Thread: Default Browsers bring April Showers... huh?

Turbine uses Internet Explorer to load everything. Seriously? Could you just make it load the DEFAULT browser? Some of us don't use IE. Some of us despise IE (the popular click and crash browser). IE lovers make me shiver.

Please, Turbine, Please! Be a normal company and allow default browsers like almost everyone else already does. I think you guys are close to be the only ones now. Other people have actually discovered other browsers exist!

EDIT: @Ornaith that's not funny

I must be missing something.. I don't use IE, either, and don't see it in relation to this game.. Where is it that it is used/forced?

When logging into the game, there are links on the announcement panel. They automatically try to take you to IE to view any of the content linked.

I think their emails are the same.

I don't click their links anymore. I rarely use IE, and everytime I'm forced to try and use it I have to go through some update, tutorial, etc.

I don't know what MicroSoft is paying Turbine to force the browser type, but it must be good!

Any time you click on a link from the launcher, it brings up IE, not default browser.

This has been suggested and discussed before. They can't without updating which version of .NET they are using, which is not simple, and, very likely, currently not deemed worth the cost.

Originally Posted by Lupini

When logging into the game, there are links on the announcement panel. They automatically try to take you to IE to view any of the content linked...

Ahhhh.. I see. I guess I've (chosen to?) click on anything from an e-mail or launcher browser so few times I've either never noticed or forgotten.. Yeah, I see what you mean about that annoyance (and I'm trying to remember where I've noticed it before unrelated to LotRO, 'cause I know I have..).

Originally Posted by Nakiami

This has been suggested and discussed before. They can't without updating which version of .NET they are using, which is not simple, and, very likely, currently not deemed worth the cost.

This is not exactly true. It's not because of the version of .NET Turbine uses, it's because the launcher news is displayed using the MSHTML control (which predates .NET).

The version of .NET the launcher uses is perfectly capable of reading and rendering the RSS feed (or any XML) without that control, and can format hyperlinks too.

All they have to do is add a .Click event to the label and launch the URL using System.Diagnostlics.Process.St art("http://www.lotro.com/someurlhere"). This always opens the URL in the user's default browser.

if theyre not dockers, theyre just pants.

Originally Posted by Fredelas

This is not exactly true.

Most anything is possible, but it would become truly trivial if they'd only move to a modern version of .NET (which would avoid having to rewrite the launcher). They really should do that, if only to make it simpler to get LOTRO running on Vista/Win7/Win8. And once they do, they can just handle the WebBrowser.Navigating event (which didn't exist in .NET 1.1) and use the Process.Start() call as you suggested. It would literally be a 15 minute change.

In any event, the OP is describing something that irritates him, but is really just standard behavior for browsers. The embedded control is IE, so it launches instances of IE. If my default browser is IE but I'm running Chrome or FF, clicking on a link that pops up a new window will create another instance of Chrome or FF - not IE.

Khafar

The dude in the pic looks like he's had a few pipes of the old shire weed.

What would the launcher do if you removed IE from your computer?

Originally Posted by Khafar

In any event, the OP is describing something that irritates him, but is really just standard behavior for browsers. The embedded control is IE, so it launches instances of IE. If my default browser is IE but I'm running Chrome or FF, clicking on a link that pops up a new window will create another instance of Chrome or FF - not IE.

Khafar

Chrome is my default browser - I only use Chrome, I never ever use IE. Anytime I forget myself and click on a link in the game launcher it opens up in IE - ALWAYS - I can't change it, and I can't force it to use my default browser.

Whether Turbine wants to admit it or not, they really should make the needed changes so that any links will always open in the user's default browser. There is a reason we can decide which browser we want to use, and Turbine shouldn't be coding things in such a way as to ignore our choice.

This comes up about once a month in the suggestion forum. If you search on 'default browser', you'll see what I mean.

Originally Posted by Roberto_the_First

This comes up about once a month in the suggestion forum. If you search on 'default browser', you'll see what I mean.

None of them include a sexy picture, do they? I thought they had fixed this after it was posted before. I'm posting this because it has been more than one update and this has not yet been resolved. Jeez it's easy to do this in c++, for sure... what programming language are they using? O.o

This goes all the way back to the launch of Asheron's Call in 1998. It was published by Microsoft at the time (for the first several years), and M$ insisted that IE be used. Since then, nobody has been able to spare the programmer-time (which translates into MONEY) to rewrite the launcher, even for a game that came into being after Turbine separated from M$.

Hell, I don't have IE installed on my machine, and none of the links in the launcher even work.

Originally Posted by Graycient

Jeez it's easy to do this in c++, for sure... what programming language are they using? O.o

.net 1.1, I believe. And if they haven't redone it in 15 years, they're probably not going to.

Originally Posted by Roberto_the_First

.net 1.1, I believe. And if they haven't redone it in 15 years, they're probably not going to.

Well there's a mood killer... haha