# Viewing TivoWeb with Firefox



## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

When I use Firefox to view TivoWeb I have two problems.

The appearance is different to that using IE.









With IE.









With Firefox.

Also using Firefox often unpauses the TiVo.


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## shanew (Apr 11, 2003)

Mmm, that's interesting.. There was recently a long thread talking about problems with tivoweb pausing/unpausing tivo. I'll have to set IE back to my dafault browser to see if the problem stops.

I don't get the differences in display when using the technophobe theme but i seem to remember a while ago that using a specific theme did cause them to look different on both IE and Firefox as you've shown, I never figured out why though...


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Either Firefox or IE has cached the wrong CSS (stylesheet) - clear the cache.

As for the pausing - it only seems to do this when TivoWeb is overloaded - have you changed any of the options in Firefox to accellerate the number of simultaneous connections it makes to a server?


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## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

shanew said:


> Mmm, that's interesting.. There was recently a long thread talking about problems with tivoweb pausing/unpausing tivo. I'll have to set IE back to my dafault browser to see if the problem stops.


I've never noticed IE unpausing the TiVo



shanew said:


> I don't get the differences in display when using the technophobe theme but i seem to remember a while ago that using a specific theme did cause them to look different on both IE and Firefox as you've shown, I never figured out why though...


I'm using the TiVo Community Theme as can be just seen in the Firefox pic just under the TiVo Web Project heading. This is invisable using IE. Will experiment with another theme.


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## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

terryeden said:


> Either Firefox or IE has cached the wrong CSS (stylesheet) - clear the cache.
> 
> As for the pausing - it only seems to do this when TivoWeb is overloaded - have you changed any of the options in Firefox to accellerate the number of simultaneous connections it makes to a server?


I've cleared the cache with no change.

It not pausing the TiVo but UNpausing it. I don't know how to change the number of connections.


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## shanew (Apr 11, 2003)

Ashley said:


> I've never noticed IE unpausing the TiVo


But you still experience IE pausing the tivo?


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## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

shanew said:


> But you still experience IE pausing the tivo?


I remember it causing a very short pause.
Firefox, on the other hand, takes it out of pause.


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## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

I've tried another theme (Techophobe) and they look the same under IE and Firefox apart from the name of the theme is visible under the TiVoWeb Project heading in Firefox.


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

Ashley said:


> I'm using the TiVo Community Theme as can be just seen in the Firefox pic just under the TiVo Web Project heading. This is invisable using IE. Will experiment with another theme.


Have you tried my *Lovely Themes*?

I'd be interested in the results.


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## greenkr (Feb 27, 2004)

I am using Firefox and Bluebook - each menu item shows a forwardslash at the beginning and end - eg /Backup/ . The word BLUEBOOK appears below Tivo Web Project in Firefox - it did not show in IE.


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## mbriody (Mar 30, 2002)

Your themes work okay in Firefox.

I too had the same issues as above with Firefox and my previous theme (TiVoComm).



ericd121 said:


> Have you tried my *Lovely Themes*?
> 
> I'd be interested in the results.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this? I've just 'converted' to Firefox and am seeing the same display problem as the OP.

I've also found another, more annoying, anomaly....

IE6:


FF:

I assume it's just the way that FF interprets the HTML or whatever?


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

IE and FF can handle CSS in different ways so what works for one, may not work for the other. This website has some pointers on creating CSS that stands a good chance of working on most browsers.

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

cwaring said:


> Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this? I've just 'converted' to Firefox and am seeing the same display problem as the OP.


I'm constantly amazed that people switch to Firefox (because it's so much better than IE) and spend the rest of their browsing life suffering the rendering problems it has (because it's actually so much worse than IE).


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

The thing is, FF certainly has advantages over IE but it depends which one displays web pages more correctly, if you see what I mean, and I think that IE does win in that dept.


