Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS

I recently had occasion to download Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS (I didn't know it existed before today!), and I have tried it with MarvinSketch. I have previously used MarvinSketch within both Netscape 4.79 (Classic MacOS) and Netscape 7.02 for MacOS X, so I am aware of the differences between the Swing and AWT versions. Within Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS, MarvinSketch has a strange hybrid behavior. For example:

The AWT version is delivered, although you say that Swing is supported for Netscape 7.





The File, Edit, etc. menus don't appear, like in AWT.





I can use the Bond button to select special bond types like Single Up and Single Down, as in Swing.





Control-click on an atom brings up the primary pop-up menu (Charge ->, Radical -> Isotope -> etc.), like in Swing, but the secondary menus (from which values can be chosen) don't appear.





If I click on the up-arrow button to open the secondary MarvinSketch window, the File, etc. menus don't appear in the Mac menu bar.





If I select on an atom in this secondary window, the Atom menu appears in the bar, but I get the charge menu regardless of whether I choose Charge ->, Isotope ->, Radical ->, etc.

Are some of these behaviors bugs? It would be great if they could be resolved so we could stop using Netscape 4.7 entirely.

Dear Bob,


Please see http://www.chemaxon.com/marvin/doc/user/for-mac-users.html#os9.netscape6


Under OS 9, Netscape 6 and later versions do not support Swing. As you see in the above document, due to several other problems with these browsers we do not reccomend their usage.


In the following document you can find the list of the recommended browsers on different platforms:


http://www.chemaxon.com/marvin/doc/user/browsers.html#os9


For OS 9, we recommend Netscape 4.x.

Tamas wrote:

Dear Bob, Please see http://www.chemaxon.com/marvin/doc/user/for-mac-users.html#os9.netscape6 Under OS 9, Netscape 6 and later versions do not support Swing. As you see in the above document, due to several other problems with these browsers we do not reccomend their usage. In the following document you can find the list of the recommended browsers on different platforms: http://www.chemaxon.com/marvin/doc/user/browsers.html#os9 For OS 9, we recommend Netscape 4.x.

Yes, I know you recommend Netscape 4.7, but Netscape 4.7 does not support a whole host of functionality that Netscape 7.02 does support, like CSS.





We don't care that Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS requires AWT, because so does Netscape 4.7. What we care about is that the secondary pop-up menus work in Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS or that the menus in the Apple menu bar have the appropriate selections in them.





Because Netscape 7.02 for MacOS X and Netscape 4.7 both work with MarvinSketch, I thought maybe you hadn't actually looked specifically at Netscape 7.02 for Classic MacOS. If you've already looked at it and decided you can't get it to work, then we'll have to make do with Netscape 4.7 or nothing at all.

Quote:

... If you've already looked at it and decided you can't get it to work, then we'll have to make do with Netscape 4.7 or nothing at all.

Indeed, we have spent a lot of time with it and couldn't make it work. Since OS 9 is running out of fashion anyway, we don't plan to revisit the issue. Sorry about this.