[Zope] Netscape POST Problem - Illustration

Thomas B. Passin tpassin@mitretek.org
Thu, 21 Jun 2001 15:12:29 -0400


This problem has come up before in various guises.  I want to illustrate
with a very simple example and ask if anyone

1) Has a successful workaround
2) Knows what is really going on to cause it.

The symptom is that, when you POST a form from Netscape to Zope, you never
get a response UNTIL you click the title bar of the sending browser window.
If you do a GET, everything works fine.  My current setup is this:

Windows 2000
Netscape 4.72
Zope 2.3.0

However, I've had this problem with earlier Zope versions and other Windows
versions. The problem never happens with Internet Explorer.  It also does
not happen with Cold Fusion, just Zope.  I don't know if it happens on other
operating systems for either the client or the server.

Here's a very simple DTML page that causes the problem:

<html>
<form action='plainpage' target='_new' method='post'>
    <input type='submit' onclick='submit()' value='Send It!'>
</form>
</html>

The "plainpage" target is just a default DTML document.  Using "_new" as a
target simply causes a new window to open wwith the action url, or it would
if it worked right.  Adding input fields to the form changes nothing, so I
left them out of the example.

There are times I would like to POST, and I can't because many of my users
run Netscape.  I consider this a fairly serious bug.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Tom P