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 Post subject: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 7:21 pm 
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I have been working on a new FNN screen that uses 4 different displays for showing all of the days news in the game. In trying to spruce them up I am using special scroll areas for the information.

Using standard javascript and nothing fancy everything runs SMOOTH as silk on Opera, Safari and IE. I mean it is absolutely perfect.

But when it comes to the latest Firefox (2.0.0.7) it shows just how BAD Firefox is as manipulating DIV tags using javascript. I have just about come to the conclusion the setInterval method support and rendering speed in Firefox just plain blows. It never runs at the speed it is set at. This may be caused by Firefox not being able to manipulate DIV tags well because it takes too much time to finish the procedure. You would think Firefox could move a DIV up one pixel quickly since Opera, Safari and IE can do it without a problem.

I knew people put out tests showing how slow Firefox was at processing scripts but I never thought it was THIS bad. What is sad is that IE can do this task far better than Firefox and that surprised the hell out of me. I have had far more problems getting Firefox to play nice using javascript than any other browser. Creating the new Manual Autoroutes worked the first time under Opera, IE and Safari. Guess which failed miserably? Yep, Firefox choked and died with absolutely ZERO error messages in the error console. It took a couple of hours to track down why it wasn't working and it was because firefox wasn't creating object properties correctly. So I had to use an alternate method that would work on all browsers.

I don't see how Firefox has become so well liked as it has so many failings it is pathetic.

Another problem is font support. Firefox has a very hard time rendering small fonts in the 8px range. It tends to drop out pixels. On Opera, IE and Safari fonts under 10px render just fine but Firefox just hoses the hell out of them.

If you want a Browser that is going to be a hell of a lot better than Firefox at rendering and speed of execution you need to think about either Opera or Safari. Firefox is starting to become IE's little brother in how bad it renders coupled with speed.

After the past two days of programming I am totally and completely disgusted with Firefox.

If you want to play our game use something else... PLEASE! You will benefit from it.



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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:51 am 
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Doesn't the FNN screen spike your CPU real high in Opera if you leave it on that page for a few minutes ? Mine does, although it isn't as bad as it was in Opera 9rc1 When I had visited the hompage and had a couple browser windows open with that animation thats on the main page. Not sure of the exact causes of the CPU spikage. anyone more knowledgable about it ? The new display does look really nice though.


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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:04 pm 
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Actually in Opera it doesn't but in Firefox it does. After your post I went back and did some testing using the Task Manager.

My normal desktop uses the low end Intel Core 2 Duo cpu. It's not the fastest CPU on the market but it's no slouch. Under Opera, Safari and IE the 4 windows javascript scroll routine used on the new FNN page uses about 17% CPU even after running for quite a few minutes. Under Firefox 2.0.0.7 it is a horror story. Under Firefox the routine uses an average of 60% CPU. That shows the Firefox engine is very poorly written. Especially when IE6 out performs it.

Firefox really has people so snowed.

On my other desktop that uses an old 1.2 ghz AMD Athlon single core CPU the processor is pegged at 100% and the scroll is maybe 2-3 pixels per second. Absolutely horrible.

So I am going to have to junk all of the time I spent on this and revert to standard windows that the users will have to scroll manually. It's sad that we have to junk some nifty new things because of the popular browsers is so badly written that it can't handle them. And no we are not going to use browser detection. If it can't be seen on all of the normal browsers we aren't going to use it.



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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 6:22 pm 
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"So I am going to have to junk all of the time I spent on this and revert to standard windows that the users will have to scroll manually. It's sad that we have to junk some nifty new things because of the popular browsers is so badly written that it can't handle them. And no we are not going to use browser detection. If it can't be seen on all of the normal browsers we aren't going to use it."

Umm.. with all due respect, WHY?! If all browsers can see it but Firefox, it's better for them. And it doesn't hurt Firefox users. They keep the old, which it what they'll get if you chuck the whole thing too. So let's see... better for everyone but same Firefox users, vs. same for everyone, but worse for you. Doesn't seem to make much sense to choose the latter. If they want to see the new news, they can just get one of the three other browsers you've mentioned.



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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 7:05 pm 
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I changed the code so they do not scroll unless you move the mouse over the window and only that window will scroll. This solves the problem for the most part.



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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 7:33 pm 
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I don't have the dual core :( . I got single Amd athlon 3800+ (2400 mhz) on main one. But the News deem to be working better now anyway.


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 Post subject: Re: Firefox Javascript blows ever-loving chunks
PostPosted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:37 am 
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That's better anyway. This way, it doesn't disappear before I can read it. Good job.



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