Netscape 6 Developer Release Notes
These developer release notes, last updated November 13, 2000, describe known issues for developers in Netscape 6. This document may be updated from time to time as developers do additional testing of Netscape 6 after the public launch and, inevitably, discover new bugs that no one had previously encountered. These updates will be announced in the Netscape developer newsgroups and on DevEdge Online.
Netscape 6 has the best standards compliance of any browser ever released. This is made possible by the small, fast, standards-compliant, free, open-source, cross-platform, cross-device, embeddable Netscape Gecko browser engine that powers Netscape 6 on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux and the AOL Gateway browsing appliance. Of course, like any piece of software in the real world, it's not perfect. In addition to providing the best standards compliance of any browser yet, Netscape wishes to provide the best possible guidance to developers about known bugs and issues at the time of each browser release. These release notes document known bugs in Netscape 6 with web standards compliance and support for Java, JavaScript, and Plug-ins that developers have asked be documented in the product release notes. (This is not a complete list of every single reported bug; for that, see the Bugzilla bug database, which tracks open bugs in the Mozilla browser upon which Netscape 6 is based.) To learn more about Netscape Gecko, read the Gecko FAQ on mozilla.org and visit the Gecko Developer Area on DevEdge Online. If you're interested in the general topic of evaluating standards compliance, you may want to read this essay on the topic.
Mozilla, Netscape 6, and the browser engine they share are works in progress. You can make a difference in the continuing fight for standards compliance in browsers:
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
For more
information, see these Bugzilla entries: 36045 31932 |
The following behavior is not a bug, but
a feature that developers should be aware of. Mozilla has two layout modes:
quirks mode ("backward compatibility mode") and standard mode. The quirks
mode mimics the behavior of Netscape Navigator 4.x to provide backward
compatibility with legacy content on the web, while the standards mode
aims to comply strictly with the Recommendations of the World Wide Web
Consortium. The mode is picked based on the doctype declaration (or the
lack thereof) at the beginning of an HTML document.
Here are simple guidelines for picking a doctype declaration to ensure your documents display as desired both in Netscape 6 and in older browsers: A) For legacy HTML documents that have
not been checked for HTML 4.0 compliance and which may rely on the behavior
of old browsers (i.e. most documents on the web today):
B) For documents that you want to be laid
out strictly according the to the standards on Mozilla, Netscape 6, and
other Mozilla-based browsers and appliances, but in which you wish to include
presentational hints using deprecated tags of HTML to ensure acceptable
formatting on older browsers (i.e. documents that comply with the CSS2
box layout model* and validate as HTML 4.01 Transitional, so they may contain
deprecated markup for legacy browsers), use the HTML 4.01 Transitional
doctype declaration with the URI, i.e.:
C) For documents that you want to be laid
out strictly according the to the standards on Mozilla, Netscape 6, and
other Mozilla-based browsers and appliances, and from which you have eliminated
deprecated tags of HTML (i.e. documents that comply with the CSS2 box layout
model* and validate as HTML 4.01 Strict), use the HTML 4.01 Strict doctype
declaration, i.e.:
* Please note that in the CSS2 box layout
model the default vertical sizing of layout boxes and the default vertical
alignment of images is different from the behavior of old browsers and
the quirks mode.
