Web Site Not Showing Up Right

I answered a question recently from someone who was having a problem getting a web site (not mine) to work properly. In this case, he referred to the Foxit web site. Foxit is the maker of Foxit Reader, a much smaller and faster alternative to Adobe Reader.

He wrote that he wasn't able to use the entry boxes on the site's web page

I see the same thing that he saw, when I used IE7, Firefox and Opera, except in all of them I see the Product field as its normal length. The four items Product, Version, Build and OS are not reply fields into which you can type. They are pull-down —option— boxes — notice the pull-down handle at the right end of the boxes..

By looking at the source code, I see that Foxit is using JavaScript to put values in the field for Product and that they've hard-coded the values for OS. Once you pick a product, the JavaScript inserts values into the option boxes for Version and Build.

(click on the image for a larger version)

(click on the image for a larger version)

I suggested that he check the site again and see if it have values for Product now, just in case Foxit had been editing the site.

More likely, though, he was doing something that was preventingn JavaScript from running.

For example, if he had turned off JavaScript (called ActiveScript in Microsoft's implementation in IE) by changing the settings in his web browser, he would not see anything in these fields, and the page will display as he saw it (similar to the image above).

If he is blocking JavaScript from running by using an add-on such as Noscript in Firefox, he would get the same results, too.

If a site uses JavaScript for menus, for options (like this one did), or for display of content, you won't get those features if you disable JavaScript. The same thing applies to ActiveScript, which is Microsoft's name for its implementation of JavaScript in Internet Explorer.

Related articles:

• HowTo Turn On JavaScript in Firefox
• HowTo Turn On ActiveScript in Internet Explorer
• "HowTo Turn On ActiveScript in Opera" is later in this newsletter

Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.