[WG: Sakai QA] [Building Sakai] request for help QAing Lessons for 2.9.3

Neal Caidin neal.caidin at apereo.org
Fri Jun 28 07:22:10 PDT 2013


Helpful. Thanks.

-- Neal

On Jun 28, 2013, at 10:17 AM, Charles Hedrick <hedrick at rutgers.edu> wrote:

> Let's look at what is supposed to happen.
> 
> * WMA requires a Microsoft player. There is one available for the Mac but I'm not sure how common it is. If it doesn't work, you have a plugin setup problem or you're on a Mac without the player installed.
> 
> * WAV is a Windows format. MIcrosoft Media Player should play it, but on recent browsers something comes up that requires you to authorize use of Media player for the server. It's easy to miss that dialog. But it should be handled by HTML5 audio on all browsers other than IE. If you can't play WAV in the current version of Lessons, please report the OS version and browser version.
> 
> * MOV is a Quicktime format. I do not currently make special provisions for it. Strobe claims to be able to play it. Because people often have Quicktime, I thought they might prefer it if I don't assign it to Strobe, but let Quicktime handle it. But that means that if you don't have Quicktime you can't play it. If people want, I can add it to the list to be handled by Strobe, or a site can do it in sakai.rpoperties
> 
> * AVI is a MS format. Microsfot Media player should handle it, but so should Quicktime. On a Windows machine if it doesn't play that suggests a plugin issue. On a Mac you'd want Quicktime installed
> 
> * MP4 should be handled by HTML5 on all supported browsers except FIrefox. On Firefox it should be handled by Strobe (assuming Flash is installed). If it is not, please tell me browser version and OS version.
> 
> * FLV should be handled by Strobe. If it isn't, I conjecture that you don't have Flash installed. 
> 
> * MP3 is handled by HTML5 audio on all supported browsers except Firefox. However Strobe will play it. So it should still work on Firefox. If not, I conjecture that Flash isn't installed.
> 
> Windows 8 is special. The "modern mode" of IE effectively won't use Flash, even if you have installed it. That mans that Strobe won't work. It appears to me that other plugins don't either. So you are limited to HTML5 support, which is MP4 video and MP3 audio. In desktop mode, IE works normally.
> 
> We recommend that faculty use MP4 for video and I guess MP3 for audio, because it requires the least plugin juggling.
> 
> 
> On Jun 28, 2013, at 9:50 AM, Neal Caidin <neal.caidin at apereo.org> wrote:
> 
>> I just added IE 10 into that list. Not sure if IE 8 should be in the list of supported browser still?
>> 
>> The basic principle is that Sakai supports modern browsers. It's a trade off since not everybody has control over their computing environment and may have little or no choice in using an older browser. I wish I had a better answer. Maybe someone from the CLE release team has better insight into this than I (I would suspect so)?
>> 
>> Another challenge of testing is browser media plug-ins. One person could do testing and fail, and another do the same testing and pass, because of a different configuration of media plug-ins, I presume?  And this is not necessarily anything to do with Sakai. Therefore it introduces extra complexity into testing.
>> 
>> For example, I have been testing file formats WMA, WAV, MOV, AVI, MP4, FLV, MP3  .    On Mac I can play all the file formats in all the browsers (Chrome/Firefox/Safari) except for WMA files. But on Windows/Firefox, for example, I cannot play WAV, MOV, or AVI, in addition to not playing WMA, so I guess I've got a plug-in issue? On IE 10/ Windows 7, I can play all formats, though some other testers cannot play MP4 and WMA on IE 9/ Windows 7. So it gets pretty confusing.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Neal
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 28, 2013, at 9:23 AM, Andrea Schmidt <agschmid at umail.iu.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Just my 2 cents...
>>> 
>>> According to the 2.9 release documents, "You should be safe with the latest versions of Firefox (Mozilla), Safari (Apple), Chrome (Google), and with IE 9 (Microsoft Internet Explorer aka IE) and IE 8. Sakai CLE does not work with IE 7 and earlier nor with Firefox 10 and earlier."
>>> 
>>> WinXP is still being supported for another year I believe and these users cannot upgrade to IE9. FF is easily updated. 
>>> 
>>> I test with IE9, FF12, FF21, Chrome (updated automatically) and Safari 5.1.7 on Win7; FF21, Safari 6.0.4 and Chrome on MAC OSX 10.7.5. If need be, I have an old system with WinXP and IE8 that I can drag out to test on.
>>> 
>>> While universities can update their systems/browsers for the entire university, there are a lot of students who take online classes and they may not have the latest software, but they should be able to update their browsers to at least the minimum stated in the 2.9 release documents.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Hedrick Charles <hedrick at rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>> I'll continue to test odd combinations.
>>> 
>>> Of course if this proves to be a problem, a site can disable HTML5 or limit it to certain MIME types in sakai.properties. Without HTML5, they get the old code, with some bug fixes. So if there are unexpected browser problems it's easy enough to back out of the HTML5. 
>>> 
>>> The strategy used by Lessons is controllable in sakai.properties.
>>> 
>>> If the mime type matches a list, we try HTML5.
>>> Next if it matches another list, we try the Flash player
>>> Finally, we just put out <OBJECT> (<EMBED> for IE) and let the browser figure out what to do.
>>> 
>>> So sites can adjust the lists if they're having issues or want to handle MIME types I haven't tested.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jun 25, 2013, at 10:17:27 AM, Neal Caidin <neal.caidin at apereo.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> That's the way I see it too. We should be focusing on current versions of the major browsers. It seems like the browser that this has caused the most consternation for is IE. I hear complaints about university labs that have older versions, etc.
>>>> 
>>>> From my limited experience, we don't seem to get complaints about focusing on the latest versions of Safari, Chrome and Firefox.  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> - Neal
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Jun 25, 2013, at 10:06 AM, Hedrick Charles <hedrick at rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I've looked a bit into the old Firefox issue. Firefox 2 fails if there's a <VIDEO> before the <OBJECT>, even if jquery removes it. But putting it afterwards is OK. I am unable to get my copy of FF 7 to call Flash at all, so I can't reproduce the issue I saw yesterday. Without Flash, it does the right thing because it uses falls back to Quicktime. I can probably fix these things if necessary, but I'm assuming that we don't actually need to support antique versions of Firefox. Things work with current FF, of course, on both Vista and Windows 8.
>>>>> 
>>>>> iPhone and iPad both work with the newest code.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Jun 24, 2013, at 9:49:05 PM, Hedrick Charles <hedrick at rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I've tried the full set of media types on Firefox (4/Mac, current/WIndows and current/Mac worked, 2/Windows and 7/Windows didn't get the Flash MP4 player right), Chrome current/Mac, Safari current/Mac, and IE back to IE7 on Vista.
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
> 

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