|
BASEFONT is deprecated and will not be supported in Netscape 6. | |
BDO is not implemented. | |
The following HTML attributes are not supported: shape attribute on the A element, abbr, axis, headers, scope-row, scope-col, scope-rowgroup, scope-colgroup, charoff, datasrc, datafld, dataformat, datapagesize, summary, event, dir, align on table columns, label attribute of OPTION, alternate text of AREA elements, longdesc | |
Various metadata attributes are not supported: cite, datetime, lang, hreflang. | |
Bidirectional text layout is not supported. | |
57634 | Nesting of <dl> elements inside <dd>
elements is not supported. Workaround: nest the inner <dl> element inside
a <div> element, as in:
<dl> <dt> term </dt> <dd> <div> <dl> <dt> nested term </dt> <dd> </dd> </dl> </div> </dd> </dl> |
55285 | Mozilla currently assumes that all white-space
within a <button> element is significant. This can be changed as required
by using stylesheets. For example, to allow the text in a button to wrap,
you would use this:
button { white-space: normal; } Note that doing this with small labels may make buttons appear too small, in which case judicious use of the 'padding' and 'width' properties may be of use. |
678 | HTML and plain text documents embedded
with the OBJECT element (text/html and text/plain OBJECTs) aren't
supported in this release. Workaround: use the IFRAME element instead. |
14445 | <input type="radio"> is not mutually exclusive without an enclosing form element. The workaround is to enclose the INPUT elements within a containing FORM element. |
16934 | A line break that occurs within a tag isn't counted towards line-number reporting of JS errors. |
26644 | HR width percentage value not working in button element. |
30386 | The following HTML is invalid because of the within the name attribute value, but it functioned within Navigator 4.x: <a href="#x x">Link here</a><p> <a name="x x">Target here</a> In Netscape 6, clicking on the link has no effect, and moreover a "Â" character is displayed. The workaround is to correct the HTML markup to eliminate the invalid from both the name attribute and the HREFs that reference it. |
33654 | Form input elements and textareas will
not use the font face specified by <FONT> tags that enclose them. As
a workaround, the author of the web page can use style to explicitly set
the font used by input elements or textareas, or they can add the following
style to the <HEAD> portion of their document so that input elements
and textares use the face specified by the <FONT> tag:
font input
{ font: inherit; }
TEXTAREA incorrectly applying ROWS= and COLS= |
34297 | Form controls with style="display: none;" are not submitted. |
36003 | If a table is inside a fieldset and has align=left or align=right, the table is rendered outside the fieldset, and only partially. Setting align=none or removing the align attribute eliminates the problem. |
40545 | LABELs on OPTIONs (<option label> in selects) are silently ignored. |
40680 | The 'codebase' attribute of the OBJECT element doesn't affect relative URIs in the 'data' attribute value. Workaround: use absolute URIs in the OBJECT's 'data' attribute value when 'codebase' attribute is present. |
40855 | A comment is rendered as a <BR> when it is inside <table><center>. |
44065 | The HTML 4.01 specification states that for <input type="file" ...>, the SIZE attribute should be interpreted as a value in pixels, but Netscape 6 currently interprets this as a number of characters. |
59037 | The "rules" attribute of the HTML 4.01 TABLE element is ignored. Workaround: use the CSS "border" property for individual table rows or table cells if rule attribute values other than "none" or "all" are needed. |
55686 | Earlier versions of Netscape browsers allowed the user to Alt+Click on a link (on the Windows and Unix platforms) or Option+Click (on the Macintosh platform) to save the file pointed at by the link on the local drive. Netscape 6 does not support this feature in the first release. |
55995 | HTML 4.0 allows link areas in image maps to be defined with the A element as well as the AREA element. Netscape 6 does not support the usage of A elements to define link areas inside image maps. The workaround to this bug is to use the AREA element for defining link areas instead of the A element. |
52019 | The HTML 4.01 specification states that the SIZE attribute of the FONT element should contain only integers. Using non-integer values may result in unwanted behaviour. Specifically, a decimal number starting with dot "." will be interpreted as if there was no dot, so ".5" will be interpreted as "5". |
52746 | Dynamic fonts are not supported. Browser sniffing can be used to detect Netscape 6 and serve different content. |
44464 | The HTML 4.01 specification states that <input type="file" ...> should be able to select one or more files for upload, but Netscape 6 only allows one file to be selected for upload. Workaround is to use multiple file inputs, as with many other existing web browsers. |
45562 | In some circumstances a text input may shift down a pixel or two as a user types text. This seems to be related to the input being in a table cell and followed by another form input (e.g. radio or select). There is no known workaround. |
For a list of current open HTML bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see:
XML
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
Processing to manipulate default attributes is not implemented. | |
34168 | The following invalid XML markup can cause
a crash:
<!ENTITY editAwayMessageSpecial3.label " %%d = Current date"> The workaround is to correct the XML markup. |
44094 | When XML parser error messages report the line and column number of the character causing the error, the column value is (arguably) one less than it should be because the first column is numbered as column 0 instead of column 1. Although the numbering of columns is arbitrary, this may be fixed in a future release to provide cross-browser behavioral compatibility with IE. |
57164 | Mozilla currently does not support the 'charset' pseudo-attribute of the XML Stylesheet Linking PI. Workaround: Use the CSS2 @charset rule to specify the encoding as the first rule in your stylesheet. |
For a list of current open XML bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the XML component. If you are an XML developer who has questions about using XML in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the XML Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the newsgroup.
