I am developing a web application using Dojo v1.8 and my target machine runs IE9 and Silverlight 5.1.20125. In this web app, the user can select a tool from a toolbar at the top of the page that will open up in a content pane (or an IFrame if it is an external tool) below the toolbar (only one tool can run at a time).
The bug I am encountering is that one of the external tools that opens in an IFrame runs a Silverlight app, and if the user tries to select another tool, the new tool won't open and the Silverlight application stays there. After checking the DOM Tree, all references to the Silverlight application have been wiped, and the new tool is there instead (which is the desired behavior).
So my question is, why is the Silverlight Application still being viewed even when it is gone from the DOM Tree, and is there a way to programmatically close it from Javascript? Also, I do NOT have access to the source code of the Silverlight Application.
Well I did not manage to solve this issue directly. However, there was another bug that I ran into which involved the java swing library not working on the production machine. The solution was to add the following tag as the first element of head:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8>
This forces IE to use IE8 instead of IE9. This trick solved this other issue, but inadvertently solved this issue as well. Here are several links that helped lead me to the solution (amongst others):
http://sourceforge.net/p/djproject/discussion/671154/thread/d7662f61
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff959805.aspx#_Compatibility_issues_with_1
Related
Hi I could do with some help / more experienced eyes.
I have a WPF application which I have started automating some UI tests for using winappdriver, upon further investigation it has embeded html in it - webview, and can fire off requests to open the default browser with app related content - such as help files.
Has anyone had experience in working with this? For example:
open the WPF app,
click on help button on the WPF app which will open a browser and
then continue the test to ensure that the correct help page has been launched with the correct content in relation to the WPF page it was fired from.
Presumably this can be done in my case with chrome driver (winappdriver cannot see the content on the webpage). I have tried using selenium's window handles, but it's like the driver can't see the already open browser page. So I am at a bit of a loss and really not sure what to do.
In previous roles I was used to using Ranorex, which does both windows and web based UI automation. So I have never had any experience using multiple driver types to do the one test.
Can I automate actions like filling and submitting a form, clicking links et.c. in a real browser (i.e. IE11 or Firefox) using only a Silverlight or an XBAP application?
I would be grateful if you could let me know any other solution (other than the two above) that can do the automations without the need to manually install third party software (like Selenium or Telerik Testing Framework).
No one answered, so I'll tell you what worked and what not.
Silverlight solutions didn't work due to the Same-origin browser policy.
The XBAP solution actually worked. I created a new XBAP application and loaded it in my other application inside an iframe.
The user must accept the pop-up and the XBAP application opens a new WebBrowser control doing its stuff.
The whole thing only supports IE.
UPDATE: There is a workaround to the problem. It is to force IE10 into compatibility mode by including one of the following meta tags:
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=7" />
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=8" />
This is not really a perfect solution for various reasons, but it eliminates the problem at least.
ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I realised a couple of months ago that there is a problem with our Silverlight application in IE10 on Windows 8 (I have not tried the IE10 preview for Windows 7). When the asp.net page hosting our SL app first loads everything works fine and the application loads as expected. If I refresh the page immediately, it also reloads as expected. But: If I focus the Silverlight application by clicking in it and THEN hit F5, it just goes blank. It is like the plugin disappears completely. If I trace the requests using Fiddler I can see that no request is issued for the xap file. I have been hoping that this would be fixed in a patch release for IE10, but so far nothing has changed. I cannot find any information about this when I try googling it. It seems highly unlikely that I should be the first person to discovered it and I am quite surprised that I am not finding more information. To reproduce the issue:
Create a new Silverlight application
Add some sort of content to MainPage.xaml, like a Button or whatever
Run the app in IE10 (on Win8)
Click anywhere within the Silverlight application. This is just to focus the plugin.
Refresh the page (F5)
Result: The Silverlight application does not load and the page is blank.
A few observations:
After the steps above, no amount of refreshing will bring the application back.
After the steps above, if I re-enter the url into the address bar and hit Enter, the application loads as expected.
If I enable Compatibility View in IE, the app also loads as expected. Nothing I do will reproduce the bug when compatibility view is enabled.
Now to my questions:
Has anyone else observed this behaviour?
If so, have you found a workaround?
I'm seeing the same issue with my Silverlight application in IE 10.
I've tried adding the IE 8 compatibility meta tag suggested above, but this does not resolve the problem consistently. It seems to work only intermittently, after say every 5th refresh attempt?!
The only way I can see to work around this consistently is to force the Browser Mode into "IE 10 Compatibility View", and I don't think this can be done via page content (meta tag, etc.)? I've had to remove the IE 8 compatibility meta tag so that the "Compatibility View" button is available in the address bar, and then ask users to click the compatibility button, which is then remembered for the site. This results in the browser entering Browser Mode: "IE 10 Compat View" and Document Mode: "IE7 Standards". The refresh behaviour then works consistently as expected and as it used to.
This is a big problem for us. We've built our Silverlight app such that the browser refresh button is used to refresh pages/content within the app (the users stays logged in, etc.). It's really bad that we have to ask users to set our site to run in compatibility mode for the refresh functionality to work as expected.
Note that this still works as expected in Chrome. It seems silly that we might need to recommend that our users use Chrome because of this issue!
UPDATE:
A workaround for this seems to be to always load the Silverlight object into its hosting page dynamically using JavaScript.
