What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Tom Kiesel -
Number of replies: 7

Apologies if this has been gone over somewhere, but i've combed the documentation trying to work this out and haven't seen it mentioned....

What counts as a 'legacy' device type for Moodle 2.1.x displaying themes?I can't find any documentation as to what devices get categorized as what type by Moodle.

I've been hoping that IE 6 counts, because some very wonderful themes have bad issues just on IE 6.  It would be great to drop an IE6 compatible theme in 'legacy' and know that everything would be set.

 

Take care!

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In reply to Tom Kiesel

Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Richard Oelmann -
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Tom,

My understanding is that, Moodle 2 does not support IE6 in its core, so I'm not sure whether 'Legacy' would include IE6 - but then I'm not sure what else it would refer to mixed.

The Connect themes (core and royal) were produced to try to make as much as possible compatible with IE6 but there are still bits that will not be as expected.

I tried to build IE6 compatability into a recent theme, but wasn't able to guarantee that it would work, so left it saying IE7+. This, as I said, seems to be down to some of the core features of Moodle and not just the age of IE6 in relation to modern CSS standards etc.

I am aware that some institutions still regard IE6 as their default browser, but - in my own opinion - we are now getting to the stage where trying to build in comapatability for a browser that not even its own publishers support any more would seem to be stretching expectations unreasonably. And given that standards compliant browsers such as Firefox are available for free and will work on WinXP machines (yes I know later IE versions are just as standards compliant as later versions of FF etc, but MS wont release them for older PCs) then really there doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to still be using IE6. - I know that this is an argument many users have with their own IT departments though and the choice is not always allowed!

Richard

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Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Anthony Forth -

The legacy device type is IE6.

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Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Richard Oelmann -
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Thanks for the clarification Anthony. However, still somewhat confused as I was under the impression that Moodle itself no longer supports IE6?

Are there any core themes that are fully IE6 compatible?

Connect Core/Royal is the only community one I have found that specifically states IE6 compatability and I have been recommending that to anyone that has asked me and I think that was released before the current theme selector set up was in place, so I don't think it identifies itself as a legacy theme.

Richard

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Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Mary Evans -

Hi Richard you will find that Standard Legacy theme is for older browsers.

Cheers

Mary

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Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Richard Oelmann -
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Thanks Mary, I'll take a look at that this week some time smile
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Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Tim Hunt -
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"Moodle supports browser X" is not a black and white issue. If you try to use Moodle with IE6, you will not be blocked from using it.

It is just that some things might now work propery, or the layout might be a bit off.

When they say, Moodle does not support IE6 - actually, they don't say that, they say "Moodle supports IE7+" - they mean that if something does not work right in IE7, it will get handled as real bug, and fixed.

If a minor glitch is reported in IE6, it will not get fixed any more.

Building in the 'legacy theme' capability is not inconsistent with this. It means that organisations that care users on old versions of IE6 can make things work for them, even if the Moodle core project is not interested in doing that.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: What counts as a 'legacy' device type?

by Richard Oelmann -
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Thanks Tim smile Trying to learn all the time - about older technologies that are still in use as well as new ones like HTML5 and CSS3 (around a while but still only just finding its way a standard into browsers), so useful information, thanks again. Richard
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