XHTML
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
29171 | Valid XHTML documents will not contain uppercase HTML elements. Such uppercase HTML elements should be ignored, but are not. The workaround is to correct the XHTML markup so that the HTML elements are in lowercase. |
For a list of current open XHTML bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see bugs marked with the xhtml keyword.
CSS1
If you are a CSS developer who has questions about using CSS in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the CSS Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the netscape.public.dev.css newsgroup.
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
Styles cannot be applied to HTML columns. | |
32372 | Author styles cannot be turned off. |
The | |
20582 | The current release of Mozilla does not
correctly support the <hr> element in combination with CSS. In particular,
when the body uses padding, <hr> elements are prone to being drawn in
the wrong place. Work around: Instead of using the <hr> element, use
semantic markup and then place borders on that. For example, instead of:
<h1>
Welcome </h1>
...use <h1>
Welcome </h1>
...with a stylesheet containing: h2 { border-top: thin groove; padding-top: 1em; margin-top: 0; } ...adjusting the style as required to get the wanted effect. |
5693 | :hover works for an individual element such as A and its contents, but if used for a block-level element such as a DIV, the :hover behavior does not inherit to enclosed children of the block-level element. |
53985 | Mozilla currently does not ignore whitespace before a <br>, which in certain rare cases can cause an extra blank line to be inserted in the rendering. See bug 53985 for more details. Workaround: remove any spaces before a <br> element, or avoid use of this element altogether. |
57026 | Placing an INPUT element inside a FORM
inside a block-level element that has position:relative causes a crash,
as in this example:
<span style="position:relative"> <form action="test.html" method="post"> <input type="text" name="fullname" value=""> </form> </span> |
14448 | The border property does not reset border-color
to its initial value if
the border-color value is not specified. The workaround is to specify the intial value for border-color. |
30802 | Percentage left padding fails on one-line blocks. |
45562 | Negative bottom margin on edit control is applied only after at least two characters entered. |
1777 | 'text-decoration' of parent elements (such as underline) are currently drawn across child elements. |
17644 | If a P starts with an image followed by text,, has a negative text-indent, and the negative text-indent is the same width as the image, the text overwrites the image. The workaround is to change the size of the image (perhaps by adding additional transparent pixels) or the size of the text-indent so that they are not identical. |
19963 | dotted and dashed borders don't interact well with other types of borders. |
20163 | 'text-decoration' (such as underlines) affects the formatting of text-less inlines, although it should not. |
20582 | HR rules are not obeying the CSS padding of the BODY. |
Known issues with float: | |
41412 | Text may overlap the top edge of a float that is pushed down on the page. |
53796 | When used in conjunction with the proposed
CSS3 namespace selectors, simple selectors that do not include a universal
selector or a type selector will be erroneously assumed to match
elements in namespaces, instead of only the default namespace. As
a workaround, explicitly give the universal selector in those cases
as recommended by the CSS Specification.
For example, instead of:
|
57026 | Netscape 6 crashes on exiting a page that nests a block element inside a relatively positioned inline element. |
13610 | :first-letter does not inherit from :first-line when floated. |
4831 | A float may be higher than an earlier float on the opposite side. |
For a list of current open CSS1 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the Style System component and bug reports marked with the css1 keyword.
CSS2
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
53663 | The value 'auto' on the 'top' and 'left'
properties on tables is not supported. It is treated as '0' instead. As
a work around, authors can wrap positioned <table> elements in a <div>,
and position that, instead. For example, instead of:
<table style="position:absolute"> ... </table> ...authors could use: <div style="position:absolute"><table> ... </table></div> This should have a similar effect. |
2055 | Compact DL is not supported. |
9109 | The CSS visibility property has no effect on frames. |
51678 | Using incorrect values for the 'rect()' value of the 'clip' property can cause unexpected results. Workaround: do not use incorrect values for that property! |
46891 | Generated content
of attr(xxx) on an <A> is not clickable (does not load new url)
There is a workaround
for some usages. Instead of this:
Try this :
|
57164 | Mozilla currently does not support the 'charset' pseudo-attribute of the XML Stylesheet Linking PI. Workaround: Use the CSS2 @charset rule to specify the encoding as the first rule in your stylesheet. |
For a list of current open CSS2 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the Style System component and bug reports marked with the css2 keyword.
CSS3
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
53796 | When used in conjunction with the proposed
CSS3 namespace selectors, simple selectors that do not include a universal
selector or a type selector will be erroneously assumed to match elements
in namespaces, instead of only the default namespace. Workaround: explicitly
give the universal selector in those cases as recommended by the CSS Specification.
