Did you know that Sitecore’s future release would actually support Firefox fully in the “Halo” release? This means that you will now be able to use Sitecore CMS in Firefox with all the various user interfaces and not just Content Editor, etc. I’m excited about because of the following reasons:
- Firefox has an active community of add-on developers that helps to make “things” available such as generating Lorem Ipsum fillers, web development tools, color identifier, and more.
- Firefox is generally accepted as more secure (but more recent studies have shown that IE is becoming as secure but it’s ubiquity remains a reason for it being a primary target).
- Firefox keeps getting faster and faster especially when it comes to Javascript; as we all know, Sitecore is heavy on Javascript particularly AJAX so this could only help.
I know the reasons above are not deal breakers but what this new full-browser support brings is “OPTION”. This brings Sitecore to a different level of acceptability with companies that have very tight security policies. Not sure if Firefox is more secure as I’m not a security expert, but based on many blog reviews and researches it seems to be so.
So, in brief, I’m excited to see the new version when it comes out. But, why did I mention Google Chrome above?
The main reason I’m writing this post is only because I found out about a very cool browser add-on for both Firefox and Chrome called IE Tab. It’s available at:
I downloaded it for both browser and voila! I have the full Sitecore CMS client on both browsers with all its glory. And I’m not talking about the client being “dumbed” down, it’s what you would expect as if you’re in IE.
Well, the reason for that is because the add-on essentially uses the Internet Explorer Web control as the rendering engine (i.e. creates an <object> tag that displays the URL into the IE engine). This means that any other add-ons you might have in either browser will not work on the content of the site. So, if this is the case, why even bother?
Well, here are some good things to consider:
- In Chrome, I get to see less Window framing…which means I get to see more of the Sitecore CM client.
- I could use some of the browser add-ons that doesn’t work with the site’s content such as Lorem Ipsum generators without going to another browser or site.
- It gives you another option to test the Web site on IE without firing up IE.
- Most of the Sitecore CMS functionalities work such as the keyboard shortcuts, etc. (upload in the media library doesn’t seem to work).
- You don’t get to see the IE logo all the time : )
Anyway, I thought I share this since it was interesting to me. Soon we don’t have to fake the Firefox thing…just Chrome. Of course, we’d love to see Chrome fully supported at some point too.
Hello Marco,
ReplyDeleteAlthough nobody knows which set of browsers we will finally support with 6.4(very much depends on the flexibility of the render engines of the browsers), I can tell you that 6.4 is tested on IE, FF, Chrome, Opera and Safari. We even test it on iPads. So don't worry about compatibility :).
Kind regards,
Alex de Groot
Sitecore Solution Architect
That's great news. I'm assuming that you meant that ALL Sitecore UI's will be supported, correct? Sitecore's UIs have always one of its best features but also sometimes becomes a reason for companies to not adopt it because it forces them to use IE. When companies see the UIs in IE, they love it but they don't necessarily control their IT shop if they don't use IE...so they tend to shy away from it. But, if 6.4 will now make this a reality, Sitecore is becoming an actual Web "OS"....hmmm...is there something there? Maybe I need to look into building iTunes, the Sitecore-way.
ReplyDeleteSitecore the Web OS, I like the sound of that ;)
ReplyDelete