Category: Development

Microsoft Edge 79

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31. Jan. 2020

12:22 PM

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Browser releases

Hello.

The new version of Microsoft Edge was released on Jan. 15. This is built on the Chromium engine and the released vesion is 79.0.

We should install new Edge by our hands instead of Microsoft update now. But I heard that current Edge will be updated to new one by Windows update in several manths.

How to get

New Edge is available on not only Windows 10, but also MacOS, android and iOS.

We can get new Edge installer from the web site below for Windows 10 and Mac users. New Edge has new icon. For android users or iPhone users, Google Play and Apple Store provide that.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge

Further information about upgrading Edge is here.
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/01/15/upgrading-new-microsoft-edge-79-chromium/

I understood that Edge 79 was provided for users to prepare to switch to new Edge before that will be provided by Windows update. After upgrading, new Edge will be automatically updated on aroud 6 week cycle, that will be like Chrome or Firefox.

References

We can download the installer and get support information here.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge

For people who want to know further or newer information, "Microsoft Edge Insider" will be fit them.
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/

The latest information will be available at "community" page.
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/community

The developer blog is here.
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/

1) https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/01/15/upgrading-new-microsoft-edge-79-chromium/

2) https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/04/08/microsoft-edge-preview-channel-details/

3) https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/07/16/microsoft-edge-enterprise-evaluation-roadmap/

What will be changed.

New Edge will be upgraded on around 6 week cycle like Chrome or Firefox and this update is independent of Windows update. There are 4 update channels. The stable with 6 week cycle, the beta with 6 week cycle but newer version than stable, the DEV with every week and the CAN(Cannary) with every night. 1), 2)

Thanks to Choromium engine, new Edge can render web pages as same as Chome and boost the imprementation of HTML5 features and supporting developments of browser extentions. Firefox and Chrome have released new features (e.g. blocking user tracking by website, improving user password protection, imprimenting HTML5 features and so on) in short cycle. Additionaly, the user community have developed a lot of extensions with published browser API and documents. In the other hand, Edge looked steady even though Windows keeps IE11.

New Edge is considered to be used in enterprize. Acording to the article 3), administrators can controll updating of Edge. In addition, new Edge has (will have ?) IE 11 conpatible mode.

User Agent

I captured the HTTP_USER_AGENT of new Edge by every OS. Windows or MacOS versions are identified by "Edg/", Android version "EdgA/" and iOS or iPadOS versions "EdgiOS/".

Windows 10
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.130 Safari/537.36 Edg/79.0.309.71

Android
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0.0; SO-04H) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.0 Mobile Safari/537.36 EdgA/44.11.4.4122

MacOS
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.130 Safari/537.36 Edg/79.0.309.71

iOS
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 13_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/13.0 EdgiOS/44.11.15 Mobile/15E148 Safari/605.1.15

iPad OS
Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 13_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/13.0 EdgiOS/44.11.15 Mobile/15E148 Safari/605.1.15

For WebClass users

We found nothing of problem to use WebClass with it.

Firefox 72

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12. Jan. 2020

4:00 PM

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Browser releases

Hello.

Firefox Desktop Browser 72 was released last week.

Firefox release schedules

Firefox release calendar

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar

Firefox72

Mozilla provides two release notes. One is for users and the other is for developers.

Firefox 72 release note
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/72.0/releasenotes/

Firefox 72 release note for developers
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/72

The release note for developers lists news and changes on APIs or developer tools that may be used by web contents developers or firefox plugin developes.

You can get overview of the new release changes and prepare to manage influence on WebClass functions or your learning materials.

Pickup for webclass

I think there is nothing special to do for using WebClass with new firefox.

The design to identify easily

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16. Dec. 2019

9:37 PM

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Development

Do you have difficulty to recognize buttons and notes on WebClass? If you have challanging to recognize or distinguish colors, how do you look at pages on WebClass? We have been trying to make the UI "easy to use for everyone", we think. But we haven't considered the accessibility from another person's view. So, we are going to improve that. This articles sumerize the references about the accessibility guideline and check tools in Japan.

"Public Site Operation Guidelines(みんなの公共サイト運用ガイドライン)" from Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

We can learn a lot about accessibility guideline at this page.

http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/joho_tsusin/b_free/guideline.html

This is a guidance for the gavernment and public instutusions in Japan to make their websites barrier-free. For specific guidelines, refer to “JIS X 8341-3: 2016”, but the contents are almost the same as WCAG 2.0 (described later). There are survey reports and seminar guidance for national and local public organizations, too.

I was interested in the last one, “Introduction video on how to use web pages for people with disabilities (障害者のウェブページ利用方法の紹介ビデオ)”. Although it is very important to design UI with solid understanding about users, we tend to think all people as same as us. It's hard to imagene how visual or color challenging people use computer. I had never used the accessibility support tool that is installed on modern OSs. Theses videos help us to know that.

Web Content Accessibility Guideline

The website “Web Accessibility Infrastructure Committee” (https://waic.jp) provides the information on “JIS X 8341-3: 2016”. This page is linked from the guidance page on Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications we read at last section. This committee held a seminar on October 17th.

