Not too long ago we kicked off an analysis to answer the question,
Does aliasing a subset of Webkit CSS properties in Gecko improve mobile Web compatibility?
The preliminary results of our small study showed little improvement. The next step in this analysis is to understand why the sites that were tested are broken even when aliasing Webkit prefixes in Firefox.
This is a call for help and your call to action. The sites to test are listed below. We need to know as much detail about why each site is broken as possible. Ideally, the for each site we will have a report that includes the lines of code that are broken and a suggested fix. It will benefit us to know any JavaScript frameworks that have issues. As we have already seen, it is common that the resolution of one site issue causes a new issue to become exposed. We need a complete list of issues in order to best decide how to target fixes. Ultimately, we will need to answer question like, can we make a set of changes to Gecko, possibly including Webkit CSS prefix aliasing, that does make a significant difference for mobile Web compatibility? Are the issues primarily in site specific code or a common set of frameworks?
Results can be reported by filing bugs against the Tech Evangelism: Mobile component or by sending them to the compatibility mailing list.
Site list with visible issues (as reported by Mozilla QA)
- http://www.directv.com
- Completely broken on FF Android. Appears to be broken by looking for the Webkit JavaScript value “WebkitPoint” that does not exist in Gecko.
- m.doctissimo.fr
- White screen renders on page
- ocn.ne.jp
- Slideshow of icon shortcuts don’t allow swiping left and right
- Missing colors on certain buttons.
- jutarnji.hr
- ads and transitions within ads are not shown correctly
- m.allhiphop.com
- colors for refresh button are not right
- text is occasionally blacked out when scrolling page
- beyond.com
- ads don’t render
- carsensor.net
- very obvious layout issues in comparison to Android stock browser
Lawrence Mandel 