SAP Portal, browser compatibility & HTML 5.0

Browser compatibility is something that has recently hooked me. The jQuery header-menu that I had designed sometime ago, wouldn’t work in Mozilla. I was amazed to see how differently its rendering engine interprets the same line of code. Though I am still working on to fix the jQuery menu, I found that some CSS tags are causing the trouble. However, today, I am going to talk about SAP Portal, its browser compatibility & HTML 5.0.

Browser compatibility has brought nightmares to developers and we, Netweaver Portal developers are part of the same fabric. It took sometime for SAP to understand the compatibility issue with IE7 and only after SPS10 Portal would officially support IE7. Gone are the days of IE7. This is the age of Mozilla, Chrome & Safari. Let’s understand SAP’s view and offerings for browser compatibility.

Internet Explorer Compatibility of SAP Portal:

• SPS20 onwards SAP Portal supports all application run on IE8 with an operating system either XP or Vista.
• SPS21 onwards IE8 would be supported on Windows 7 platform

Mozilla Compatibility of SAP Portal:

• SPS21 onwards SAP portal would support limited functionalities on FireFox 3.5 on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 & MacOS
• No support for VC & NW Business Client

This means, we are still restricted by choice of browser for SAP Portal developments. We’ve been using HTML & HTMLB for all major PDK developments. HTML5.0 has brought full bunch of functionalities like canvas, video and audio tags to the developer’s desk. That too, without using any plug-ins. But, considering HTML5.0 for portal development seems far fetched dream.

If we have a look at SAP Portal’s major browser usage, we’d understand that IE is the most preferred browser. And we’d be shocked to know that IE’s readiness to HTML 5.0 compatibility is mere 26%. Which is way too less compared to

• Mozilla’s 77%
• Chrome’s 86%
• Safari’s 79%
•  Opera’s 72%

It is shocking to know that IE is still in the stone age when it comes to HTML 5.0 compatibility. Meaning is clear. We cannot use HTML 5.0 in SAP Portal development freely.

• Major tags like Canvas tags which would support in generating dynamic business graphics using JavaScript is lacking in IE’s support. 
• Video and audio elements are also not supported in IE 8 as well as IE 9
•  Method of using SVG tags directly in HTML document is also out of the IE’s compatibility
• Form options like data pickers and sliders are also not supported in IE 8 & IE9
• Offline web applications are also not supported

Only HTML 5.0 functionality that IE would support is the drag and drop. No other HTML 5.0 special tag mentioned above would be supported as of now in IE.

HTML 5 Vs Flash

• Flash is paid where as HTML 5 is free
• Flash offers more effects that HTML 5 would offer
• Flash is banned for use in iPhone and iPad, this means HTML 5 would be universally accepted

Statistic Reference: media.focus.com