Thanks for all the answers.
The big company is not my employer, but I am working for a quite small
consultant company. We do mostly SAP business with this client, but somehow
managed to win the bid on this java EE project.
It's a fixed price project that was negotiated based on my estimation.
I would have done the basic functionality in maybe two weeks with a modern
tool set. My estimation went to seven weeks because of all the additional
work that is caused by working in such a constrained environment on so
rigid and outdated standards (plus integration into their custom made
portal solution).
Somehow that IE 5.5 requirement slipped through when I worked through
their standard documents.
I'll need my _very_ own skin anyway as their styleguide dictates the
design down to the number of pixels in between certain controls, and
of course also fonts, font sizes, colors, and so on. Trinidad's skinning
feature was one of my major motivations of looking at Trinidad for this job.
I think I'll give Trinidad a spin and see how one of my other apps looks
and works on IE 5.5. If only I manage to get that old version installed
side-by-side with IE 7 without crashing my system.
Andrew Robinson wrote:
IE 5.5 is a large security risk though. It isn't a matter of telling
users they have to upgrade because you want them to, but because your
application would not be secure if running on IE 5.5. If you want a
good argument, you could argue that the company is liable for the
information security inside of your application. Allowing your
application to run in IE 5.5 is leaving your company liable for the
security flaws of IE 5.5.
A large portion of Microsoft security patches are for IE, and
therefore IE 5.5 is really out of date at this time. It isn't a matter
of functionality, but security. IE 6 requirements are:
Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP
So the only reason that you would have to support IE5.5 is if you
support Windows 95. Which if you have to deal with, I am *very* sorry
as Win95 is the primary source of Zombies on the network these days
and an extreme security hazard.
If you have to support IE 5.5 and have no recourse, I would recommend
against using any kind of JSF application that provides any kind of
skinning. On IE 5.5 you should minimize your CSS usage, and Trinidad
skins tend to use a lot of CSS.
Possibly, you may want to consider using only the core JSF tags with
IE 5.5. You can try Trinidad on 5.5, but you may have to customize its
code and more than likely write your own skin file to "dumb it down".
Heck, maybe forcing Trinidad into using the PDA rendering engine is
more compatible with IE 5.5. AJAX isn't much of an option 5.5 (I have
seen a lot of complaints with AJAX problems on it)
On 9/6/07, Nebinger, David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Stephen Friedrich wrote:
Now I have two choices:
I either fulfill this requirement or I try and pick a fight.
<devils_advocate>
And apparently, since everyone in your organization is
equally lazy, the guidelines will stay fixed forever. :)
</devils_advocate>
I think you folks are being way to hard on this guy. Browser version
support typically is driven by outside forces... You need to know who
your user base is and what kind of browsers they have.
I'm part of a 3PL, one that works with many mom-n-pop trucking
companies. I count myself lucky if those folks have a computer at all,
let alone a modern one with a 6.0 or greater IE. Sure, I could say to
them 'you need to upgrade', but they could turn around and tell me they
don't want my business, something that I need to have.
I'd love to tell everyone to use firefox (as it is more modern and
secure), but the choice is not mine to make, it is the end users'
choice.
Oh, and don't overlook the fact that many govt sites still require IE
5.5 (some even list 5.01 as the required version)...