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## hokkers999 (Jan 5, 2006)

b166er said:


> I'm constantly amazed that people switch to Firefox (because it's so much better than IE) and spend the rest of their browsing life suffering the rendering problems it has (because it's actually so much worse than IE).


You've got that completely the wrong way around. FireFox is totally W3C standards compliant. The problem is *lazy* developers who only code using Mirco$soft tools, check it in Internet Exploder and then throw it up on the net.

Personally I just find another site with the same info, dropping a line to the site owner telling them why I am boycotting their site and recommending everyone I know to do the same.

If enough people actually *do* soemthing, sometimes things change.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

hokkers999 said:


> You've got that completely the wrong way around.


I wondered how long it would be before a Firefox groupie would show up 



hokkers999 said:


> FireFox is totally W3C standards compliant.


W3C making up standards and saying everyone should adhere to it doesn't make it a true standard. Having 90% of the market makes IE the standard. It's hard to handle but it's true. 



hokkers999 said:


> The problem is *lazy* developers who only code using Mirco$soft tools, check it in Internet Exploder and then throw it up on the net.


You calling me lazy? It's not lazy developers, it's developers that are coding to the standard web browser behaviour. IE has been totally stable since about 1998, hardly changing since IE5. You might think that's a bad thing, but as a web developer believe me that's a great thing. Netscape 6 came and went, as did Mozilla, and Netscape 7 and Opera. Today it's Firefox. They're all constantly changing due to open source and their wish to release something every few weeks. It makes for a very unstable ever-changing environment.

What you also need to consider is the websites that were made anything from 1 to 6 years ago, have been working perfectly well and now suddenly this browser comes along that can't handle that well established format. It may not be the W3C standard but it is "the standard". Those sites who've already spent their huge amounts of money making their website compatible with all major web browsers "AT THAT TIME" be it one year ago or 6 years ago do not want to spend thousands or hundreds of thousands ensuring it works with Firefox.

It's the developers of Firefox who are lazy. They're the ones that came into this pre-existing Internet world and didn't bother dealing with the way it currently is and instead only deal with the way they (and the W3C) would like it to be.



hokkers999 said:


> Personally I just find another site with the same info, dropping a line to the site owner telling them why I am boycotting their site and recommending everyone I know to do the same.


Now here's where I reiterate what I said earlier : "they spend the rest of their browsing life suffering the rendering problems it [Firefox] has (because it's actually so much worse than IE)."



hokkers999 said:


> If enough people actually *do* soemthing, sometimes things change.


There's the problem you see, things changing should be in Firefox, not the billions of web pages out there.


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## dogsbody (May 2, 2005)

Don't get me started on all the security issues in IE!!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

We always hear about "issues" with Windows or IE. How come I've never had a problem with either of them then? No viruses, trojans, etc., ever!

Am I just lucky?

Also, if you were a hacker, which Browser/OS would you choose to target; the one with >90% of user or the one with <10%? I think that's what they call a 'no-brainer'


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## Ashley (Apr 20, 2002)

I wonder which browser the author of TiVoWeb uses. If you look at the two screen shots on the original post you can see some text below the 'TiVoWeb Project' with the Firefox browser but it's not visable with the IE browser.


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## dogsbody (May 2, 2005)

OK, I am trying to stay independant (as a FireFox user can be) but I think wikipedia shows both sides of the story.

Now I suggest we stop this conversation, there is no way this can end in anything other than a "religious war"  Back to the forum thread 

I also appologise, my previous post was very very close to being a Forum Troll and posting just to get a response  I should know better


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

dogsbody said:


> I suggest we stop this conversation, there is no way this can end in anything other than a "religious war"


Awwww. I like a good browser loyalty war. Maybe I'm biased knowing several people on the IE development team and the manager of the Windows Vista development. They've filled many of the security holes and features lacking with WIE7.

