Firefox/IE/Hotmail

[Leeza]

I would like to use Firefox more than I do, but I have one problem that I'm picky with. I use Hotmail all the time and when I click on some mail to delete when I'm in IE I get my whole line highlighted in blue and this I like because I then don't have to keep doublechecking to see whether or not I'm deleting the right stuff.

When I'm in Firefox I get nothing but a little tick inside the box. Is there anything that I can do to get the whole line highlighted while in Firefox?

[Leeza]

*double posts*

[Dr Unne]

I would have to see the source code, but very likely there's nothing you can do. It's likely that Hotmail uses ActiveX controls or some IE-specific code to make the page render nicely in IE. Interestingly, IE has in the past purposefully broken MSN pages' code so that it's not even usable in non-IE browsers (Opera specifically). I'd view the fact that Hotmail actually works at all in Firefox as a minor miracle.

[crono_logical]

I know the highlight thing is possible, since I get it in Yahoo under Mozilla (or used to until I blocked some of it's servers in hosts :D ) So yeah, it's Microsoft deliberately shoddily coding it to force you to use it's own buggy products if you want the best visual output :p

[Baloki]

It works in netscape if thats any consolation and help to discover the reason...

I shall go install thsi firebird to test my site with....

[Dr Unne]

If someone can post the source code to the site, we can look at it and see what's going on. I don't have a hotmail account, so I can't get there to check.

[Baloki]

Code attached

[Dr Unne]

You may want to un-post that code, in case it has information that could let someone break into your account. Sorry. I just wanted to see the code for the checkboxes.

There are some external javascript source files loaded by that page (http://hotmail.com/cgi-bin/dasp/EN/hotmail___90815000014.js and http://hotmail.com/cgi-bin/dasp/EN/helppane___9080000001F.js in case anyone wants to see) and a CSS file (http://hotmail.com/cgi-bin/dasp/EN/hotmail___9080000065.css). The code for that page almost causes me phyiscal pain to read. MS's way of naming CSS classes is like something I did when I was in 10th grade (.A through .Z, and then .AA, .BB, etc.) Every single javascript function and variable has a name like CA, MOL, SQP. I guess that's what code looks like that isn't meant to be read by humans though. It's an absolute mess.

I found a javascript function that's called when a checkbox is checked, but all it does is check the "Check All" checkbox for some stuff. I don't see anything in the code that would highlight a table cell upon clicking a checkbox. Maybe I'm not looking at it well enough though. I honestly don't know. None of the javascript will function when I open the page locally from my browser, so what I'm looking at likely isn't even representative of a real Hotmail page loaded in Firebird. I'm not signing up for a Hotmail account just to check this. Sorry.

[Leeza]

I didn't think that there was much that could have been done anyways, but thank you for trying. :)

Would the source code be the same whether it came from IE Hotmail or from Firefox Hotmail? The one from Firefox looks easier to read because it has colour. :)

[Baloki]

They should be the same as their from the same source, unless Microsoft check what browser your using and give you a different page for different browsers.

[Dr Unne]

It is possible to detect browser version and give different source.