For example, instead of:
@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml); :link, :visited { text-decoration: underline; } ...which would also match X-Links, you should use: @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml); *:link, *:visited { text-decoration: underline; } ...which will correctly match only HTML links (<a>, <area>, and <link>). |
For a list of current open CSS3 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the Style System component and bug reports marked with the css3 keyword.
CSS Extensions in Mozilla
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
The names of certain Mozilla extension pseudo-classes lack the moz- prefix. | |
The experimental -moz-opacity property has known crash bugs, is not supported, and may be renamed in a future release. |
For a list of current open CSS extension bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the Style System component and bug reports marked with the css-moz keyword.
DOM0
If you are a DOM developer who has questions
about using the W3C DOM in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the W3C
DOM Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the netscape.public.dev.dom
newsgroup.
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
22681 | The contents of a dynamically-created IFRAME cannot be modified using the IFRAME's window.document.write() method because the window.document object is null. |
33728 | setTimeout on Function.prototype.apply causes a crash. |
49941 | the document.links[] array returns an
HTMLAnchorElement DOM
object, instead of a URL as in previous versions. See the DOM Level 2 specification for further details. |
53350 | Parent window forces itself above child popup windows. If a page uses window.open() to open popup windows in an inline script, the parent window will place itself on top of the popup windows once the parent has finished loading. The workaround is to place the window.open() in the parent's "load" event handler. |
For a list of current open DOM0 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the DOM0 component.
W3C DOM1
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
37750 | The following behavior is not a bug; it follows the W3C DOM2 spec for getAttribute, but differs from the behavior of IE, so it is noted here: getAttribute does not identify a missing attribute, so it can't be used to distinguish between an attribute which is not present and an attribute which is present but has the null string as its value. If it is necessary to distinguish between the absence of the element and the presence of a null attribute, the workaround is to first use the node methods hasAttribute() and hasAttributeNS() to confirm whether or not the attribute is present, then to use getAttribute as desired. Because the behavior of IE in this case is more convenient than what the specification mandates, Netscape may propose amending the specification and implementing compatibility with IE at a future date, so developers should use the workaround (which will function regardless of how getAttribute behaves) and avoid writing code that depends on this aspect of the current behavior of getAttribute. |
7515 | Dynamically adding a style sheet to a document using a LINK element or a processing instruction has no effect on the formatting of the document. |
18843 | A SCRIPT added dynamically to a document is not executable. |
For a list of current open DOM1 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the DOM1 component.
W3C DOM2
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
25889 | Creating an event object (via document.createEvent method) causes a JavaScript error. |
49980 | Multiple anonymous event listeners on a single event will cause a crash. The workaround is to name your event listeners. |
1572 | Key events are not cancellable. Returning false still allows character entry into edit fields. |
13213 | Events don't reach elements to the top or left of view. |
53118 | Certain events bubble that should not bubble. These are: "load" (except when caused by image load), "unload", "focus" and "blur". Specifically note that this affects the HTML attributes "onload", "onunload", "onfocus" and "onblur" as well. The workaround is to explicitly stop the bubbling of these events by calling the stopPropagation() method of the event or use browser sniffing and execute a different code path for Netscape 6. Scripts should not depend on this feature as it will be fixed in a future release. |
For a list of current open DOM2 bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the DOM2 and Event Handling components.
RDF
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
aboutEach, aboutEachPrefix, and parseType aren't supported. |
For a list of current open RDF bugs of the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the RDF component. If you are an RDF developer who has questions about using RDF in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the RDF Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the netscape.public.dev.rdf newsgroup.
JavaScript
If you are a JavaScript developer who has questions about using in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the JavaScript Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the netscape.devs-javascript newsgroup. (If you have questions about using the W3C DOM in Mozilla and Netscape 6 from JavaScript, see the W3C DOM Area on DevEdge and post your questions in the netscape.public.dev.dom newsgroup.)
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
Date.toDateString and Date.toTimeString are not implemented. | |
37333 | Some features of signed scripts in Navigator 4.x are not yet implemented in Mozilla or Netscape 6, including <SCRIPT ARCHIVE=> and ID= tags. |
56430 | Netscape 6's LiveConnect security policy says that the page and the applet must be from the same origin. Even if the page itself specifies a different origin for the applet, the scripts on that page will not be able to access the methods and properties of the applet. Please see bug 56430 for an example. |
For a list of current open JavaScript bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the JavaScript engine component.
