[Search-l] Browser Test

[Peter Burden]

On 12/02/2008, Markus Petz <markus.petz at chello.at> wrote:
>
>
> >While I do agree that ideally the search should work without javascript,
> >I would have to say that given that for 99.9% of all people who attempt
> >it, it works fine, this seems of low priority to me to fix.  I don't
> >think it is "dumping the whole idea".
> >
> >Having said that, I would be very supportive of changing it so that it
> >degrades more gracefully.  (i.e. for people without javascript, it could
> >simply lose some functionality instead of not working at all).
>
> JS is ok if there is someone who writes it for all existing browsers and
> checks it on any new version of any browser. Why do you go for 99.9% with
> lots of hassle when you can have 100% without special care? Currently i
> simply can't use it since it DOESN'T WORK on my browser. Simple HTML would
> have worked. See what i mean?
> Additional info: tried with MSIE 5 on my desktop machine here, doesn't
> work
> either.


Search Wikia is a work in progress, not a finished product. Working with
Firefox,
IE6 and IE7 covers 90%  of all users
(see http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp or
http://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html )


>totally agree, the .js stuff makes wikia different (which is nice) and
> >also really coll.  but i do totally agree that it needs to degrade nicely
> >(more nicer?? :-p)


Agreed.

Sorry, but if a search engine (or any website) has to be "cool" and "nice"
> then i strongly suspect it has mayor flaws hidden behind the fancy skin. A
> search engine is a tool to find me webpages, no more.


You ought to have seen some of the search engines of a few years ago.
I remember one that was so cluttered with advertising and social stuff that
it took me a good minute to find out where to enter the query - Lycos I
think
but could be wrong. But I certainly wouldn't describe Search Wikia as having
"a fancy skin"

>I do agree with removing unnecessary stuff, but for now, the Javascript
> >is pretty necessary as I understand the situation.
>
> ...then i don't understand the situation. Seems to me like one of these
> situations where technicians tell me "it has to be like it is and it's
> going to stay, you will adapt!". Where i clearly see that it is flawed
> like
> it is and i know that it can easily be fixed by simplyfication but i have
> no power whatsoever to change the misery.
> So what does the JS do which makes the site differ from other search
> engines and is therefore absolutely necessary (and that page should have
> only the absolute necessary on it)?



Provides support for some of the features (such as user quality feedback)
that
potentially give Search Wikia its unique nature. The extra costs and effort
of
ensuring universal compatability for every prototype and draft would just
slow
down the development effort. I must add I have reservations as to whether
this
is the best way to do a search engine, but until it's been tried, it's my
hunch
versus other people's hunches.





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