E.g.
function onLoad() {
var silverlightControlHost = document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost");
silverlightControlHost.innerHTML = "<object ...
UPDATE 2:
Here is the latest code I use to work around this issue:
...
function unloadSilverlight() {
document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = "";
}
function focusOnSilverlight() {
document.getElementById("silverlightObject").focus();
}
function onLoad() {
window.onbeforeunload = unloadSilverlight;
setTimeout(focusOnSilverlight);
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload=" onLoad() ">
...
I still had issues with the solution presented by Chris.
This works perfectly for me though:
window.onbeforeunload = function () {
var silverlightControlHost = document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost");
silverlightControlHost.innerHTML = "";
}
I solved the problem in a very easy way. I Wrote a javascript code at the end of the page (or after the object tag in where is your silverlight app) and set the focus to another element, for example, a link. Example:
<object id="silverlightHostControl">...bla bla bla</object>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var shc = document.getElementById("silverlightHostControl");
document.getElementById("myLink").focus();
</script>
The shc var is useless, I put just for clarify. Remember: your javascript code must set the focus to another (but focusable) object AFTER the silverlight app object tag was parsed, which means your js code is writen after silverlight app object.
In answer to your question #1, this is happening with our Silverlight apps as well. The only workarounds are 1) restart the browser or 2) switch to compatibiity mode.
It apparently is a bug in ie10.
Thanks for all workarounds solution but this is obviously a bug with Silverlight plugin.
We have raised few tickets directly with Internet explorer development team and they said the issue is from an external problem. It is not a good answer from Microsoft.
Anyway, this time our developers raised ticket through Silverlight development team which still waiting for their response. To get a good response from them, we need to get more people who are facing this issue.
You can vote this issue from Connect website which is Microsoft's official bug reporting platform.
The link to our ticket is: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/789004/ie10-shows-blank-page-upon-refreshing-silverlight-app
Cheers
Moh
Yeah i am also facing same issue with one my application. If i opens help of my application in IE 10 then i have to refresh the page each time to view the contents.
I have two workaround for this issue:
1. Press ALT key once
2. Open IE in compatible mode
As we all know very well..
whenever we create application inside silverlight it is asking us for hosting it
by dialogue box at given below.
My question is what if i unchecked the check box[Host the silverlight application in a new web site].
Means what kind of problem we have to face later if I don't host our Silverlight Application in any of the option given by dialogue box.
Basically it is not a problem at all. You can add a website at any time later.
In the project settings of a website there is a Silverlight tab. Under that you will find the option to add Silverlight projects to the website. This will setup the links to generate the XAP in ClientBin as well as giving you the option to create test pages for each Silverlight app added. The test pages will give you the sample JS you need to host your Xap later.
You will have to eventually host your application somewhere otherwise it will stay on your local harddrive and hardly reach any clients. So if you have an existing web site you could simply copy-paste the necessary javascript to this site later in order to embed your Silverlight application. In this case you can uncheck this checkbox.
I'm looking for something similar to the VB6 / .Net Winforms "Browser Control", that let's you show a browser inside your application.
I don't want to just render a page, I want it to be a fully-functional browser, in which people can click links, will run Javascript, etc.
In essence, what I want is an IFrame, only that it runs inside a Flash app, or a Silverlight app.
The ultimate reason for this is that I want to defeat IFrame busters. I'm making a web app that lets you see other sites inside of it, and I'm running into a bunch of sites that have this code:
var t=top.location,w=window.location;if(t!=w) t.replace(w);
(that's from eBay BTW)
which essentially pops the user out of my site and into theirs.
My hope is that by using a "browser control" of some sort, inside a plugin sandbox, "top", will be top for that browser control, and not for my site.
Of course, if you have any other ideas to achieve the same, they'll be more than welcome.
Edit: I've tried the Component One control suggested by Bill, but it didn't work for these purposes, because it's creating an IFrame outside of the SilverLight control, so it executes in the same context as the page hosting Silverlight, which is what I'm trying to avoid.
Northcode SWF Studio allows you to add browser window on the stage in Flash. I personally use SWF Studio as a third party SWF2EXE tool to extend the power of Flash projectors. It's quite stable and powerful. As far as browser control is concerned here is the example you can download and test if it serves your purpose. Check the Browser APT here.
We've not built a component to enable folks to do this but we're open to suggestions here. That being said, easiest solution is an iFrame, but word of caution in that when you overlay an iFrame over the the top of Silverlight we've seen customers experience perf issues as a result (mostly due to alpha transparency of the iframe etc).
This isn't isolated to Silverlight, Flash suffers the same issue as it has to do with browsers and rendering within the given operating system.
HTH.
Scott Barnes / Rich Platforms Product Manager / Microsoft.
I use the HTML control created by Component One. It has the limitation that the Silverlight object in the page should be set to windowless, but otherwise it works very well.
It's an old post but I'll add my tupence answer. I used the DivElements free control for Silverlight link text and it works quite nicely. It just positions the div accurately so that it looks like it's on top.
As for the other such controls, you've got to set the windowless property of the Silverlight container to true.
It works really well for me and I'm able to seemlessly have Google maps and the Acrobat plugin displayed side by side with my Silverlight application.
PS: because the component just adds a <div> to the page, you can't do stuff like having it load dynamically Javascript file like in the <header> tag.
PPS: when setting the HTML code "by hand", be sure to hook up on the DocumentReady or Loaded event before playing with the HTML DOM.
Hope that helps someone.