You know what's ironic though, although I hate Firefox and co, I have to have every version of it installed on my machine for cross-browser testing of the stuff I'm developing.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

FIGHT!!! (or not )


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## hokkers999 (Jan 5, 2006)

b166er said:


> I wondered how long it would be before a Firefox groupie would show up
> 
> W3C making up standards and saying everyone should adhere to it doesn't make it a true standard. Having 90% of the market makes IE the standard. It's hard to handle but it's true.


And whether your or Mirco$soft like it or not, there IS a standards body. you can learn to work with it or eventually the market moves on and you get left behind. Don't think it can happend to Mirco$oft? Ask IBM



b166er said:


> You calling me lazy? It's not lazy developers, it's developers that are coding to the standard web browser behaviour. IE has been totally stable since about 1998, hardly changing since IE5. You might think that's a bad thing, but as a web developer believe me that's a great thing. Netscape 6 came and went, as did Mozilla, and Netscape 7 and Opera. Today it's Firefox. They're all constantly changing due to open source and their wish to release something every few weeks. It makes for a very unstable ever-changing environment.


Not particularly you, it was a generic comment. As for Ie being stable for 8 years? What planet have you been living on, let's see, how many versions of Ie have there been? And the myriad of exploits and bugs.

Oh yes, there is the practice of Mirco$soft of sitting on critical security issues, sometines for months before they deign to release a fix.

Seems like we have a Mirco$soft groupie here me thinks.



b166er said:


> What you also need to consider is the websites that were made anything from 1 to 6 years ago, have been working perfectly well and now suddenly this browser comes along that can't handle that well established format. It may not be the W3C standard but it is "the standard". Those sites who've already spent their huge amounts of money making their website compatible with all major web browsers "AT THAT TIME" be it one year ago or 6 years ago do not want to spend thousands or hundreds of thousands ensuring it works with Firefox.


Fine, standstill and die. If developers only code for the lowest common denominator you're looking at some unemployed developers and some dead web sites.

Coach buggy whip makers spring to mind.



b166er said:


> It's the developers of Firefox who are lazy. They're the ones that came into this pre-existing Internet world and didn't bother dealing with the way it currently is and instead only deal with the way they (and the W3C) would like it to be.


Whatever, luckily standards do exist. FF is written to correctly display *correctly* coded sites. There is *ZERO* excuse for anyone developing a *new* web site *not* to adhere to the standards other than errr, oh yes, LAZINESS.



b166er said:


> Now here's where I reiterate what I said earlier : "they spend the rest of their browsing life suffering the rendering problems it [Firefox] has (because it's actually so much worse than IE)."
> 
> There's the problem you see, things changing should be in Firefox, not the billions of web pages out there.


You missed my point entirely, I don't suffer *anything* at all. I simply google for a site selling what I want where the developers got off their backside and did their job. How did I miss out? 30 seconds of my time?

No loss to me, but there was a REAL financial loss to the offending web site. Don't overlook the reason why you are paid to do your job, to get customers. Not to pi$$ them off.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

hokkers999 said:


> Various Valid Points


Yes there is a standards body and yes there are lazy developers out there. I personally write all my web stuff to be fully cross-browser compatible. Like I said I have all browsers installed, and I even have to have a Mac (euwww  ).

But you have to accept that there are hundreds of millions of websites out there that were created BEFORE Firefox existed. Those sites only had all of the available browsers at that time to test with and they made their sites work with all those browsers.

Along comes Firefox and you have to admit they were sitting on a high horse when they decided they'd work only with the standards and not worry enough about the massive amount of "test content" they had out there. They could have added an option to work in compatibility mode or quirks mode as it's usually called but they didn't.

The simple fact is that your browsing experience *IS* impaired by those choices that were made. This is the *ONLY* reason I don't like Firefox. Any browser that limits my choice of websites that look the way the author intended loses points in my mind.

As for IE, it's not great, it has bugs, but it's been the same in the way it renders pages for 8 years. IE5 was released in 98, IE5.5 in 99, and IE6 in 2001. Nothing in 5.5 or 6.0 caused any previously working pages to break.

