily be reworked slightly to handle multiple products on mouseover, etc.
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> I'm just thinking out loud and wondering what direction the rest of the
> group thinks we ought to take based on these items.

(1) Lots of javascript and CSS stuff is flash for flash's sake, which
is never good for a serious development tool.

(2) That said, you can do a *lot* of useful stuff in jscript and CSS,
and I think we should. I once hacked up a dynamically sortable buglist
that was quite nice, for example, and judicious use of ajax-y
techniques could greatly improve the usability of the search forms.

Remember that the target audience for bugzilla is primarily
developers, not the general public*, and developers are usually more
willing and able to move to newer browsers more quickly. We shouldn't
shy away from newer tech if it'll make the tool markedly better and
won't kill too many browsers.

Luis
* no matter how easy you make the bug submission page :)