Firefox Issue in D2L

Question:
Has anyone experienced difficulties editing/adding content using Mozilla Firefox? Firefox is my browser of choice, except for D2L over the last couple of months. When I click on the Edit icon, I get a Java window, which eventually opens, but typing, pasting, etc, does not go smoothly. I am using a PC, but the editing function in Firefox now looks more like it does on a Mac. The last straw today was when I added a News item, clicked submit, and all I got was that yp entry. Maybe I should be doing something with the browser that I don't know about? Any feedback is appreciated.

Answer:
I seem to recall some explanation of this when Firefox 1.5 came out, but I'm never sure how widely these sorts of things circulate.

I use Firefox all the time, unless I'm working with the course mappings tool. In fact, one of the things I like most is Firefox's buit-in updater - just got a security release this morning.

It sounds as if you've updated to Firefox 1.5 (check by going to the Help menu *> About Mozilla Firefox). Mine shows:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Firefox/1.5.0.2

However, since the initial Firefox 1.5 series, D2L's browser checking function doesn't recognize the above user agent string (aka part of the browser's handshake protocol, identifying itself to the webserver), and which non-recognition is (unfortunately) responsible for deciding which editor your browser is "capable" of handling, in this case, the default java based one typically seen on MACs.

Here's the work-around, until D2L updates the browser checking mechanism (if memory serves, it's a javascript update that should be relatively low-hanging fruit).

In Firefox, go to "Tools" *> "Extensions" - in the dialogue box, click "Get More Extensions" - that click will take you to the FireFox add-ons page, where we want to find an extension called "User Agent Switcher" (use the add-ons site search box) - current version available:
User Agent Switcher 0.6.8, by Chris Pederick, released on Jan 17, 2006

On windows, with Firefox, another thing I really like about FF is: click "Install Now" (or, once you've installed an extension, the Extensions manager will search for extension updates, and again, click and install).

Restart Firefox, and the User Agent Switcher will be available as part of the Tools dropdown menu, wiith a submenu of other browsers you can tell FF to identify itself as to webservers. Choosing either FF 1.0.7 or IE 6 allows you to get the more fully featured WYSIWYG editor you're missing now.

Here's the annoying part: I haven't found a way to set one of these agent strings as the FF "default" so you need to set it after starting up Firefox, BUT*** before you login to D2L. If you forget (and I wish I had a nickel), you'll get the "old, default editor instead, slap your forehead, and logout, switch user agent, and login again.

I've just tested whether this issue persists in our QA environment, current through D2L's MR6 - bad news - it does. And it'n not obvious from the MR 7 release notes that the issue is addressed there either (I will check with D2L on that, and if not MR 7, when). (However - based again on those MR 7 release notes, there are some buggy behaviors in the WYSIWYG editor eliminated in MR7! - whoo hoo!)

Until then, that's what I know.

Thanks for the inquiry.