193112 - thomashillebrandt.com - JavaScript induced text (using InnerHTML and document.layers / writeln) fails to render, making the page useless!

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Thomas Hillebrandt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030210
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030210

In the pages under "Discography" on http://www.thomashillebrandt.com/ the
right-hand menubar ("Tracks" "History" "Music" "Instruments") uses JavaScript as
described below to render text. This works fine in IE5, but not in Mozilla 1.3b.
A sample routine is as follows:

<A href="javascript:displaytext()">Do it!</A>

<TABLE border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
   <TR>
      <TD width="400" rowspan="3" id="Info">
      </TD>
   </TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN ID="myTable" STYLE="position:absolute"></SPAN>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

function displaytext()
{
    var output = 'This is my text<BR>' +
                 'I want this to show<BR>';

    if (document.all)
        document.all('Info').innerHTML = output;
    else if (document.layers) {
        document.layers['Info'].document.open();
        document.layers['Info'].document.writeln(output);
        document.layers['Info'].document.close();
    }
}

</SCRIPT>

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Load the page.
2. Press the link.
3. Watch nothing happen.

Actual Results:  
Nothing

Expected Results:  
Insert the HTML code in the 'output' variable into the table labled "Info", thus
displaying it on the screen.

Comment 1

[joakim_46]

WFM with build 2003021008 under Windows XP SP1. I can't see anything wrong. It 
is displayed like in IE. Marking as WORKSFORME.

Comment 2

[Thomas Hillebrandt]

I just copy-pasted my example into a text-file and loaded it into IE where 
clicking on the link displays the text. I then loaded the same file into build 
2003021008, where clicking the link made it do absolutely nothing. I noticed 
the problem yesterday when visiting a friend using Mozilla under Linux (don't 
know what version) where he couldn't make the links under the individual albums 
in Discography at www.thomashillebrandt.com display anything.

Comment 3

[Ruslan Ismailov]

This is Tech Evangelism case -- both document.all and document.layers are
proprietary IE and old Netscape stuff. Correct w3c code should use

document.getElementById("Info")

(if Info is ID of certain element)

Btw, correct link should be http://www.thomashillebrandt.com/album_organica.htm.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Yep

Comment 5

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

tech evang june 2003 reorg

Comment 6

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The Thomas Hillebrandt Homepage has been taken down, as there is no current information, and isn't likely to be in the near future. Sorry for any inconvenience...