Garden Gnome Software

So I am in the final stages of testing a tour and have come across something ive not seen before.

I am using hotspots to create flag style navigation from the start pano, everything works as expected in Chrome, but in safari, the hotspot content is sitting above the intro video and menu. It looks like a Z index issue but changing this has no effect.

Is this a known problem, any ideas on what's happening here?

I know that I can, and will, set the hotspots to hide when the video is visible, but this doesn't solve the menu issue.

Any help would be much appreciated.

link to tour: https://circus360.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaw ... index.html

Can I get some help with this issue?

Am I the only one experiencing this in safari?

Im finding that all hotspots are overlapping other elements.

This is a huge issue that's preventing me from delivering work to clients

Hi,

Can you share the project and skin?

Tony

Thanks for the reply, Tony.

Im not completely sure I know what you mean by "project"

I have attached (I think) the project file, and the skin.

If these are not what you meant then please do let me know what else to upload and how.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated

Hi,

I'm pretty sure it's a bug and has been reported. If you turn off 3D Distortion for all the hotspots its fine, turned on it's not.

I'd send a comprehensive report to support@ggnome.com

Tony

This is already reported but more information to add to the report is always welcome
Regards,
Hopki

Thanks, Tony, appreciate you having a look for me.

Not the answer I was hoping for but suspected that might be the case.

Hopki, do we have any ideas on how long this might be until we get a fix?

I don't think this was an issue with previous versions.

I realise these things happen and are par for the course with software, but for those of us that make a living building tours in Pano2vr, this is a huge problem. What am I supposed to tell my clients? Not only does it mean I cant deliver the product and miss deadlines, but im promising things that work one day and not the next. Not to mention it makes me look incompetent, which ultimately damages my reputation and, in-turn my income.

I don't want this to sound like a rant, but it really is hard not to be annoyed when I can't trust the software that ive paid for to do the basic functions reliably. It means I have to start looking for alternatives, which is a shame because so many other aspects of pano2vr, including the customer support from Hopki and others in the community, are so brilliant.

Hi,

I can appreciate your frustration but after many years in web development I can attest to the difficulty of dealing with the vagaries of browser functionality, let alone dealing with devices. Try Googling 'safari 3d transform z-index bug'!

W3Schools has over 50 million monthly visits and they have browser statistics (collected since 2002) showing Safari is still very much a minor player in the scheme of things. In 2007 Safari represented 1.7% of their overall statistics and in 2019 it has only risen to 3.3%.

https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/

On my website Safari represented 9% of visits (even though visits by MacOS/iOS were 34%) while Chrome and Firefox between them represent 75%. So even if its Mac users they tend to use Chrome or Firefox before Safari.

I would suggest using logic blocks and the 'Browser' trigger to create a version for Safari without 3D Transform. Not ideal but you will still reach a large audience with your preferred solution.

Tony

I realise what your saying Tony, but I think the figures your giving are a rather self selecting sample (not sure if that’s the right phrase, I’m certainly not a statistician ).

Both of those examples, w3 and your website (which is a fantastic resource by the way, can’t understate how much I, and I’m sure many others have learned from and appreciate your contributions to this community!!!) are visited by Creative professionals and web devs, who will seldom choose safari for reasons we are all aware of. They are also both tutorial-type/reference/learning websites that people are less likely to be visiting from a mobile device. A quick (and admittedly quick) google search, shows that around 50 percent of google searches daily come from mobile devices, and that number is only growing, in that space I think is safe to say Safari has a much greater share.

I totally agree that, on desktop, even with non power users, the percentage is probably small enough to not loose sleep over. But the reality is, a huge percentage of people are accessing these tours using mobile devices, and in that space, IOS, and safari, accounts for a much larger percentage than the figures you’ve quoted above.

but I think the figures your giving are a rather self selecting sample

Yes I accept that the figures are oriented toward a particular group of visitors. I took at look at the Wikipedia site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_sha ... b_browsers and where Safari on desktop make up 6.7% of the traffic Safari on Mobile jumps up to 32.4%.

Personally I find that development for mobile is not just a case of taking a desktop skin and scaling everything to fit but often requires a rethink of the design of the UI specifically for those devices. In most cases you can transition a desktop UI to a tablet but a mobile phone is another proposition completely.

So with an understanding of the Safari bug perhaps development of the mobile device UI could take that into consideration?

cheers,

Tony

your website (which is a fantastic resource by the way, can’t understate how much I, and I’m sure many others have learned from and appreciate your contributions to this community!!!)

Thanks for the kind words, they are very much appreciated.

Tony

Personally I find that development for mobile is not just a case of taking a desktop skin and scaling everything to fit but often requires a rethink of the design of the UI specifically for those devices

I couldn't agree more, Tony

I have been preaching this since I began working with Pano2vr. Almost all of the tours I have created have completely separate elements for the mobile design, I feel like its totally essential for a proper mobile experience.

I actually find that the best browser on mobile is Safari. It obviously has issues, like the one discussed in this thread, but I find that transitions in chrome mobile often don't work, and Safari has the ability to hide the navbar, which makes a huge difference( if anybody knows how to do this in Chrome I'd love to hear about it).

On a related note, I do hate the fact that on my iPhone Xs, there are huge white borders on either side of the tour when in landscape orientation. I find this makes the tours look really amateur. Is there any way to get around this?