RE: [PHP] Safari and PDF

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:04:42 -0500, HallMarc Websites <marc@hallmarcwebsites.com> sent:

On the face of it, if you are writing a PHP application for others to use, *forcing* a particular behaviour on them (on *their* own machine) is probably not a good idea. Why not let the user deal with this as they see fit? One can go way too far trying to ensure a uniform experience among users, who may not even care what other users are experiencing. One size *never* fits all.

On the face of it; Apple needs to stop mucking with what already works! The issue is this, Apple in all of its wonderful glory decided to drop support for pdf via the acrobat plugin. Didn't bother to tell anyone about this. You now need to use their Preview feature ONLY if you want to view a pdf in your browser. Otherwise you get nothing but a big white empty screen. No notice, no warning, just a big white screen. Know what I've been getting from my clients? Grief! I'm the one writing the code for their site and since Apple can do no wrong it's me that must be the idiot. [>] Sorry, just sick and tired of Apple trying to bring everything under their tightly locked proprietary software mitts. As to why do I want to do this... because it is better than telling my client that they need to give their clients instruction on how to view something they have been comfortably using and viewing without issue until recently.

Well, okay, I can understand how Apple changing how something works affects things downstream if developers and subsequently end users have to change the way they are doing something they have been used to. As I never (ever!) downloaded the adobe acrobat reader software on my mac, I never experienced this. As far as I know, when I get a PDF, it's always downloaded and I view it in Preview or Skim. The more cardinal point that the one I gave above about giving end users choice is never force an end user to change how they do something they're used to doing. My point is also largely philosophical. On practicalities, one does what one must. -- Tamara Temple aka tamouse__ May you never see a stranger's face in the mirror