XUL
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
49744 | The explanation of the -chrome option given by ./mozilla -help is vague, saying "Start with browser." What this means is that the "-chrome" command line argument can be used to launch the browser with some specific chrome file instead of the default navigator chrome. |
45576 | In certain circumstances, XUL may become deadlocked with the main application. The reproducible test case involved joining a channel with a specific title in Chatzilla, and seems fairly complicated to produce. There are no know workarounds or reductions of the test case. |
Plug-ins
For information about the enhanced Mozilla
Plug-in API supported in Mozilla and browsers based upon it such as Netscape
6, see the Mozilla Plug-in
API documentation on the mozilla.org
web site.
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
The following three points are not bugs, but are noted here as an FYI for users and developers: | |
1) On Mac OS only, the name of the folder for installing plug-ins is "plug-ins" with a hyphen (for backward compatibility with Communicator 4.x for the Mac and legacy plug-in installer binaries), not "plugins" as on Windows and Linux. | |
2) On Windows only, if RealPlayer, Flash,
or Acrobat are installed in the Communicator 4.x plugins directory but
are not installed in the Netscape 6 plugins directory, Netscape 6 will
load these plugins from the Communicator 4.x plugins directory. For other
plug-ins, and on other platforms, either:
|
|
3) If a legacy Communicator 4.x plug-in binary is installed within Mozilla or Netscape 6, its basic features will function as expected because of the backward compatibility of the Mozilla Plug-in API supported by Netscape 6. However, if the plug-in has a Java API callable from JavaScript via LiveConnect, these calls within will fail silently until the plug-in binary is upgraded to support the Mozilla Plug-in API. Contact the plug-in vendor to determine when an upgraded plug-in binary will be available for download. | |
(Mac OS) QuickTime movies are not displayed correctly, and are offset on the page. | |
(Mac OS) If you are watching a Flash or QuickTime movie and you open the Preferences dialog or perform other tasks in which dialog boxes appear, the dialog boxes appear blank. To correct this problem, close the page you are viewing and then perform your task. |
For a list of current open plug-in bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the Plug-ins component.
Pluglets (Plug-ins Implemented
in Java)
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
56019 | Java Plugins with a mime-type with a version
string attached will not work in
Unix. For example: <EMBED type="application/x-java-applet;version=1.3"
CODE = XYZApp.class WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=100 model=models/water.xyz scriptable=false
To fix this, take out the ;version=1.3 part. |
Java
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
Netscape 6 includes Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) Runtime Environment v1.3.0_01. This release of J2SE was created specifically for support of Netscape 6. Installing Netscape 6 will not disrupt other Java Runtime Environments you may have installed (for instance, JRE 1.3, or JRE 1.3.0_01 downloaded from java.sun.com). This is the same release that's available from Sun. | |
Netscape 6 has been tested only with J2SE v1.3.0_01. Other J2SE releases, or previous JDK's from Sun, will not work with Netscape 6. | |
(Mac OS only) You must have Mac OS Runtime for Java (MRJ) version 2.2 to run Java aplets with Netscape 6. If you have Mac OS version 8.5 through 8.6, you may need to upgrade your version of MRJ. For an upgrade, go to the Apple software download pages. | |
Running J2SE in Netscape 6 in 256 color mode may cause a flicking problem. | |
(Linux) Netscape 6 on Linux and Solaris includes includes J2SE v1.3.0_01. The Java support on Linux and Solaris is not complete (for instance, LiveConnect is not yet enabled), but will be functional in a later release. | |
59028 | (Mac OS only) Choosing Java Console from the Tools submenu of the Tasks menu does not launch the Java console. This only works on Windows. |
For a list of current open bugs on the Mozilla browser (upon which Netscape 6 is based), see the OJI component.
If you are a Java developer who has questions about using Java in Mozilla and Netscape 6, see the java.sun.com web site.
Other
Bug # (if any) | Issue |
44186 | View Source: When displayed via View Source, xul files containing a <script .../> tag are displayed with a closing </script> tag that is not actually present in the original file. The workaround is to save the file to disk and view it with a text editor. |
46318 | XP Install: Malformed
XPI javascript install triggers may cause the installation to hang until
the browser's "Stop" button is pressed (or prevent installation entirely
on Linux). The correct syntax, which does not cause a hang, is:
InstallTrigger.install( {"pretty name": "url"} ); |
Last updated November 13, 2000