336252 - Embed (applet) allows too few parameters, other browsers allow many more

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Devaun Ferguson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2

Issue:
Mozilla will only support 1016 parameters (of any length) in the embed tag, whereas IE6 will support more than 5000 parameters in the object tag.  Any more than 1016, Mozilla will fail to load the applet.  Appears as if the applet was not defined if more than 1016 parameters included in the embed tag.

Concern:  We have written an applet based charting program that will accept charting parameters.  The problem being that if we 
have a chart with more than 1016 parameters, the chart will fail to load in Mozilla, but be visible in IE.  In our arena, it is possible to create a chart with thousands of elements (series, categories...)

Platform: linux, windows 2000,xp
JAVA: 1.3.1_13 thru 1.4 thru 1.5 (We support all of 1.4 and 1.5).
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Test case included:
I have included a test program (WriteEmbed.java/WriteEmbed.class) that generates a HTML file called testEmbed.html.  This program takes 1 parameter, the number of parameters to pass to the applet.

To get started:
1) unzip all files into one directory.
2) Launch a command window
3) use the given class files, or recompile if desired.
Note: WriteEmbed -- HTML generator program.
Note: EmbedSizeApplet -- applet to count paramters, show JRE

Scenario #1:  Happy path, applet works in both IE and Mozilla
1) execute 'java WriteEmbed 1016' to generate a testEmbed.html file with 1016 parameters for the object AND embed tag.
2) Launch Mozilla OR IE, load the file testEmbed.html.  It should appear similar as below. (attached image)
--Note both browsers show the applet.  The applet simply displays a circle, the jre version, and the number of parameters passed.


Scenario #2: Fails on Mozilla, works on IE
1) execute 'java WriteEmbed 1017' to generate a testEmbed.html file with 1017 parameters for the object AND embed tag.
2) launch IE, Applet is visible.
3) Launch Mozilla, applet not visible, as if no embed tag present.

Actual Results:  
Scenario #2 failes on Mozilla:  An (embed)applet with > 1017 parameters fails to load as if there is no applet at all. 

This is problematic for us, as we then need to tell our customers to use IE to view reports with more than 1016 parameters.

Expected Results:  
less than 1016, happy.  Greater than 1017, failes to load.  Expect that Mozilla will support at least as many parameters as IE.  5K would be nice.

Note, the attached files are simple java application/applet pair.  The application will generate a HTML with the exact # of parameters you request.  To use, java WriteEmbed XXXX where you provide any number of parameters. It will then produce a HTMl file that has a object/embed statement with the number of dummy parameters as requested.

Again, it may sound wierd on the surface that a thousand parameters isn't enough.  But, consider our application where we pass more than a thousand parameters to a applet for graphing purposes.  Unfortunatly, we are forced to use IE to display those graphs.

Comment 1

[Devaun Ferguson]

Attachment: zip containing test cases, picture in rtf document.

Additional:  I added two HTML files in the attachment, scenario #1, works; scenario#2 fails.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I'm not sure whether the 1016 limit is valid any more, but I don't think we're going to track and fix this in any case... use structured markup or even just call into the plugin using script.