browser : Java Glossary

giraffe browsing browser
A browser is a program to surf the web and run Java Applets. Most of them are quite poor at printing accurate renderings of the screen. One way around this is to use Faststone capture, and print that.
Best Browsers Engaging the Java Console in Your Browser
Terminology DOM
Performance launching a browser
Detecting Which Browser Learning More
Browser Bugs Links
Setting Default Font

Best Browsers

Please select one of these modern browsers to download and install free.
Click the corresponding browser icon to download the latest free browser software, or click the browser name for more information.
Google ChromeGoogle Chrome24.0.1312.57with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE (Java Runtime Environment). Frequently updated. Has no edit source button. Slow starting when fiddles with a proxy. Flaky support of Applets and Java Web Start. Poor downloading. Handles foreign language sites particularly well since it integrates with Google Translate. Best for interacting with Google. BrowserMark rates this as the fastest browser. Good for ecommerce. Can’t print white writing on a black background.
FirefoxFirefox20.0with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. Its support of Java is erratic. Most widely supported next to IE. Many add-ins. Very fast rendering. Weak on table rendering. Best for printing. Fairly slow to start up.
SeaMonkeySeaMonkey2.17.1with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. Similar to Firefox, with integrated Email.
SafariSafari5.1.7with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. For both Macs and PCs. Some rendering problems. Simple and stripped down.
OperaOpera12.15with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. Comes in both 32 and 64-bit versions. For printing, I flip to Firefox. For ecommence I flip to Chrome. Some sites claim they do not support it. Not good for filling in forms or web commerce. Many sites are incompatible. Light and fast.
AvantAvant2013:22with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. It is a fast browser, especially at starting up. Has problems with JavaScript. Excellent at rendering and printing tables. It uses the Firefox or Chrome rendering engine. Handles Applets, but has trouble with Java Web Start.
IE10IE1010.0.9200.16521with the Java 1.7.0_17 JRE. Not recommended. This browser is hopeless at Java, especially the 64-bit version. However, some websites will work with no other browser.
Get JavaOracle’s Java1.7.0_17JRE

Terminology

Browser Terminology
Internet Explorer Firefox Opera
Internet Options Options Preferences
Temporary Internet Files Cache Cache
Favorites Bookmarks Bookmarks
Address Bar Location Bar Address Bar
Refresh Reload Reload
Links Bar Bookmarks Toolbar Bookmarks Panel
Copy Shortcut Copy Link Location Copy Link Address
Save Target As Save Link As Save Target As
RSS (not supported) Live Bookmark Feed

Performance

There are three things you can do to make your browser run faster:

Detecting Which Browser

How

Browser Bugs

All the browsers have bugs. I don’t pretend to provide a definitive list here. However these are the bugs in each browser that I find most annoying.

Opera: ignores <col format settings for table columns. Ignores CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) max-width property. Does not support CSS overflow to permit scrolling tables. Can’t access a printer to print a selection in Vista.

Netscape: Does not display borders on Applets.

Firefox: Does not display borders on Applets. Ignores <col class and alignment settings for table columns.

Mozilla: Does not display borders on Applets.

SeaMonkey: draws boxes needlessly around links that consist of an image plus text.

Internet Explorer: does not render *.png image files with transparent backgrounds properly. In the latest update of IE (Internet Explorer), it won’t render Applets unless you click on them. This makes Applets like CurrCon which displays all the prices on a page in your local currency useless. This is just another part of Microsoft’s dirty war against Java.

Report bugs to the vendors in their support forums. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Officially, browsers are not supposed to support <col class= command out of some some idiotic prissiness. Some browsers support it anyway out of common sense.

Browser Colgroup Support
browser version col class
supported
col align
supported
HTML5 entities
supported
Firefox 20.0
Chrome 23.0.1271.97
Opera 12.15
SeaMonkey 2.17.1
Safari 5.1.7
Avant 2013:22
IE 10 10.02.9200.16521
IE 9 9.0.8112.16421
IE 8 8.0.7601.17514
IE 7 7.0.6000

Those browsers marked with an x all have a bug. They will not render <col class="xxxx">s correctly. The ones with a tick render it correctly. The Opera people say this is a feature not a bug. The language lawyers claim the W3 spec says that the browser is supposed to ignore the color attribute from the <col class. Logically, I think the <col styles should apply to the entire column, but not to <th rows. In addition Firefox, SeaMonkey, Safari and Flock also ignore the <col align attribute. Opera and IE render it properly.

Firefox, SeaMonkey and Opera support almost all the HTML5 entities. Chrome and Safari support many of them.

Colgroup Test
  Style Test Alignment Test
On Every row style alignment
Using Colgroup style alignment

If both cells in the left hand Style Test column are the same colour, then your browser (the one you are using now to view this page) supports <col class=.

If both cells in the right hand Alignment Test column right-align, then your browser supports <col align= correctly.

Dreamweaver lets you apply a css style to all rows individually. Last revised/verified: 2013-04-14

Setting Default Font

You can set choose fonts style and colours to use for default when a web page does not specify them. You might do this to increase the size to make the text more visible, or to support Esperanto accented characters.

Rant

Every browser has some major failing. To get my work done I have to use a different browser for different purposes, but each browser puts the basic controls: home, back, close, reload in different places. This leaves me forever all thumbs. The problem would not exist if there were a standard layout a standard, any standard, or if it were configurable (by the theme creator or the user) or if browsers did not have big holes in their usability so you could use just one.

If HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) were a compact, preparsed binary format, that would eliminate nearly all of the malformed HTML in the universe. That would also mean it would be much likely if a document were tested on only one browser, it would render properly on all of them, or at least most of them. As a side effect it would dowload twice as fast, and render more quickly.

Engaging the Java Console in Your Browser

If you are in a browser you have to enable to console before you can see it. Avant and Chrome do not support Java, or more precisely, their support does not work. Safari does support the Java console. Browsers no longer have menu-items to engage and disengage the console. You do it in the Java Control Panel.

Windows: Engaging the Console

Last revised/verified: 2012-03-06
  1. On Vista/W2008/W7-32/W7-64, click Programs.
  2. Double click Java.
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. Click + Java console.
  5. Click Show Console.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click File.
  8. Click Close.

Mac OS Leopard Engaging the Console

Last revised/verified: 2012-03-06

In Mac OS Leopard, you also have to enable the console on the Java Preferences Application.

  1. Applications
  2. Utilities
  3. Java Preferences Application.
  4. Click Advanced.
  5. Click Show Console.
  6. Restart your browser.
Finally, to make the console visible:
  1. Click Tools.
  2. Click Sun Java console.

DOM (Document Object Model)

It is possible for Java Applets to get out and peek at the web page document surrounding them in Java 1.4+. Another technique is to have JavaScript dynamically generate <applet <param tags. You can also have Java call JavaScript functions to let you get data from froms in insert data in forms.

Learning More

Oracle’s Technote Guide on Accessing the browser’s Document Object Model : available:


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