In addition to JIS X 8341-3: 2016, the translation into Japanese of the original WCAG 2.0 is also posted here.

-Quick reference
  -https://waic.jp/docs/WCAG20/quickref/
-Explanation of each quick reference item
  -https://waic.jp/docs/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/Overview.html
-Examples of implementation and verification methods
  -https://waic.jp/docs/WCAG-TECHS/Overview.html#abstract

Looking at the quick reference, there are some aspects to treat accessibility, and each level and detailed explanation are associated. For example, looking at “1.4.3 Contrast (minimum) level AA”, a concrete reference value is also shown: “The visual presentation of text and text images has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5: 1.”

I think that having specific viewpoints and standards is important for implementation and inspection.

Color universal design

Regarding color, the NPO Color Universal Design Organization (https://www2.cudo.jp/wp/) has released the “Color Universal Design Recommended Color Set” (http://www2.cudo.jp/wp/?page_id=1565)

This is a color palette that combines color combinations that are easy to distinguish even to those who are difficult to distinguish colors. The color palette supports three patterns for painting, printing, and screen, and a guidebook for use is also available in PDF.

According to the FAQ of the guidebook, the colors that are difficult to distinguish, or the colors that appear to be the same color, are different by each person who is difficult to identify colors. Therefore, this color palette is not a perfect pattern, but it is a color that is relatively easy to distinguish for as many people as possible.

Regardless of whether or not to use this color palette, I thought that knowing a little about how the color palette was created would be helpful in our future inspections.

Check tool

How can I make sure that I met the WCAG 2.0 sentence:"Visual presentation of text and text images has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5: 1"? Regarding the contrast ratio, You can check that on this web page based on the WCAG 2.0 criteria.

https://lab.syncer.jp/Tool/Color-Contrast-Checker/

Also, The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications provides checker tool called "Minna Accessibility Assessment Tool: miChecker".

http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/joho_tsusin/b_free/michecker.html

Firefox also has an accessibility check tool in a developer tool panel. Open the developer tools, open the "Accessibility" tab and enable it. I tried to check the contrast on the Datapacific homepage, but NG appeared.

Firefox accessibility check

In addition, Chrome has a browser extension that lets you recreate the web page view of people with low vision or color distinguishing hardlyness.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromelens/idikgljglpfilbhaboonnpnnincjhjkd

from now on

Actually, we cannot meet with WCAG2.0 at once. We should picking up the minimum items to be met. Next, I would like to establish know-how for checking and imprementing that. Then, we might be able to keep improving accessibility along with WCAG2.0.

Chrome79

by

11. Dec. 2019

11:46 AM

Comments Off on Chrome79

Browser releases

Hello.

Chrome for Desktop 79 was released yesterday.

This release includes a fix of the problem that we couldn't print out correct screen image of webclass text marterials, question materials and so on.

Release schedules of Chrome browser

You can see the schedules below.

https://www.chromestatus.com/features/schedule

Chrome79

You can see the release notes of chrome browser. Remember you should find the title of"Stable Channel Update for Desktop" because the other product channel's one is also listed.

https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/

When it comes to the release note of Chrome 79, here is a url.

https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2019/12/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html

Acording to the page above, there are few text about functional changes instead of a number of security fixes.

For developer, here is a index page of reports about Chrome 79.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/tags/chrome79

Then, this is a new in chrome 79.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/10/nic78

This is a report about JavaScript engine changes.
https://v8.dev/blog/v8-release-79

This is a CSS/JS Platform API changes.
https://www.chromestatus.com/features#milestone%3D79

This is a report about the removed or deprecated things.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/10/chrome-79-deps-rems

The developer tools improved.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/10/devtools

Pickup for webclass

Acording to the release notes, I think there are nothing special of changes to prepare for using webclass.

I'd like to let you know that the problem on printing pages impremented with frame has been fixed.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1016291&q=print&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Stars%20ReleaseBlock%20Component%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified

Others

The articles said that the network tab on Chrome DevTools was updated.

We can check the reason of blocked cookie and requested network resources. That sounds great. I'll try to use.

Firefox71

by

4. Dec. 2019

10:11 AM

Comments Off on Firefox71

Browser releases

Hello.

Firefox Desktop Browser 71 was released yesterday.

Firefox release schedules

Firefox release calendar

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar

Firefox71

Mozilla provides two release notes. One is for users and the other is for developers.

Firefox 71 release note
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/71.0/releasenotes/

Firefox 71 release note for developers
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/71

The release note for developers lists news and changes on APIs or developer tools that may be used by web contents developers or firefox plugin developes.

You can get overview of the new release changes and prepare to manage influence on WebClass functions or your learning materials.

Pickup for webclass

I think there is nothing special to do for using WebClass with new firefox.

Acording to the release note, firefox has original mp3 audio decoder and play mp3 with it from this version.

others

Mozilla provides a faq page to fix audio and video playing issues.

https://support.mozilla.org/ja/kb/fix-common-audio-and-video-issues

And there is a summary page of firefox html5 audio and video format.

https://support.mozilla.org/ja/kb/html5-audio-and-video-firefox