RevWeb oddities

[David Glasgow]

I just decided to see what the fuss was about, and built a simple  
stack for web using 4.0.  I installed the plugin a couple of days  
back, so I think it must be up to date (how do you tell?)

My first reaction was utter amazement that such a thing is possible.   
It reminded me of first seeing Carlie Chaplin eating a shoe in  
Quicktime (circa 1992?) - or the first time I built a standalone for  
Windows using Metacard.  Astonishing!

Anyway, once my jaw had closed, I played around with the stack, which  
is simply a rating scale which allows users to move images up and  
down it to indicate relative preference.  They click on the scale,  
and the currently selected object slides gracefully up or down.

Or at least that's what happens in desktop versions, and in Safari.   
In Firefox (3.5.5) there are a few glitches:

1/  If I am online, I get a "waiting for Runrev.com" message on  
launch for maybe a couple of seconds, then a plugin progress bar,  
then the first card.  Don't see any of that in Safari.

2/  Perhaps 30% of object moves freeze part way through.  Eventually  
the beach-ball appears, and Firefox is unresponsive for anything up  
to 45 seconds.  Activity monitor reports FF as not responding, and  
then it all suddenly comes back, and the object appears at its  
destination.  Nothing happens to CPU levels during lock up.  As far  
as I can establish the problem only occurs if a change of object to  
be moved has occurred, and then only about %30ish of the time. Moving  
the same object many times does not ever seem to trigger the problem.

3/  On Safari I also have the unresponsive until window moved problem  
reported elsewhere, and also discovered that while the revlet is  
running, Cmd-Q doesn't seem to work.  Don't know whether that has  
been found elsewhere.

I don't really have a sense whether I should be trying to find  
workarounds to the above, or whether they are glitches to be  
expected.  Makes me realise that I had learned more about desktop OSs  
than I was aware of, because having avoided webby stuff for years, I  
haven't really got a clue as to where to start  :-(

David Glasgow