Enabling the HTML5 parser in Firefox 3.6
With the release of Firefox 3.6, one of the things that was promised was a HTML5 parser. Well it’s here, but the it is turned off by default. Here’s how to enable it.
- Type
about:configin your Firefox address bar - Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button on the warning message that appears (and make sure you adhere to it!)
- Type
html5.enableinto the filter bar at the top of the page - As you can see it’s currently disabled, so click it to toggle the value to
true
There you go, the Firefox HTML5 parser should now be enabled.
The next question is what does it do…
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thxx 4 the post man…..,
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On Firefox 3.6.15, under Windows Vista, about:config opens me a list that has no html5.enable entry, or anything containing html5.
Did I misunderstand something, or did they take this feature out?
The Firefox HTML5 parser is on by default now Jukka, so you are correct, it’s been taken out.
This post is surprisingly popular considering it’s obsolete!
Thanks for the quick reply. I wonder if this means that a thing will now trigger a parsing mode different from the mode used for other documents. (And how can one tell the difference?) Or does it just mean that Firefox now simply uses the HTML5 parser, for all documents?
I would assume it uses it based on the doctype, i.e. if it’s HTML5 it uses the HTML5 parser.
Hi Ian, i have a question about the html5.parser
We are currently using a webbased ticketing system where our clients can post their IT problems to us.
The thing is, the website uses radio buttons. these radio buttons are making it easy for them how to determine their it related problems: for example: Desktop/Terminal issu
Printin issue, domotics issue etc…
The thing is: In firefox some of our users have to double click such radio button, otherwise it just checks of to the standard choice… The other part of the users just can click it once and the button is highlighted.
I found out that when i set the html5.parser.enable to false in a user’s profile, this user doesn’t have to click twice anymore on the radiobutton to highlight it…
The other strange thing i found out: not every user on the same server with te same version of firefox(3.5.5) has this html5.parser.enable option in the about:config
My question to you: Is their another way around this problem then manually change alle the user profiles with this “double click problem”?
Tnx in advance
Jan Luijten
Hi Jan,
An odd problem indeed, and I know nothing about it to be honest, but it did intrigue me.
First of all is everyone definitely using Firefox 3.5.5, since Firefox 5 is the latest version?
I did a bit of investigating and apparently this issue also occurred between 3.6 and 4, due to stricter parsing rules. You can read about it at: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/828483 where there’s also a suggested JavaScript solution which might be worth trying. But it also sounds like altering the markup might also help fix this. I don’t know what your markup looks like though so it’s hard to say.
Let me know how that goes. Hope it helps.
Regards,
Ian
Hi Ian,
Indeed when i alter this javascript(set the HTML55.PARSER.ENABLE to false) it doesn’t require to double click the radio’s. But this isn’t a fix i can use because of the high volume of users we have in our domain. If somehow i can script it within a logon script, but my knowledge about that is very very slim
Kind Regards
I doubt you can override someone’s browser settings, which is the way it should be.
But as the article I linked to says, it could be the way your HTML markup is laid out. I can’t say since I can’t see it.
Okay, I’m using FF 3.6.25 and when I go to YouTube to watch a video in HTML5 (I’ve turned off Flash plugins to test this), it tells me that I don’t have an HTML5 browser.
What gives here??