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This looks great but it seems they have no plans to support Internet Explorer (https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser

This looks great but it seems they have no plans to support Internet Explorer (https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support). That's a shame because most of our users who need this level of support all use IE :/

BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
Yesterday, IE users weren't using TogetherJS, either, and I'm sure you weren't bothered by it at the time.
- mikegioia 13y ago
  Haha, I'm not really sure what you mean. Yesterday I didn't know TogetherJS was ready to use, and yesterday I didn't know of Mozilla's plan to not support IE. How could anyone be bothered by something before they know about it?
- newsreader 13y ago
  Today, IE users are not using TogetherJS. And if TogetherJS doesn't get it's act together they won't be using it tomorrow either. I have four browsers installed on my computer and everything I develop has to work on all four; one of them happens to be IE 10.
meltzerj 13y ago
You should check out our cobrowsing service Firefly (http://usefirefly.com/ http://usefirefly.com/). We provide support all the way back to IE 8.
tootie 13y ago
IE won't support WebRTC anytime soon. That's not these guys fault.
- rallison 13y ago
  From the author: "We do try to throw up appropriate error messages when a browser lacks the necessary support. (WebRTC isn’t required to use TogetherJS, only to use audio chat, so the error message there comes up if you try to activate that function without WebRTC.)" So, the issue is not specifically WebRTC support here. Edit: Also, the official browser support page: https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support So, it could mostly work in IE10, but won't be a development focus.
Mikeb85 13y ago
Who cares. It's IE which needs to catch up to the standards Mozilla and Google are implementing. It's not like Windows users will be left out in the dark, they can always install Firefox. Tell your users to use a real browser, or write a letter to Microsoft telling them to get with the times... Even the University I attend doesn't support IE with their web-apps. They support Firefox...
- ocfx 13y ago
  lol yeah telling our clients to use a real browser is totally going to be good for future business with them..
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    What would you tell someone using Windows 95 who's complaining that your app won't run?
    - donalmacc 13y ago
      Depends how much they're paying me, and when they started paying me that to maintain that app
    - mixmax 13y ago
      That would depend on how much money they will pay me.
      - shurcooL 13y ago
        That could be the problem right here. Or it may not be a problem, depends on your values.
      - mixmastamyk 13y ago
        Exactly. Note that Mozilla isn't being paid for this tool. It's open source though. So those who require IE support are welcome to pay someone to or add it themselves. Everyone is happy, except those who want goodies for free. ;)
jmacd 13y ago
You can check out GoInstant as well, which supports IE 8+ http://goinstant.com http://goinstant.com
- mikegioia 13y ago
  This looks really awesome!
- newsreader 13y ago
  Bookmarked the site; I will be looking into this one latter on today.
phowat 13y ago
Mozilla has a considerable stake on WebRTC's success, and a good way for them to push it's adoption is to help make useful web apps which rely on it. It would be counter productive, and a huge amount of wasted work, for them to support non-webrtc enabled browsers. As someone who is also actively working with the technology and betting on it's success, I'm actually happy they don't support IE/Safari.
jongalloway2 13y ago
Yay user agent sniffing: https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/390538182116143105 https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/390538182116143105 "So @togetherjs blocks IE via $.browser.msie. Glad IE11 changed their UA string so it bypasses that nastiness. Works great btw :)"
ianb 13y ago
Speaking as the principal developer for TogetherJS: In the past we have opted not to work on IE support because we had limited resources, and because we wanted to focus on what we thought were the hard problems: how should the tool act, how do we communicate changes between browsers, how do we integrate with apps, etc. Supporting Internet Explorer was always something we knew we could do, it wasn't a hard problem, but it still required some effort. As such it didn't feel like it was advancing the project. It was never meant as any slight towards IE, just an expedient way to save some time. Also, while we do browser sniffing, we only use that to put up a warning for IE users to alert them that it's not going to work well. This was pointed out on Twitter as though we were actively blocking browsers, in part I think a knee-jerk reaction to browser sniffing, but what we've done still seems to me like a reasonable and responsible thing to do – better to admit you don't support a browser than just expose people to a crappy experience. Of course times change, and as TogetherJS has become a more mature tool it's probably time to revisit our Internet Explorer support. But on the other hand this isn't a commercial tool, so I'm not entirely sure what resources we as a team will be able to invest in Internet Explorer support. But it's also open source, and we would welcome contributions to fix this. We'll be working on a slightly more structured plan soon. It might not even be much work, I really don't know. Here's the bug to watch: https://github.com/mozilla/togetherjs/issues/867 https://github.com/mozilla/togetherjs/issues/867
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mikegioia 13y ago
  Thanks for this response. I think if we implement TogetherJS in our app we'd be doing somewhat-heavy IE testing so in that event we could perhaps send pull requests upstream for any bug fixes.
beagle3 13y ago
Well, maybe you should contact Microsoft and ask them to provide a port or provide similar functionality. Your users have, after all, paid Microsoft for the privilege of using IE.
- newsreader 13y ago
  Last time I checked IE was free.
  - thefreeman 13y ago
    Last time I checked, it only runs on windows. Which is not free...
  - beagle3 13y ago
    IE is gratis, I know, but trying to run it on either my Linux or my Mac did not work properly.

