For anyone that knows anything about anything that is web design, the simple answer is web standards. In short, the HTML pages that make up InfoView do not adhere to modern web standards while all the above listed browsers do, with the exception of Microsoft Internet Explorer of course.
If you were to take a look at some of the HTML pages that make up InfoView, you would see something similar to the following:
<!--
File Version Start - Do not remove this if you are modifying the file
Build: 10.0.0
File Version End
(c) Business Objects 2003-2004. All rights reserved.
-->
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<title>Home Page of InfoView</title>
<script language="javascript" src="../utils/utils.js"></script>
</HEAD>
<BODY onload="onLoad()">
<script language="javascript">
function onLoad()
{
if (this.displayWorkspaceHeaderTitle)
displayWorkspaceHeaderTitle();
}
function displayWorkspaceHeaderTitle()
{
setWorkspaceHeaderTitle('Home');
}
function showInbox() {
var inboxID = "27610";
if (inboxID != "") {
selectNavNodeAndDisplay(true, inboxID);
}
}
saveWorkspace(self.document.location.href);
</script>
<br>
<table class="list" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td>
</td>
<td class='homepageLinks' align='center' valign="middle">
<table cellspacing="3" cellpadding="10" border="0">
<tr>
<td class="homepage">
<a class="homepage" href="../preference/tabs.do?">
Personalize InfoView now
</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="homepage">
<a class="homepage" href="javascript:showInbox();">
Go to InfoView Inbox
</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Besides being ridiculously hard to read and understand, especially if examined directly from the JSP or ASP source before being served to the browser, the above HTML will not validate as valid HTML.
So what does that mean for users that prefer not to use Microsoft Internet Explorer? In short, touch luck. InfoView will look terribly ugly in standards complaint browser like Mozilla Firefox.
The above image is of InfoView as it is rendered by Mozilla Firefox. Notice how some containers look distorted. To make matters worse, there are other things that can prove to provocative. For example, images in Web Intelligence reports will not load in other browser except Microsoft Internet Explorer. I have yet to find an answer to this mystery, but you can be sure that when I do, I will post.
So why am I choosing to ramble on and on about InfoView's lack of web standards? Particularly because I believe Business Objects should begin to recognize the so many other browsers out there that are much better than Microsoft Internet Explorer; I will not hide the fact that I am a pretty avid user of Mozilla Firefox.
Admittedly, with BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 3, things have started to improve, but there is still much work to be done. Hopefully, Business Objects won't ignore our cries for attention anymore.
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