PDF Display Fix in IE7

This solves the PDF problem in Joomla! 1.5 where any PDF file fails to display correctly in IE7. The usual symptom is that the pop-up window is empty.

There are 2 steps:

1. Create a new file called browser_detection.php and upload it to your Joomla! site.
2. Edit icon.php in 2 places and upload it to your Joomla! site.

STEP 1

Create a php file called browser_detection.php. You can do this in any text editor or Dreamweaver. Copy, paste and save the following in to your new file:

<?php
 
/*
Script Name: Simple 'if' PHP Browser detection
Author: Harald Hope, Website: http://TechPatterns.com/
Script Source URI: http://TechPatterns.com/downloads/php_browser_detection.php
Version 2.0.2
Copyright (C) 29 June 2007
 
Modified 22 April 2008 by Jon Czerwinski
Added IE 7 version detection
 
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under 
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT 
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
 
Get the full text of the GPL here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
 
Coding conventions:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/phpbb/phpBB2/docs/codingstandards.htm?rev=1.3
*/
 
/*
the order is important, because opera must be tested first, and ie4 tested for before ie general
same for konqueror, then safari, then gecko, since safari navigator user agent id's with 'gecko' in string.
note that $dom_browser is set for all  modern dom browsers, this gives you a default to use, unfortunately we
haven't figured out a way to do this with actual method testing, which would be much better and reliable.
 
Please note: you have to call the function in order to get access to the variables, you call it by this:
 
browser_detection('browser');
 
then put you code that you want to use the variables with after that.
 
*/
 
function browser_detection( $which_test ) {
 
        // initialize the variables
        $browser = '';
        $dom_browser = '';
 
        // set to lower case to avoid errors, check to see if http_user_agent is set
        $navigator_user_agent = ( isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ) ) ? strtolower( $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ) : '';
 
        // run through the main browser possibilities, assign them to the main $browser variable
        if (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "opera")) 
        {
                $browser = 'opera';
                $dom_browser = true;
        }
 
/*
Test for IE 7 added
April 22, 2008
Jon Czerwinski
*/
        elseif (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "msie 7")) 
        {
                $browser = 'msie7'; 
                $dom_browser = false;
        }
 
        elseif (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "msie 4")) 
        {
                $browser = 'msie4'; 
                $dom_browser = false;
        }
 
        elseif (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "msie")) 
        {
                $browser = 'msie'; 
                $dom_browser = true;
        }
 
        elseif ((stristr($navigator_user_agent, "konqueror")) || (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "safari"))) 
        {
                $browser = 'safari'; 
                $dom_browser = true;
        }
 
        elseif (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "gecko")) 
        {
                $browser = 'mozilla';
                $dom_browser = true;
        }
 
        elseif (stristr($navigator_user_agent, "mozilla/4")) 
        {
                $browser = 'ns4';
                $dom_browser = false;
        }
 
        else 
        {
                $dom_browser = false;
                $browser = false;
        }
 
        // return the test result you want
        if ( $which_test == 'browser' )
        {
                return $browser;
        }
        elseif ( $which_test == 'dom' )
        {
                return $dom_browser;
                //  note: $dom_browser is a boolean value, true/false, so you can just test if
                // it's true or not.
        }
}
 
/*
you would call it like this:
 
$user_browser = browser_detection('browser');
 
if ( $user_browser == 'opera' )
{
        do something;
}
 
or like this:
 
if ( browser_detection('dom') )
{
        execute the code for dom browsers
}
else
{
        execute the code for non DOM browsers
}
 
and so on.......
 
 
*/
?>

Upload browser_detection.php to the folder libraries/joomla/utilities/ on your site.

STEP 2

• Find the file icon.php in the folder components/com_content/helpers/. Note: Make a copy of this file so you can restore it if needed.

• Under the <?php tag on line 1 create a space and copy and paste this code:

 require_once("libraries/joomla/utilities/browser_detection.php");

• Replace this line of code on line 58

 $attribs['onclick'] = "window.open(this.href,'win2','".$status."'); return false;";

with the following code:

    $user_browser = browser_detection('browser');
          if ($user_browser == 'msie7') {
             $attribs['target'] = '_blank';
          } else {                     
             $attribs['onclick'] =
    "window.open(this.href,'win2','".$status."'); return
    false;";
          }

Save and upload the file to components/com_content/helpers/.

Note: Your browser's cache may need to be cleaned before you can see the PDF working.

Other solution

Another solution is to change the response.php file located in the libraries/joomla/environment/ directory. The advantage of this technique is that it corrects all pdf view problems in IE, and not only the com_content component.

Search for

JResponse::setHeader( 'Cache-Control', 'no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0', false );"

and replace it with this two lines :

JResponse::setHeader( 'Cache-Control', 'no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate', true );   // Extra CYA
JResponse::setHeader( 'Cache-Control', 'post-check=0, pre-check=0', false ); // HTTP/1.1