[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] [OPEN-ILS-DEV] browser client update for 2014-04-23

[John Morris]

On Thu, 2014-05-01 at 09:18 -0400, Bill Erickson wrote:

> JFYI, when all is said and done, it may be best to replace native Java
> print dialog with a series of custom settings the user simply enters
> directly into the browser print configuration interface.  Before we do
> that, though, I'd like to settle on which exact settings we need to support
> (which we have to do, regardless, for settings persistence).  IOW, if we
> have to manage scaling externally (i.e. in the browser), there is an
> argument for managing all of the settings directly within the browser.

Ok, I haven't looked into the new web client yet so I'm probably about
to say something really dumb.  But I have looked at and use web stuff in
general and a thought occurred while reading this thread.

I'm seeing one of three things:

1.  The web client isn't going to be as clean when printing patron
tickets.  Currently it can silently print.  No pure HTML 5 solution can
do that for reasons that should be fairly obvious: webpages can invoke
the browser's print dialog via javascript but may not adjust settings or
actually click the OK button.  I'm guessing this is why the interest in
Java?

2.  Java either CAN or CAN'T do the deed, either one of which is BAD.
If it can't then the same problem exists.  And if it can it really must
be reported as a security bug and thus will soon be fixed... hopefully
before every dodgy scammer on the Internet finds the exploit.

3.  There is an exception somewhere in the security model for locally
installed apps I haven't found yet?  I know HTML5ish apps on some
devices have hacks to allow javascript to access pretty much the entire
platform API but widely deployed browsers don't support that sort of
thing, at least there isn't anything in any of my copy of _Javascript:
The Definitive Guide_.  Or are print jobs going to get originated by
Cups on the server end?  But that wouldn't scale at all.

Stackoverflow mentions that for Firefox you can manually set a config
value that makes all printing silent but that would be generally
horrible for so many reasons.  See a plugin for Chrome, a way to get
ActiveX to do it for IE.... nothing web based though that isn't a brutal
hack.
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