You also need to accept that it's not only laziness that make the web an unfriendly place for Firefox to venture into. It's $$$$ too. To make a very large site compatible can cost a huge amount of money. You need to get a team together of developers and QA staff and that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not an overnight change.

I'm proud to say that my stuff supports the following (* means all versions):

Windows - IE*,Netscape*,Mozilla*,Firefox*,Avant*,Opera*,AOL*,Compuserve* and Flock*.
Mac - IE*,Safari*,Firefox*,Netscape*,Mozilla*
Linux-Konqueror*,Mozilla*,Firefox*


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

greenkr said:


> I am using Firefox and Bluebook - each menu item shows a forwardslash at the beginning and end - eg /Backup/ . The word BLUEBOOK appears below Tivo Web Project in Firefox - it did not show in IE.


For those still wondering about this I have found the answer.

In the CSS file you will find the :before and :after pseudo elements defined.

For example in technophobe2.css

a:before, a:after {
content: "/";
color: #909090;
}

These are CSS2 properties and IE doesn't seem to know about :before and :after so ignores them. Firefox knows all about them and dives in. In this case, hyperlinks get a / character before and afterwards (coloured #909090).

The solution to make FF look like IE is to edit the .css file and change any content: "/" references to content: "" in :before and :after properties.

For the mysterious title look no further than:

#theme:after {
content: "Technophobe Theme";
color: #505050;
font-size: .5em;
font-weight: 100;
letter-spacing: 1.2em;
}

Ignored by IE but rendered by FF.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

johala_reewi said:


> For those still wondering about this I have found the answer.
> 
> In the CSS file you will find the :before and :after pseudo elements defined.
> 
> ...


The biggest difference in an official Tivoweb theme between Firefox and IE7 is actually in the DayNight theme where a little Tivoguy appears on the desktop under Firefox but there is no Tivoguy at all with the same theme in IE7. In addition DayNight is an orange and blue theme in Firefox but only different shades of lighter and darker blue in IE7.

Far from Firefox needing to change or showing the wrong theme appearance it is actually useless Microsoft who needs to further enhance IE7 to fully understand CSS files. IE7 simply misses some of the style design in the sheet.

On the other hand the links in the DailyMail email don't work properly to access the relevant Tivoweb utility under Firefox but do work properly in IE7. For this reason I have to make IE7 my default browser, even though I would much rather make Firefox my default browser. Does anyone know why DailyMail emails don't interact correctly with Firefox as the default browser?


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> Does anyone know why DailyMail emails don't interact correctly with Firefox as the default browser?


No, but....



Pete77 said:


> On the other hand the links in the DailyMail email don't work properly to access the relevant Tivoweb utility under Firefox but do work properly in IE7. For this reason I have to make IE7 my default browser, even though I would much rather make Firefox my default browser.


There's an add-on for Firefox that let's you specify certain pages (or entire domains maybe) should be rendered in IE mode. So you get to have FF as your default browser, but when it's showing TiVoweb it uses the IE rendering engine to show the page.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/35


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

b166er said:


> There's an add-on for Firefox that let's you specify certain pages (or entire domains maybe) should be rendered in IE mode. So you get to have FF as your default browser, but when it's showing TiVoweb it uses the IE rendering engine to show the page.
> 
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/35


OK thanks for that I will check it out.

But of course if I apply that add on I will then lose my little Tivo guy off the dektop and the prettier orange and blue contrasting colours in my DayNight theme.


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

Pete77 said:


> Far from Firefox needing to change or showing the wrong theme appearance it is actually useless Microsoft who needs to further enhance IE7 to fully understand CSS files. IE7 simply misses some of the style design in the sheet.


Indeed. I'm surprised at this thread, reading it late in the day. The idea of a "solution" being to "make FireFox's rendering look the same as IE's broken rending", or that that would be desirable, is very strange. I've been using Opera with TiVoweb since the start using the Technophobe Theme and I've always seen the name of the theme at the top of the screen. Lightn designed it like it is.


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