Problem creating dynamic selection lists on PDA

[Craig Jurney]

Am having difficulty creating a dynamic <select> element using direct
assignment to the element's option array (ie. someElement.option=new
Option(someText, someValue)
that will work on Palm devices runing Blazer 3.0 or Web Browser 2.0.

The browsers SEEM to be JavaScript1.1+ capable and the script that I
have works on every desktop-based browser, but not the PDA ones....

Any advice? Or is this a known deficiency?

Thanks,
/Craig Jurney, Stanford University

 

[Richard Cornford]

Am having difficulty creating a dynamic <select> element
using direct assignment to the element's option array (ie.
someElement.option=new Option(someText, someValue) that
will work on Palm devices runing Blazer 3.0 or
Web Browser 2.0.

Web Browser 2.0 has no - Option - constructor (and no other mechanism
for creating options dynamically).

The browsers SEEM to be JavaScript1.1+ capable

Web Browser 2.0 is (mostly) ECMA 262 3rd edition in its javascript
implementation, but its (W3C Level 1) DOM is not that dynamic.

and the script that I have works on every
desktop-based browser, but not the PDA ones....

That is extremely unlikely to be true, there are a lot of desktop
browsers. Generally no script can be expected to work on every browser,
which is why designing for clean degradation is necessary in a public
environment.

Any advice? Or is this a known deficiency?

Don't expect scripts to successfully execute in all script capable
browsers, and design with that in mind.

Richard.

 

[Craig Jurney]

Am having difficulty creating a dynamic <select> element
using direct assignment to the element's option array (ie.
someElement.option=new Option(someText, someValue) that
will work on Palm devices runing Blazer 3.0 or
Web Browser 2.0.

Web Browser 2.0 has no - Option - constructor (and no other mechanism
for creating options dynamically).

Ah, that explains it then.

Web Browser 2.0 is (mostly) ECMA 262 3rd edition in its javascript
implementation, but its (W3C Level 1) DOM is not that dynamic.

Is there a resource online somewhere that would tell me what scripting
capabilities this (or other) browsers have? Or is experimentation the
only way find out this info (or asking others like this list)?

That is extremely unlikely to be true, there are a lot of desktop
browsers. Generally no script can be expected to work on every browser,
which is why designing for clean degradation is necessary in a public
environment.

I meant to say "every desktop browser that this project must support"
sorry about that slip, fried brain at EOD. : )

Don't expect scripts to successfully execute in all script capable
browsers, and design with that in mind.

'Swhat I'm trying to do.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Richard Cornford]

Richard Cornford wrote:

Is there a resource online somewhere that would tell me
what scripting capabilities this (or other) browsers have?
Or is experimentation the only way find out this info (or
asking others like this list)?

I have a specification document for Web Browser 2.0 that I downloaded
some years ago (I don't recall the URL) but it is not that useful, just
a list of the interfaces and standards 'supported'. Experimentation is
invariably the best way of finding out what a browser really is capable
of (and often exposes undocumented features).

Unfortunately, for smaller, embedded, browser there does not appear to
be much documentation available in general. It often isn't even possible
to work out which browser any particular embedded browser really is. Web
Browser 2.0, for example, is really NetFront 4.

I meant to say "every desktop browser that this project
must support" sorry about that slip, fried brain at EOD. : )

<snip>

If you intend to support PDA browsers then you are already in the area
where thinking in terms of particular set of Known browsers is
impractical. There are more PDA/embedded browsers than desktop browsers,
and their capabilities are much more varied.

Richard.