Silverlight support for Chrome and other site updates (Channel 9)

Hey folks, since the last C9 Team post, we've deployed (to C9, C8 and Edge) the TinyMCE editor that I talked about last time, and we've made some other small fixes and changes as well. The editor problem where you couldn't put in a link to another page on C9 has been resolved... check out this page on the TinyMCE Wiki if you'd like to know specify relative or absolute URL behavior on your own site(s). We also fixed the Add/Reply buttons in Safari and Chrome, so those buttons will be styled normally for you WebKit folks now.

We also resolved the weird 'go to a random page when you click Reply and are not signed in' bug... although we have degraded the experience a bit there. When you do a Live ID sign in, you can't include query string parameters or anything after a hash mark, so to keep track of the fact that you wanted to reply to comment x, we used to send you to a special URL (something like /replyto/<commentid>) and that would then construct the appropriate URL to put you on the right page, with the editor open and the focus in the right spot to post your comment. That wasn't working reliably, so when we were trying to fix the 'go to a random page' bug we switched to just sending you back to the post you were on when you clicked reply. Yes, this means you have to click 'Reply' again, and we aren't happy with that, but that is at least consistent so it is the current state.

Finally, and this should be interesting to the approximately 8% of you using one of these browsers, I tweaked the Silverlight detection code to treat Chrome and Safari on Windows as supported. I've only tested in the latest version of both of these (I happen to be writing this post in Chrome 2.0.172.28 right now since I was just testing it), but let me know if you run into any issues.

Fun C9 Fact: According to the Geographic info in WebTrends, when you view our traffic by city, London is #1 at 4.5% of our total traffic, and you don't hit Redmond, WA until #3 (1.4%).

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sticky359

May 26, 2009 at 3:48 PM

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have been waiting for Chrome support for a long time.
Charles Welcome Change

May 26, 2009 at 3:57 PM

Love the Fun Facts! Keep those coming, Duncan. And I think this is a great way to share your team's work broadly.

C
DCMonkey What?!?
May 26, 2009 at 11:50 PM
Thanks for the Chrome fixes. I use that browser for personal surfing at work

While on the subject of Chrome/c9 bugs, here's a weird one. Pasting text with newlines (ie: "foo /n bar") into an empty post editing box in Chrome wraps it in the following styling, rendering it invisible:
```
<p>
```
```
 <div id="_mcePaste" 
```
```
  style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; 
```
```
	overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">
```
```
 foo
```
```
 </div>
```
```
 <div id="_mcePaste" 
```
```
  style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; 
```
```
	overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">
```
```
 bar
```
```
 </div> 
```
```
</p>
```
It only happens if the editor is empty.

PS: The auto resizing of the editor when you add enough lines to trigger it is really annoying, especially when editing an existing post as it doesn't expand until you try to scroll down
Duncanma "yeah that's awful close, but that's not why I'm so hard done by"

May 27, 2009 at 1:15 AM

Thanks for the bug report, we don't test in Chrome much (it's never really been high enough on our list of 'supported' browsers), but it's usage on C9 is now higher than Opera or Safari so I'll make a point of raising it up the list.

I've been liking the auto-resizing myself, but I'll keep on eye on feedback around that feature, thanks!
Simo With me it's a full-time job.

May 27, 2009 at 1:55 AM

woo hoo, my London based Chrome browser says thank you.
stevo_ Human after all

May 27, 2009 at 2:31 AM

Great work, sucks you had to degrade the experience a little to fix that bug, almost feel guilty now .
Snatchertas

May 27, 2009 at 2:31 AM

What about Opera support? Silverlight seems to work 95% ok on most sites that DONT check for specific browsers. Why would anyone choose to kick out users without letting them in (even at their own risk)?

Oh, microsoft's main site is one of those obnoxious sites
dpratt71

May 27, 2009 at 5:21 AM

Regarding enabling Silverlight for Chrome, THANK YOU! I will be spending a lot more time on C9 now that I don't have to switch over to IE8 to view the video content.
Bas It finds lightbulbs.

May 27, 2009 at 9:10 AM

Where's Papendrecht on the WebTrends list?
radg

May 31, 2009 at 6:07 PM

Hey guys, do you plan to enable support for Moonlight 2 preview?
I just installed it and went to Silverlight.net, it works just fine with the top navigation there, any chance C9 could support it so I could stop donloading WMV files and just start watching?
Duncanma "yeah that's awful close, but that's not why I'm so hard done by"

Jun 01, 2009 at 10:56 AM

I don't know what we would need to change exactly, but I'll take a look...
cyberzen

Jun 17, 2009 at 4:22 AM

Hi I'm having some probs with playing Silverlight Videos in Chrome build 2.0.172.31. While most of the time the silverlight video plays correctly, about 1/4 of the time the video appears to load, but then i get a black screen. Reloading the page sometimes corrects the error and I am able to play the video, but most times I get directed to the wmv file.

Are there any workarounds, or is this a bug in your detection code?
RobertL

Dec 09, 2009 at 8:13 AM

seek doesn't work in chrome