[thelist] Script Compatability

James Aylard webmaster at equilon-mrc.com
Mon Apr 23 11:17:06 CDT 2001


Daniel,

> Question on using certain Script Languages- I had used quite a bit of
> JavaScript in the past but have learned that the new 'user' computers such
> as i-opener and web tv (Microsoft and a few others put there small units
out
> but I don't know much about them.) do not support the language.
> So I've resorted to keeping my site within the ASP environment.

    I haven't the faintest idea about i-opener, but for WebTV, be sure to
visit the WebTV developer site [1]. Current versions of WebTV do support
JavaScript 1.2.

> Does anyone know of a list that not only MS Explorer and Netscape, but AOL
> (True that AOL is very similar to Netscape?) Web TV, i-opener and a few of
> the other popular 'user' computer systems out there?

    thelist? :) True, WebTV and i-opener aren't regular topics here, and AOL
tends to float on the periphery, but all are on-topic. BTW, AOL is similar
to Internet Explorer -- in fact, for the last several years, it *is*
Internet Explorer with some destabilizing AOL code cobbled on for good
measure. AOL has a developer center [2] that you should check out, as well.

> The units appear to support VBScript as they recognize ASP pages. I had a
> menu that was entirely JS but would not appear in both the i-opener and
Web
> TV.

    I don't believe that WebTV supports VBScript. However, in your inference
that support for .asp pages = support for VBScript is a confusion between
server-side and client-side functionality. Asp script is processed on the
server, and the results are sent to the client. As far as the browser is
concerned, an .asp page is merely an html page with a different extension,
and even a non-javascript-enabled browser should handle them. The .asp
extension merely tells the server that the page contains server-side
scripting that needs to be processed before the page is sent to the client.

> My concern is that to use JScript or other languages that are
incompatible,
> one is cutting off a decent number of possible customers who will not have
> access to the site as others do.

    This is a very valid concern. I would recommend that you design your
pages so that no basic functionality, including form submission, is
dependent on client-side scripting. Use client-side scripting for enhanced
features (such as form validation) that will not break the page if they are
unavailable. Remember: even in the latest versions of Internet Explorer and
Netscape, scripting can be disabled.
    Be careful not to confuse JavaScript with JScript. JScript is
Microsoft's implementation of JavaScript. Internet Explorer understands both
JavaScript and JScript (although I believe it simply uses the JScript
interpreter for both), but no other browser that I know of natively supports
JScript (or VBScript for that matter). JavaScript is the client-side lingua
franca of the World Wide Web, and is the only client-side scripting language
that should be used if you intend to be compatible with a wide audience.

James Aylard

1. http://developer.webtv.net/
2. http://webmaster.info.aol.com/





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