BHSPitMonkey 13y ago

Yesterday, IE users weren't using TogetherJS, either, and I'm sure you weren't bothered by it at the time.

mikegioia 13y ago
Haha, I'm not really sure what you mean. Yesterday I didn't know TogetherJS was ready to use, and yesterday I didn't know of Mozilla's plan to not support IE. How could anyone be bothered by something before they know about it?
newsreader 13y ago
Today, IE users are not using TogetherJS. And if TogetherJS doesn't get it's act together they won't be using it tomorrow either. I have four browsers installed on my computer and everything I develop has to work on all four; one of them happens to be IE 10.

meltzerj 13y ago

You should check out our cobrowsing service Firefly (http://usefirefly.com/ http://usefirefly.com/). We provide support all the way back to IE 8.

tootie 13y ago

IE won't support WebRTC anytime soon. That's not these guys fault.

rallison 13y ago
From the author: "We do try to throw up appropriate error messages when a browser lacks the necessary support. (WebRTC isn’t required to use TogetherJS, only to use audio chat, so the error message there comes up if you try to activate that function without WebRTC.)" So, the issue is not specifically WebRTC support here. Edit: Also, the official browser support page: https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support https://togetherjs.com/docs/#browser-support So, it could mostly work in IE10, but won't be a development focus.

Mikeb85 13y ago

Who cares. It's IE which needs to catch up to the standards Mozilla and Google are implementing. It's not like Windows users will be left out in the dark, they can always install Firefox. Tell your users to use a real browser, or write a letter to Microsoft telling them to get with the times... Even the University I attend doesn't support IE with their web-apps. They support Firefox...

ocfx 13y ago
lol yeah telling our clients to use a real browser is totally going to be good for future business with them..
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  What would you tell someone using Windows 95 who's complaining that your app won't run?
  - donalmacc 13y ago
    Depends how much they're paying me, and when they started paying me that to maintain that app
  - mixmax 13y ago
    That would depend on how much money they will pay me.
    - shurcooL 13y ago
      That could be the problem right here. Or it may not be a problem, depends on your values.
    - mixmastamyk 13y ago
      Exactly. Note that Mozilla isn't being paid for this tool. It's open source though. So those who require IE support are welcome to pay someone to or add it themselves. Everyone is happy, except those who want goodies for free. ;)

jmacd 13y ago

You can check out GoInstant as well, which supports IE 8+ http://goinstant.com http://goinstant.com

mikegioia 13y ago
This looks really awesome!
newsreader 13y ago
Bookmarked the site; I will be looking into this one latter on today.

phowat 13y ago

Mozilla has a considerable stake on WebRTC's success, and a good way for them to push it's adoption is to help make useful web apps which rely on it. It would be counter productive, and a huge amount of wasted work, for them to support non-webrtc enabled browsers. As someone who is also actively working with the technology and betting on it's success, I'm actually happy they don't support IE/Safari.

jongalloway2 13y ago

Yay user agent sniffing: https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/390538182116143105 https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/390538182116143105 "So @togetherjs blocks IE via $.browser.msie. Glad IE11 changed their UA string so it bypasses that nastiness. Works great btw :)"

ianb 13y ago

Speaking as the principal developer for TogetherJS: In the past we have opted not to work on IE support because we had limited resources, and because we wanted to focus on what we thought were the hard problems: how should the tool act, how do we communicate changes between browsers, how do we integrate with apps, etc. Supporting Internet Explorer was always something we knew we could do, it wasn't a hard problem, but it still required some effort. As such it didn't feel like it was advancing the project. It was never meant as any slight towards IE, just an expedient way to save some time. Also, while we do browser sniffing, we only use that to put up a warning for IE users to alert them that it's not going to work well. This was pointed out on Twitter as though we were actively blocking browsers, in part I think a knee-jerk reaction to browser sniffing, but what we've done still seems to me like a reasonable and responsible thing to do – better to admit you don't support a browser than just expose people to a crappy experience. Of course times change, and as TogetherJS has become a more mature tool it's probably time to revisit our Internet Explorer support. But on the other hand this isn't a commercial tool, so I'm not entirely sure what resources we as a team will be able to invest in Internet Explorer support. But it's also open source, and we would welcome contributions to fix this. We'll be working on a slightly more structured plan soon. It might not even be much work, I really don't know. Here's the bug to watch: https://github.com/mozilla/togetherjs/issues/867 https://github.com/mozilla/togetherjs/issues/867

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mikegioia 13y ago
Thanks for this response. I think if we implement TogetherJS in our app we'd be doing somewhat-heavy IE testing so in that event we could perhaps send pull requests upstream for any bug fixes.

beagle3 13y ago

Well, maybe you should contact Microsoft and ask them to provide a port or provide similar functionality. Your users have, after all, paid Microsoft for the privilege of using IE.

newsreader 13y ago
Last time I checked IE was free.
- thefreeman 13y ago
  Last time I checked, it only runs on windows. Which is not free...
- beagle3 13y ago
  IE is gratis, I know, but trying to run it on either my Linux or my Mac did not work properly.