| dbslide manual: DocBook presentations in a web browser | ||
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As previously stated, not all browsers are shining in their CSS and JavaScript support. In terms of CSS support the results were mixed in all tested browsers. The provided simple stylesheet works well in the recent Internet Explorer and Netscape releases. Mozilla (M14-2 on Debian GNU/Linux, admittedly a fairly old version) has incomplete support for CSS.
All browsers have problems with fancier CSS features than those in the sample stylesheet. Inheritance seems to be screwed up one or the other way in all browsers. As an example, I found it impossible to work with relative font sizes (as percent of a base size in <body>). Nested lists expose this bug in all browsers.
In general, the navigation appeared to be flawless in MS Internet Explorer. Netscape appeared to be unreliable and it showed platform issues. Mozilla (as previously noted, I tested a fairly old version) seems to be as reliable as Internet Explorer, but it does not support part of the keyboard shortcuts. The following lists show what you can expect from the major browsers (others were not tested yet).
The backspace key is used by Internet Explorer as a shortcut for the back button. So this will show the slide that was previously displayed, not the previous slide in terms of the dbslide document.
In general, the JavaScript code runs unreliably on Netscape 4.5 and 4.7. You may be able to show 15 slides in a row, then the browser suddenly goes into HAL mode and ignores the JavaScript instructions. Going back one slide via the "prev" link and trying again fixes the problem as often as not (until it breaks again, that is).
Netscape 4.5 for Linux apparently ignores the keypresses completely, so you will have to use mouse navigation.
The keys n, b, p, and h, are ignored.
The Alt key in combination with a left-click is ignored.