Running Web Pages from 2003 Server machine on Linux machine

[tmcneil]

Hi All,

I'm curious if this can be done without a major overhaul of the website. It's built in asp with vbscript and javascript and an oracle database. I tested some of the features from my windows machine in Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 and some of the features like scrolling does not work. Anyone ever tried to do this because it is a requirement here for a project that I am working on.

Thanks,
Todd

 

[Chacalinc]

I think your question is related to browsers, doesn't it? well, if you want a web pages run fine in all browsers you must follow the standards. To follow the standards depend on the developers, not linux nor windows.

Cheers.

Chacal, Inc.

 

[jstreich]

It's not Linux vrs Windows... FF, Mozilla, Opera and other browsers work and are used on WinDOZE machines. The problem, as Chacal pointed out is standards. ASP is server side, no problem there (unless you switch to a Linux server) -- but vbscript isn't a standard language, and some javascript is IE only. In general, avoid using JS and vbscript when possible -- and never use either for navigation. People can turn user-side scripts off.

I have a friend who is a die-hard anti-script fiend and he's said a number of times, "I have no problem looking at a site, but I have a problem when their page begins executing code on my machine." He, of course, wouldn't be able to use anything that uses JS or VB scripting b/c he turned it off. Make sure that even he can:
- access your content, even if he doesn't get the neat effects
- access your navigation, even when he's browsing with lynx (a text only browser -- keep in mind, spiders that index the site for search engines don't run JS or vb, so any text they generate won't help your ranking -- and if vb or js is used in the navigation then you'll be lucky if they get past the first page).

..And he, I and your other visitors will all be happy.

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[Kozusnik]

If you need a full conversion, you will have to recode some things. If you're looking for a partial solution, you could install apache-asp, still use js, but place all of the vb on another machine and reference it from the page. I've never used oracle, but I believe it can run on either.

I understand what you mean about some things not working. I hate that!!!
IE supports onDblClick, Firefox does not (yet on the version I use).
Firefox supports scrolling disabled text boxes, IE doesn't.

I develop on Linux, but I only have to make things work for IE (that's all people know at my workplace). So be it, neither side will bend. M$ will probably try to patent "their" technology and JS will not be supported at all by them.

Good luck with the project. I'm glad to see more webservers moving to Linux. It will, in the end, make the web master much happier.

Mark

 

[jstreich]

It's still unclear if he means to migrate the rendered HTML to work cross platform, or if he is meaning to run a Linux server instead of WinDOZE box.

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[Kozusnik]

Now that I read it again, I think you may be right. If that's the case, then most everything should already work except the items specific to IE.

 

[tmcneil]

Well, the product is being rolled out on a windows 2003 server that will have the webserver, oracle db and anything else the web software needs to run. The web pages will be rendered on several red hat linux machines (not sure of the version, but it's probably 8 or 9) as well as some windows machines. So, running apache may not be a good solution. I also would not like to just throw out the vbscript and javascript because I spent alot of time on it and I don't have any experience using anything else. I'll check with some co-workers here and see what they think.

Todd

 

[franklin97355]

I think your problem is not with Linux but the browser you are using. the program is not set to work with all browsers and the fix is to fix the code. If you are using activex you will need to make sure the browsers can run it.

 

[jstreich]

Post the parts of the code that aren't working to the forums for that topic... The HTML/CSS is a fairly useful forum, and better suited to the real problem. You need to replace the IE-only stuff -- which isn't as bad as cutting the whole vb/js... though you may have to lose the VB. Keep in mind, people will be able to just turn off scripting, so you'll want to make sure it's not needed for validation of data -- or users will be able to slide evil stuff into the DB.

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http://game-master.us/phpx-3.4.0/

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[tmcneil]

Actually, the project is just starting and we will be tailoring an existing web gui developed for IE to work in a mozilla firefox browser on linux. Figuring out which parts of the code will/will not work will be part of the development process. Once we really get going, I'm still documenting what doesn't work buy running the gui in firefox on a windows 2000 machine, I can start pasting code into this forum and other suitable forums as well. As for all the responses, I greatly appreciate them and find them very helpful.